Written by Kyle Chayka Thursday, 15 December 2011 22:05

TIME Magazine Picks "Protester" for Person of the Year, Tapping Shepard Fairey for the Cover

New York City.- TIME magazine announced its "Person of the Year" yesterday, debuting the cover of its popular annual special issue at the same time. The winner is "The Protester," named in honor of 2011's wide-ranging Arab Spring, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the recent Russian election rallies. And — surprise, surprise — the "Protester" cover was created by none other than Mr. Hope man himself, street artist and designer Shepard Fairey . The cover itself is a portrait of a protester masked in a mouth-covering scarf and wearing a thick woolen hat set against a monochromatic background of collaged rally scenes — signs are visible in the background reading "we need good jobs" and "people power, not ivory tower." Below the face of Fairey's anonymous protester are the outlines of maps showing the battleground of political struggle. The style is classic Fairey, taking influence from Soviet-era propaganda and mixing it with a graphic street-art style and flat blocks of color straight out of stencil culture. The center-weighted portrait is reminiscent of other works Fairey has created in support of political protest and struggle.

The woman pictured is Sarah Mason , a Highland Park, CA  resident and an active member of Occupy L.A. s treet artist Shepard Fairey designed the cover. Fairey based his image on a photograph taken by Los Angeles photographer Ted Soqui , who says he took Mason's picture during a Nov. 17 financial district protest outside of the Bank of America tower. Mason was arrested with dozens of others during that action. Less than two weeks later, she was there as Los Angeles police moved in to clear the Occupy camp outside City Hall.

This isn't the first time Fairey has thrown his design weight behind the recent political protests. The artist's poster for Occupy Wall Street riffed on his now-classic Obama poster, featuring a protester in a Guy Fawkes-style mask  with the words "Mr. President, we hope you're on our side" emblazoned below it, alongside a "we are the 99 percent" pin. A poster Fairey made for an October "Occupation Party" recycled the artist's earlier work with a woman gazing out into the distance. In contrast, the TIME image seems to demonstrate a much stronger, more generalized support of global protest. The magazine cover is unspecific but direct, attempting to find a common visual language for events occurring all over the world.


And how are the critics greeting Fairey's effort? Christopher Knight of the L.A. Times writes of the cover, "Questioning authority never looked more corporate and conventional." One argument in the artist's favor might be that the widely-distributed magazine cover format is perfect for his bold, graphical style and the simplicity of his symbolism — all the image takes is one glance to understand. So maybe the cover is not so much "corporate and conventional" as stylized, iconic, and accessible — the perfect symbol for a generality.

Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary graphic designer , and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "André the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign, in which he appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. His work became more widely known in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, specifically his Barack Obama "Hope" poster. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston calls him one of today's best known and most influential street artists. His work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian , the Los Angeles County Museum of Art , the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego , the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

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