Gauntlet Gallery
What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “Interpolation Diptych”?
Artist Statement
Interpolation Diptych set, signed edition of 550. The first 100 will be sold through Interpol’s website later this week (more details coming soon), signed by Shepard and the band. The remaining 450 will be signed by Shepard only and sold through http://www.obeygiant.com/store/, to be released Thursday, December 11. $100 per set. The Interpol guys and I were happy enough with our mural collaboration that we decided to make a screen print diptych set of the same art. 450 sets will be signed by me alone, and 100 sets will be signed by me and the band and available on Interpol’s website later this week. If you missed the post about my history with Interpol(the band) and our recent mural collaboration… here you go: I picked up Interpol’s first album “Turn on the Bright Lights” shortly after it was released, based purely on the mysterious, film noir meets Blue Note (but in red), image on the cover. The music lived up to the seductive promise of the cover and I soon decided I’d found my new favorite band. I stalked Interpol backstage at Coachella and offered to create art for them if they ever needed it… to my surprise, they knew my work already and decided to take me up on my offer and have me create some art for their follow up album “Antics” in 2004. Ten years have passed since that project and after hanging with the band after their Lollapalooza gig this summer, we discussed working together again, possibly with a public art component. When “El Pintor” came out I loved the music, cover art, and the anagram device (an anagram is a new word or set of words made from the letters of another word or set of words in a different order). EL PINTOR means “the painter” in Spanish but is an anagram of INTERPOL. When approaching our new collaboration, I liked the challenge of creating an anagram from a song title. Daniel Kessler suggested “Everything Is Wrong” as the song for me to interpret. I love that song, so my thinking was to find a middle ground between Interpol’s aesthetics, lyrics for the song, and my art style and concepts. The lyrics to “Everything Is Wrong” are open to interpretation, but whether the song is about hard living, relationship failures, wear and tear on the environment, or an empire mentality, regret for poor decisions seems to be the theme. I decided to explore the idea of being complicit in a personal relationship or a relationship with a system that one realizes is unhealthy. I did an art show recently called “Power & Glory” that was a celebration and critique of Americana with an emphasis on the symbols and meanings of power. I like to question our obsession with money and the bravado that “America is the greatest country in the earth’s history”. Basically, I’m looking for an excuse to implicitly question hegemony, and “Everything Is Wrong” gave me one. My anagrams from EVERYTHING IS WRONG: THE VERY GROWING SIN and EVERY WRONG INSIGHT reflect both Interpol’s lyrics and my Power & Glory concepts. Since my mural images are interpretations of the song through my sensibility, but within parameters, they qualify as “interpolations”. It is convenient that interpolation references Interpol, but meaningfully, I think that art and music that inspire dialogue and interpretation are powerful fuel for expression and empowerment. I hope that the layers of this collaboration might make some molecules collide somehow. -Shepard
Summary
Interpolation Diptych is a 2014 signed screen print set of 550, 24 x 18 inches each, published by Obey Giant at $100 per set. It grew out of Fairey's mural collaboration with the band Interpol, interpreting their song "Everything Is Wrong" from the album El Pintor (itself an anagram of INTERPOL). Fairey built his own anagrams from the title and folded in ideas from his "Power & Glory" show critiquing Americana, money, and power. The work pairs Interpol's film-noir aesthetic with Fairey's graphic style, framing complicity in unhealthy relationships and systems as its central theme.
Why It Matters
This diptych sits at the intersection of two threads Fairey returns to repeatedly: music collaboration and a pointed critique of American power and consumerism. The source text makes the conceptual layering unusually explicit, Fairey describes building anagrams (THE VERY GROWING SIN, EVERY WRONG INSIGHT) that bridge Interpol's lyrics with his own "Power & Glory" examination of money, bravado, and hegemony. That documented intent makes the set a strong example of how Fairey uses a music partnership as a vehicle for social commentary rather than simple band promotion. For collectors, the dual-signature structure is notable: 100 sets were designated to be signed by Fairey and the band through Interpol's website, the other 450 by Fairey alone through Obey Giant. The connection to a decade-long relationship with Interpol, beginning with art for their 2004 album Antics, gives the piece a clear narrative anchor. As a diptych, it also rewards collectors who value sets and the conceptual interplay between two related images.
Collector Perspective
This appeals to collectors who sit at the overlap of Fairey's music-collaboration prints and his political-critique work, as well as Interpol fans seeking a documented band-linked artwork. The diptych format and stated edition of 550 make it a substantial wall piece for a music room or a collection organized around Fairey's collaborations. Collectors who appreciate conceptual depth will value the anagram device and the explicit tie to the "Power & Glory" themes of money and power. The two signing tiers, Fairey-and-band versus Fairey-only, give variation that set-focused buyers may track. It fits well alongside other Fairey music and consumerism-critique prints from the same period.
Historical Context
Released December 11, 2014, this set marks a renewed collaboration between Fairey and Interpol a decade after he created art for their 2004 album Antics. The source ties it directly to Fairey's "Power & Glory" exhibition, which celebrated and critiqued Americana with an emphasis on symbols of power, placing the diptych firmly within his mid-2010s phase of merging music partnerships with consumerism and power critique. The mural-to-print pipeline, public wall first, then a limited screen-print edition, is characteristic of how Fairey extended large public works into collectible editions during this era. The anagram framework built from El Pintor and "Everything Is Wrong" reflects his interest in language and interpretation as tools for dialogue, situating the work within his ongoing practice of layering pop-culture collaboration with pointed social commentary.
FAQ
What is the edition size and price of Interpolation Diptych?
Per the source, it is a signed edition of 550 sets at $100 per set, published by Obey Giant and released December 11, 2014. Each print measures 24 x 18 inches and was produced as a screen print. The set was conceived as a diptych pairing two related images from Fairey's mural collaboration with the band Interpol.
Who collaborated on this print?
The work came out of Fairey's mural collaboration with the band Interpol. According to the source, 100 sets were to be signed by Fairey and the band and sold through Interpol's website, while the remaining 450 sets were signed by Fairey alone and sold through Obey Giant's store.
What is the concept behind the artwork?
Fairey interpreted Interpol's song "Everything Is Wrong" from the album El Pintor, an anagram of INTERPOL. He built his own anagrams from the title and merged Interpol's aesthetic and lyrics with ideas from his "Power & Glory" show, exploring complicity in unhealthy personal relationships and systems, and questioning money and power.
How does this connect to Fairey's history with Interpol?
The source notes Fairey discovered Interpol through their first album and later created art for their 2004 album Antics. A decade later, after meeting the band again, they revived the collaboration, first as a mural and then as this screen-print diptych set.
Related Works
About the Artist
Shepard Fairey (b. 1970, Charleston, South Carolina) is an American street artist, graphic designer, and activist, and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. His 1989 “André the Giant Has a Posse” sticker grew into the global OBEY GIANT campaign — an ongoing experiment in propaganda, obedience, and visual culture. He reached worldwide recognition with the 2008 “Hope” portrait of Barack Obama, now held by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Across screen prints, stencils, murals, and collage, Fairey channels propaganda aesthetics toward themes of peace, justice, environmentalism, and civil rights. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and LACMA.