Gauntlet Gallery
What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “Race To The Bottom”?
Artist Statement
Race To The Bottom. 10 x 13 inches. Letterpress on cream cotton paper with hand-deckled edges. Signed by Shepard Fairey. Numbered edition of 450. $65. Obey publishing chop in lower left corner. When I was creating my Damaged art show, the largest show of my career so far, I decided to turn a 2-dimensional illustration I had made for an image called "No Future" into a sculpture. While developing the different views to create the sculpture, I made an illustration from a front-facing angle of the figure that was seen from behind in the original illustration. This gave me an opportunity to introduce new text and imagery on the reverse side of the newspaper. The text says "Race to the Bottom…Marathon Turns Out to be a Sprint." My original "No Future (For Apathy! Ignorance! Sexism! Xenophobia! Racism!)" was inspired by the tactics Trump used as a campaigner to exploit the fears and hostilities of a largely uninformed group of the populous. I was astounded that those tactics resonated then, but since the election, the tactics Trump has used in office have been as bad or worse because he now has hand-picked people for his administration who serve his agenda deviously while ignoring what is best for the public. The deterioration of public service and civility has proceeded with much greater speed than I had anticipated. I'm fond of this second version of the image aesthetically, but I also felt it was important to revisit the need for creating such an image in the first place. Let's hope that the type of uncivilized tactics of the new administration do not become the new normal. Have we hit the bottom yet?
Summary
Race To The Bottom is a 2018 Shepard Fairey letterpress print, 10 x 13 inches, on cream cotton paper with hand-deckled edges, published by Obey Giant. It is signed and numbered in an edition of 450, carries the Obey publishing chop in the lower left corner, and was released at $65. The image grew out of Fairey's Damaged show, where he turned his 'No Future' illustration into a sculpture; this front-facing view adds text reading 'Race to the Bottom… Marathon Turns Out to be a Sprint' on a newspaper. The work critiques political tactics Fairey associates with fear, division, and the deterioration of public service.
Why It Matters
Race To The Bottom is a politically pointed letterpress edition that documents Fairey's response to the late-2010s political climate. As he explains, it emerged while developing a sculpture from his 'No Future' illustration for the Damaged show, the largest of his career; rotating the figure to a front-facing angle let him add new text and imagery on the newspaper, yielding the line 'Race to the Bottom… Marathon Turns Out to be a Sprint.' He frames the original 'No Future' as a critique of campaign tactics that exploited fear, hostility, sexism, xenophobia, and racism, and this version as a deliberate revisiting of why such an image felt necessary. For collectors, the appeal is twofold: it is a candid political statement and a behind-the-scenes companion to his sculptural work, showing how one idea migrated across media. The hand-deckled cotton letterpress with an Obey chop gives it craft credibility despite its small 10 x 13 format. The edition of 450 keeps it accessible. Within a collection it functions as a sharp political document tied to a major exhibition, pairing with Fairey's other democracy-and-power critiques.
Collector Perspective
This print suits collectors who organize around political message and exhibition history. Its letterpress production on hand-deckled cotton paper, the Obey chop, and the connection to Fairey's Damaged show give it craft and narrative value despite the modest 10 x 13 size. The accessible original price and edition of 450 make it attainable for buyers building a political grouping. Its compact format makes it easy to frame and display in a tighter arrangement or alongside related sculpture and democracy-themed works. It appeals to those drawn to Fairey's pointed commentary on contemporary politics and to collectors interested in how an image moved from illustration to sculpture to print. Provenance-minded buyers will value its signature, numbering, and chop. It reads as a focused political piece rather than a centerpiece.
Historical Context
Race To The Bottom belongs to Fairey's Damaged-era political work, described in the source as connected to the largest show of his career. It documents his process of expanding into sculpture, deriving from the 'No Future' figure he built into a three-dimensional piece, then capturing a new front-facing view as this print. Thematically it extends his commentary on democracy and power, framed as a critique of campaign and governing tactics he viewed as exploiting fear and eroding public service and civility. As a 2018 letterpress edition, it sits among his politics-and-democracy works from this period and reflects an established artist using affordable, high-craft editions to register urgent political concern. Its historical value lies in tying his sculptural experimentation to his ongoing role as a politically engaged printmaker during a turbulent moment.
FAQ
How did this image originate?
Per Fairey, while developing a sculpture from his 'No Future' illustration for the Damaged show, he made a front-facing view of the figure seen from behind in the original. This let him add new text and imagery, including 'Race to the Bottom… Marathon Turns Out to be a Sprint.'
What is the print's medium and size?
It is a 10 x 13 inch letterpress print on cream cotton paper with hand-deckled edges, signed and numbered in an edition of 450. It carries the Obey publishing chop in the lower left corner and was published by Obey Giant in 2018.
What is the message?
Fairey frames it as a critique of political tactics he associates with exploiting fear and hostility, and of what he describes as the deterioration of public service and civility, asking whether the country has 'hit the bottom yet.'
How does it relate to his sculpture work?
The print is a direct companion to a sculpture Fairey created for his Damaged show, capturing a new front-facing angle of the same figure and showing how a single idea moved across illustration, sculpture, and print.
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.