i'm no expert on art...but

Format: Street art is often seen by authority figures as vandalism. Is there anything that you think street artists can do to change that perception?

Shepard Fairey: The perception of street art as vandalism has already, by someone like Banksy, been called into question because Banksy’s work has gone up in value so tremendously that some of the councils are actually protecting his work now and I think that he has forced a lot of people – not just local government – but a lot of people in general, to reassess the role of art in public spaces. Once the art world has validated the art to where it’s worth thousands of pounds or dollars, people go “Well, here it is for free on the side of this building, it’s an outdoor museum, we should protect this.” Art is subjective; some people think a tag looks beautiful and some people think it looks like crap. The way that I’ve tried to change the mentality about street art with the powers that be or the general population is by being willing to explain what I’m doing as a street artist because I think people fear what they don’t understand.

If you’re willing to be articulate and explain what you’re doing, that removes the ‘fear’ factor and that helps and additionally, where I put my art – I try to put it in places that are inoffensive as possible – if I find a boarded up building or a wall that’s already covered in graffiti or decaying in some way – unkept – that’s an appropriate place for street art. To go and put something on a pristine building that’s obviously gonna piss off the building owner, I don’t think that’s constructive. I think a lot of what street artists need to do is be a little more thoughtful about where they’re placing the art. I mean, I can be open about who I am as a street artist because I feel I can defend any of my decisions about where I’ve put my work and if everyone approached street art with that same idea, that they’re gonna be held accountable for it then there wouldn’t be as many problems. It’s like a lot of laws in general exist because people don’t use common sense. So street art – like anything else, if you use common sense, it’s easy to defend and it just makes the people that react against it look like narrow minded assholes.





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Much like street art today, modern art was questioned in its value, especially in the early 20th century. Consider Wassily Kandinsky, whose works were confiscated by the Nazis and displayed in a "Degenerate Art" exhibition, the Nazi's overarching term for modern art. But maybe you don't like Kandisky, you don't like these lines and circles, and it all looks like scribbles...

Picasso and Dali's works were included too.

Is value dependent on how much we like the piece?