Take it from Snee: Shepard Fairey is a hack

This may surprise you, but when it comes to art, I am a snob. By snob, of course, I mean that I have an appreciation of it that far surpasses your fascination with painted light and the sad Bible-screwing that this “light” portrays.

(Seriously, folks: just read your Bible. Don’t take it home, fornicate with it and tell me all about it later. It’s disrespectful to the Bible and the lewd details upset my sensitive Crom-worshipping morals.)

So, as a hyperaware art snob, or psnob, a certain work of art has not escaped my attention. Yes, I mean the Obama “Hope” image by Shepard Fairey. I ignored it for most of the election, but now it’s being hailed as a masterpiece. Some people are actually converting their own pictures into the red-white-and-blue style.

When Facebook and Twitter accounts are being wantonly defaced, I cannot stand by as this piece of “art” becomes a phenomenon. Shepard Fairey is a hack … but it’s not his fault because his competition, the real street artist, is a mother#%king ninja.

While every household knows Shepard’s name, the real street artist is someone called Banksy. (No really.) Fairey may receive accolades and a possible lawsuit, but Banksy is known by name and work only. There are no interviews, no advertised studios — just a person (or people) who paint(s) his or her works in public spaces and is (are) never seen.

That may not seem like a big deal, but Banksy operates mostly in London, England: the most video-surveillanced city in the world. No camera has caught Banksy in action.

Banksy has even placed works in major museums without being caught. These include the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History in New York; the British Museum, London; and the goddamn Louvre in Paris. In each case, the artwork was not discovered until afterwards and the museums kept the pieces in awe.

And the best part is that he hates pop figures. In August and September, 2006, he replaced some 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s CD with a Danger Mouse remix featuring his artwork on the case and tracks like, “Why am I Famous?”, “What Have I Done?” and “What Am I For?”

He’s supposedly given one face-to-face interview, and even that cannot be substantiated. All that exists are a few self-published books and the art itself to verify that a person or people called Banksy exist.

Like I said, a mother#%king ninja.

So what’s a guy like Shepard Fairey to do against a genuine ninja? Why, become a pirate and “steal” an AP photo. Oh, and make an Andre the Giant decal. Oo.

Everybody may love pirates, but that’s only because they don’t know about the ninja that’s about to stab them in the eyeballs.