Shepard Fairey

It has become an art-world axiom that street art is big business. But how much is a piece of wall graffiti by a big-name talent worth exactly? Bonhams has announced that it will hold an auction in Los Angeles featuring more than 80 works by some of the most prominent names in urban art, including Banksy, Blek le Rat, Shepard Fairey, KAWS, Revok, Speedy Graphito, Space Invader, Saber and more.  The auction, set for Oct. 29, is being billed by...

Politics and art. Both are sometimes about appropriation. Artists borrow the style -- and sometimes the imagery -- of other artists. Politicians recycle themes, slogans and even attack lines ("flip-flop," anyone?) from other politicians. So it didn't surprise Shepard Fairey, the Los Angeles street artist whose "Hope" poster of Barack Obama thrust him into the political spotlight, when he learned his work had been remade. In fact, spoofs have proliferated.

Kudos to writer-director Antonino D'Ambrosio for taking such an eclectic and disparate number of aims, thoughts, subjects and mediums and creating the smart and inspiring - and uniquely whole - documentary that is "Let Fury Have the Hour. " A kind of think/performance piece about what's termed here "creative reaction," the film hears from a stirring swath of socially conscious artists whose work largely emerged as an anger-channeling counter to the Reagan-Thatcher era of conservative individualism.

Best known for its murals and installations on the streets of Los Angeles, the local art collective Cyrcle is transforming a Hollywood gallery into an interactive "hive" - a project that member David Leavitt said is "somewhere between a play, an art show and a video game arcade. " "Organized Chaos!," Cyrcle's second solo gallery show, is designed to work somewhat like pollination: The artists created cubes covered with parts of an image. Patrons are encouraged to take the cubes from a crate and place them into a frame to create their own work.

Guerrilla artist Shepard Fairey has resorted to scaling fences, sneaking through alleys and pasting over billboards to get his imagery to the public without the traditional art-world network. Now the L.A.-based Fairey has found a new way to get his art out: through a glossy magazine ad for the Mini Cooper.

THE days of Shepard Fairey as an outsider artist are long gone. We didn't need to bump up against the two burly bouncers at his gallery opening last week to know that. Fairey, who started in the 1990s with his anonymous "Obey Giant" sticker campaign, now has his own clothing line, his own magazine (Swindle) and a legion of fans of his fashionably political propaganda art.

Before the era of the 24-hour news cycle and weekly televised debates, the predominant and most creative outlet for presidential candidates to communicate their vision was the campaign poster. With "Presidential Campaign Posters" (Quirk Books), the Library of Congress takes a look back at two centuries of memorable election art. The book begins with the 1828 Andrew Jackson / John Quincy Adams race, spanning through 2008's Barack Obama / John McCain battle - including Shepard Fairey's memorable Obama "Hope" poster - and covering every campaign in between.

As the nation watches President Obama take the oath of office Monday for his second term, Americans may notice a more mature (and grayer) version of the hopeful candidate depicted in Shepard Fairey's ubiquitous 2008 campaign poster. Since then, Obama's likeness has been cartooned, lampooned and masterfully crafted by artists of varying inclinations. Although the official presidential portrait will not be revealed until the end of his second term, some interesting interpretations are already on view.

Filmmakers Z.S. Grant and John Carr have spent the better part of the past year ricocheting around the country, capturing the stories of politically minded street artists for their documentary series, "Voice of Art. " Their eight-episode Web series - currently airing on rapper Pharrell Williams' YouTube channel, i am OTHER - is as cutting edge and iconoclastic as the neon bright cast of characters featured in it. Each 34-minute episode is...