As if LANCE ARMSTRONG’s Supertouch-curated custom SHEPARD FAIREY-designed TREK MADONE road cycle wasn’t enough to snap necks at this month’s GIRO D’ITALIA race, helmet company GIRO has just created a matching lid to up the ante. Incorporating swaths of graphics from Shep’s race bike the helmet might just see the light of day on store shelves as an incredibly limited-edition run with proceeds from sales going to benefit LIVESTRONG. Keep an eye on ST for more updates in the coming week, including the chance to win one of the coveted brain buckets…

Where your brain could end up without one of these lids…

Creating SHEPARD FAIREY’s new TREK MADONE racing cycle for LANCE ARMSTRONG’s run in this month’s GIRO D’ITALIA was no easy task. Luckily, Trek artist SHANE SIEDSCHLAG is nice with a blade and a decal sheet…

When pressed about Shep’s new bike in Rome today, Lance told an AP reporter: “I’m a fan of his artwork. I collect his artwork. The bike that he did for this race I think is pretty stunning.”

Here we have the very first sneek peek at LANCE ARMSTRONG’s newly completed Supertouch-curated TREK art bikes for his run in the upcoming GIRO d’ITALIA by artists SHEPARD FAIREY and KENNY SCHARF. The world’s most prestigious cycling stage race after the legendary Tour de France, the Giro is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2009, coincidentally the first year Lance has ever entered the race. Lending their formidable creative talents to the challenge, Shepard and Kenny created two vastly different and utterly unique cycles to draw attention to Lance’s upcoming NIKE-backed “STAGES” anti-cancer art show benefiting LIVESTRONG that will debut on July 16th in Paris at GALERIE EMMANUEL PERROTIN during the TDF. Getting up on Lance’s “daily driver” Trek Madone road bike, Shepard Fairey created a vibrant homage to Lance’s cancer fighting foundation while including ancient patterning in homage of Italy’s rich architectural details. NYC Pop Art legend Kenny Scharf took a totally different approach to Lance’s Trek TTX time trial cycle and created the “lightspeed” space bike that will hopefully hurtle Tex across the finish line in record time. Both bikes will be auctioned off on October 2nd (10/2 marks the date of Lance’s original cancer diagnosis) at the NYC stop of the “Stages” art tour with all proceeds going to benefit Livestrong. Look for detailed official photos of both bikes here on ST in the next few days. Meanwhile, ENJOY THE PEEK: Read the rest of this entry »

It was only a matter of time, Supertouch’s own SHEPARD FAIREY’s iconic OBAMA campaign artwork finally made its way to SOUTH PARK last nite where the Big O received the typical Matt & Tre makeover on the season’s latest episode. Watch it HERE…

BOSTON VANDALISM CHARGES STIR DEBATE ON ART’S PLACE

By Abby Goodnough, NYTimes

BOSTON — This may be the only place in America where Shepard Fairey, the street artist whose omnipresent portrait of Barack Obama has become a touchstone, is not fully feeling the love.

Mr. Fairey’s court appearances came a month after he was arrested on Feb. 6 as he arrived at the opening-night party for his retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Art. His cab was approaching the museum when the police stopped it, handcuffed him and took him to jail overnight. Click HERE to continue reading…

A wise man once said “writing about art is like dancing about architecture,” but in a world where oceans of self-aggrandizing “artspeak” usually says much about an author’s ego and little to nothing about artwork itself, Supertouch’s own resident legendary art writer CARLO McCORMICK is the exception to the rule. This month finds him penning an incredibly astute piece on SHEPARD FAIREY for ART IN AMERICA from the rarified perspective of a genuinely street-level art world insider more at home on the Bowery than in Chelsea. At a time when the slow-moving mainstream art world and its legion of stiff-jointed scribes are playing years of painful catch-up on the “street art” game, this is a must-read:

SHEPARD FAIREY
By Carlo McCormick | Art in America

In a thank-you note written by Barack Obama to street artist Shepard Fairey for the pictorial provocateur’s singular contribution to branding his campaign for the presidency, the then senator wrote: “The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe that they can help change the status-quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign.”

High praise indeed from such a highly regarded public figure. But what it ultimately says—that there is a cultural equivalence between fine art shown in established venues and artistic expressions put up illegally on private or government property—represents a tacit sanction of street art from the leader of the free world that is a dramatic shift in the perceived role of art as a radical tool of social intervention.

Emblazoned in our collective mind’s eye as a defining icon of optimism and change, Fairey’s Obama Hope poster, certainly one of his most endearing and personable images, is such a signature work that the original collage was recently acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, and related images graced the covers of Time and Esquire. It is, however, not a fleeting pop-culture sensation but simply the latest crossover hit in a long line of underground classics.

Fairey has made such an indelible mark on our visual landscape that it is difficult to avoid the platitudes we might otherwise eschew in the discourse of contemporary art. As he comes under greater scrutiny from the art establishment with a major retrospective of his work, now on view at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art, it is worth noting that his renown has grown organically from the streets and a global youth culture that the mainstream art world has only a vague grasp of. Click HERE to continue reading…

To officially launch the LIVESTRONG “Stages” benefit art show (full details below) powered by NIKE that will debut during LANCE ARMSTRONG’s run in this year’s TOUR DE FRANCE, an epic kickoff celebration was held on Saturday nite at Nike’s MONTALBAN THEATER in the heart of Hollywood. The evening began with a massive public charity ride from Children’s Hospital—after Lance spent part of the day visiting with pediatric cancer patients—to the theater where he then took the stage to formally announce the charity art show with the help of BEN STILLER, Nike’s MARK PARKER, Livestrong CEO DOUG ULMAN, and SHEPARD FAIREY. Speaking before a packed house of loyal yellow-clad followers and Livestrong soldiers, Lance eloquently detailed his plan to expand the global scope of cancer awareness through his return to professional cycling and engaging the creative community more closely in the battle with “Stages.” Closing out the nite was surprise musical guest BEN HARPER who performed a full set with his new band THE RELENTLESS SEVEN before a truly stunned crowd. Exhibited throughout the venue were Lance’s new TREK “art bikes” designed by BARRY McGEE and KAWS, as well as his twin Tour of California cycles, most notably the now-infamous stolen time trial bike. Onlookers crowded around displays of Nike’s stunning new NSW Livestrong gear (proceeds from the sale of which go directly to Livestrong) that included offerings by artists MISTER CARTOON and FUTURA, and mingled with some of the “Stages” artists in attendance like ROSSON CROW, ERIC WHITE, and Mr. Fairey (who might have signed more autographs than Lance by night’s end). Keep an eye on Supertouch for more exclusive details on the show coming soon. Meanwhile, HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Lance Armstrong, Nike CEO Mark Parker, and Shepard Fairey celebrate the new face of the cancer fight…

Launching tonite at NIKE’s MONTALBAN THEATER is news of the upcoming “Stages” art show that will debut in July at GALERIE EMMANUEL PERROTIN in Paris during LANCE ARMSTRONG’s run in this year’s TOUR DE FRANCE. An exhibition curated to reflect the personal art collecting tastes of Lance himself, the exhibition was developed by Nike to illustrate LIVESTRONG’s expanded global outreach in the fight against cancer and as a means of engaging the creative community in the shared struggle. Launching on July 16th, the show will feature nearly thirty original artworks reflecting on some aspect of the cancer struggle by a diverse roster of emerging and established artists including ED RUSCHA, RAYMOND PETTIBON, KAWS, ROSSON CROW, JR, TARYN SIMON, CHRISTOPHER WOOL, JULES DE BALINCOURT, SHEPARD FAIREY, JOSE PARLA, AARON YOUNG, MARC NEWSON, KENNY SCHARF, OS GEMEOS, YOSHITOMO NARA, ERIC WHITE, and DZINE, to name just a few. To highlight the event, Lance will be riding a special series of “art bikes” in the Tour de France created in collaboration with TREK and designed by none other than modern art and design masters MARC NEWSON, TAKASHI MURAKAMI, and DAMIEN HIRST. To put a giant face on the campaign, SHEPARD FAIREY wrapped the side of the Montalban theater in his new artwork for Livestrong depicting Lance as the two-wheeled cancer fighting machine that he was born to be. Stay tuned for more “Stages” details coming from ST soon…