Shepard Fairey: Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent

Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent gathers work by Shepard Fairey at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum in New London, Connecticut, tracing the evolution of his visual language from the late 1980s to the present. The selections span Fairey's early imagery rooted in punk rock and skate culture through later works addressing social justice, environmental sustainability, and political engagement. The exhibition runs through September 6, 2026. Shepard Fairey is a street artist, graphic designer, and activist best known for the 2008 HOPE portrait of Barack Obama, which he built from an Associated Press photograph by Mannie Garcia using the high-contrast stencil technique he drew from Soviet Socialist Realism. The late New Yorker critic Peter Schjeldahl called the poster the most efficacious American political illustration since Uncle Sam Wants You. The show's title references the OBEY Giant campaign, which began in 1989 as a sticker project called Andre the Giant Has a Posse while Fairey was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design. The exhibition brings a nationally known figure to southeastern Connecticut and connects his graphic, protest-driven practice to a broader history of American political imagery.