I’ve been a fan of WK Interact’s art since I first saw it on the streets of NY around 1993. We finally met in 2000. Since then, we have gone out bombing together in NY, LA, Berlin, and now Tokyo. He showed at our gallery Subliminal Projects in 2002. The two of us were asked recently by fashion designer and street art supporter Agnes B to show both individual and collaborative works in Tokyo and Paris. The Tokyo portion of the project has just completed. We put in a lot of work in the two galleries and on the streets over our week in Tokyo. Dan Flores helped out a ton as usual and my 22 month old daughter Vivienne has learned to put up stickers at the perfect height for dogs, midgets and babies to be indoctrinated into the posse. We hit about 20 big street spots and the bombing went pretty smoothly with the exception of one spot. There was a great tagged up building that seemed chill but was actually under video surveillance. I rocked an open spot on the building with an icon face and as I walked by the spot the next morning there was a little old lady with 2 cops standing in front of the partially scraped off face. That night I went back to re-do the spot (street ninja must REVENGE) and there was a sign in Japanese taped at the fire escape landing. My Japanese friend translated it as “Four men were videotaped doing graffiti on the premises last night. The police have been notified and we will catch you in the act next time” We stole the sign but decided not to risk arrest. I’m still waiting for more photos, so check back for updates.
-Shepard

click here to see the photos

As you may all know that every Tuesday at noon the website crashes… There is just so many of you coming to the website at that same exact time that it causes our website to over heat and blow a gasket. We have been totally aware of the problem and the frustration this can cause and have been in the process of fixing the problems for some time now. We thought we had the situation in order but it looks like we are going to have to make some more upgrades. We appreciate everybody’s patience with the process and promise everything should be on the up and up shortly.

Tactics to create a climate of fear are nothing new… check out this LBJ Presidential ad from 1964. LBJ escalated U.S. military presence in Vietnam as soon as he took office. The irony is that as we worry about outside threats to our kids, we are creating a culture where it is fine to bomb kids from other countries like Vietnam or Iraq. The Iraqi civilian body count due to U.S. forces is between 56 and 62 thousand. See more at www.iraqbodycount.org/database. No wonder there isn’t a lot of popular support in Iraq for the American versions of freedom and democracy. I feel just as bad for our troops who are being killed. Now we are mired in a civil war that is terrible for us and them. Try to keep in perspective that for every media image of a disabled U.S. veteran of the war in Iraq, there are 20 Iraqis who are in a similar or worse situation.
-Shepard

Check out this print that Shepard made as his reaction to the thought of being a part of a society that cultivates the justification of killing foreign innocent children, and people for that matter, to protect “our” idea of freedom and democracy. The print will be sold in 2 color ways with both color ways having editions of 300. These prints will be for sale on Tuesday, March 27th at noon. In addition, a portion of the profits from the sales of this print will be donated to the following organizations.

OBEY is working with GlobalGrassroots.org through the HOPE Campaign to help empower individuals and bring awareness to the current crisis in Darfur. Since 2003 in Darfur, Sudan, an Arab government and their Janjaweed militias have been killing raping and displacing its black African citizens… thousands have been killed and millions have been displaced and are dependent on food aid. Shepard has designed a poster that will be released in the near future in which 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the HOPE Campaign to help stop this injustice.

Global Grassroots is a non-profit organization, founded in 2004, that offers training and seed funding to empower and support relief of poor, distressed and underprivileged women worldwide and help launch the sustainable social ideas of genocide survivors and refugees. The HOPE Campaign empowers individuals to take action on Darfur through music. For more information on further involvement and other projects aiding the crisis in Darfur, please visit www.globalgrassroots.org.