What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “Factory”?

Artist Statement

FACTORY Screen Print 18 x 24 inches Edition of 200

Summary

Factory is a 2000 Shepard Fairey screen print, published by Obey Giant in a first edition of 200, measuring 18 x 24 inches. The image centers on industrial subject matter, carrying both Fairey's pop-cultural graphic sensibility and an early environmental undertone tied to industry. Executed in his bold, high-contrast style, it sits within his early Obey Giant studio output. As one of 200 impressions, it has a moderately limited run for the period. The print prefigures Fairey's later, more explicit environmental works built around factories, smokestacks, and pollution imagery.

Why It Matters

Factory is notable for combining Shepard Fairey's early graphic vocabulary with an industrial, environmentally inflected subject—a thread that would become a sustained motif across his later career. Dated 2000 and published by Obey Giant in an edition of 200, it belongs to the formative studio period when Fairey was establishing the visual identity that underpins his mature work. The factory imagery anticipates a recurring environmental concern that recurs years later in works built around smokestacks, pollution, and industry. That continuity gives the print added significance in a knowledge graph: it is an early node connecting Fairey's pop-cultural roots to his ongoing critique of industrial impact on the environment. For collectors, this dual reading—pop-culture surface plus environmental undertone—makes Factory a more thematically rich early print than purely decorative stencils of the same year. Its edition of 200 is modest but slightly larger than several companion 2000 releases, balancing scarcity with availability. As a documentary artifact, Factory helps trace how an environmental sensibility threaded through Fairey's output long before it became a headline focus, linking turn-of-the-millennium studio work to his 2017 and 2022 factory and smokestack imagery.

Collector Perspective

Factory appeals to collectors interested in the environmental strand of Fairey's work as well as early Obey Giant completists. Its industrial subject and early environmental undertone make it a meaningful anchor for a thematic collection that traces Fairey's pollution and industry imagery across decades. At 18 x 24 inches with an edition of 200, it is accessible and frame-friendly, displaying well alongside both period stencils and later factory-themed prints. The bold graphic reads strongly on a wall. This print suits a buyer who values thematic continuity and wants an early example that connects Fairey's pop-cultural roots to his sustained environmental concerns, rather than purely decorative early work.

Historical Context

Factory dates to Shepard Fairey's early Obey Giant studio period around 2000, when his street practice was maturing into editioned screen prints. While many 2000 releases were primarily graphic or pop-cultural, Factory introduces an industrial subject with an environmental undertone—an interest Fairey would revisit far more explicitly in later years through smokestack, pollution, and factory imagery. This positions the print as an early marker of a theme that runs across his arc, well before his 2008 Obama breakthrough. It belongs to the cluster of turn-of-the-millennium Obey Giant editions, but its subject distinguishes it as a precursor to the environmental works that became prominent in his later catalog.

FAQ

Related Works

Factory Stacks (Earth First)2022 · Later work with the same factory/smokestack subject; direct thematic descendant.

Fossil Factory2017 · Shares the factory and industry-critique theme in a later print.

Visual Pollution Smoke Stacks2001 · Adjacent-year smokestack imagery extending the same industrial-pollution motif.

Visual Pollution Gas Mask2001 · Companion environmental/pollution work from the immediately following year.

Nature Science (Green)2006 · Continues Fairey's environment-and-industry thematic line.

Zapatista2001 · Adjacent early-2000s Obey Giant release from the same studio window.