Artist Shepard Fairey has presented his collaboration with Neil Young to the Huffington Post, and his new series of paintings is inspired by songs from Neil Young and the Crazy Horse’s new album ‘Americana’. The album consists of some re-interpretations of classic American folk songs, such as ‘Oh Susannah’, ‘Clementine’, and Fairey has illustrated the songs with his usual style of fake propaganda inspired of Soviet-era art, with the use of stencils, paints and collages.
Fairey has said to the LA Times that the collaboration had come about through his friendship with Young's manager, Elliot Roberts, and Young, who liked his art, asked him to collaborate by making these song-inspired paintings. There is always a social and political commentary associated with Fairey’s work, and since he described the subjects of the songs off ‘Americana’ as ‘the aspirations and tragedies of those pursuing the American dream tied into issues relevant to the 99% movement’, and Neil Young as one of his heroes, it certainly was a collaboration made to happen.
Each painting has managed to capture the message of a song, like the one related to ‘Oh Susannah’, which features a dungaree-wearing banjo player with the text 'Don't you cry for me', or the one related to ‘God Save the Queen’, showing an iconic image of Queen Elizabeth embroidering an American flag.
Fairey had already made a portrait of Neil Young for the artist’s May Day show in 2010, ‘based on his view of the musician as a social commentator philosophically aligned with people like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and Joe Strummer’, and talking about Guthrie, the one related to the famous Woody Guthrie's song ‘This Land Is Your Land’, showing three rows of barbed wire across the boy’s face with the text 'No Trespassing / this land is my land’, is particularly striking.
Actually, looking at this picture, I think Shepard Fairey should do a collaboration with Outernational, they are totally on the same page, the band has covered Woody Guthrie’s ‘Deportees’ with Tom Morello and Shepard Fairey has already worked with the Rage Against the Machine’s guitarist, so what is taking so long?
