What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “Ripped Poster”?

Artist Statement

Ripped Poster Screen Print 18 x 24 inches Edition of 100

Summary

Ripped Poster is a 2001 Shepard Fairey screen print published by Obey Giant in a first edition of 100, measuring 18 x 24 inches. The work plays on the look of a torn, weathered street poster, referencing the layered, distressed surfaces of pasted urban walls where Fairey's OBEY campaign lived. Built from the studio's flat-color, propaganda-poster vocabulary, it converts the accidental textures of street fly-posting into a deliberate graphic motif. With its small stated run of 100, it is among the more limited early-period Obey Giant screen prints in this group.

Why It Matters

Ripped Poster is notable for turning the physical life of street art, the tearing, layering, and decay of pasted posters, into its subject, an unusually self-aware gesture within Fairey's catalog. Where most OBEY prints present a clean icon, this work foregrounds the medium of the street campaign itself, nodding to the fly-posting practice that built Fairey's reputation before the gallery editions. For collectors, the source-stated first edition of 100 is meaningfully smaller than the editions of 200 to 350 common to its 2001 cohort, giving it a sharper scarcity profile within the early Obey Giant period. It connects thematically to Fairey's broader fascination with how images are deployed, weathered, and consumed in public space, linking back to late-1990s works like Revolution. As a documented, contained early screen print that comments on the very mechanics of street propaganda, it offers collectors a conceptually rich and comparatively scarce example of Fairey's formative studio practice.

Collector Perspective

This print appeals to collectors who value Fairey's street-art roots and the conceptual side of the OBEY project over celebrity portraiture. Its torn-poster motif makes it a strong thematic fit for collections focused on public art, propaganda, and the materiality of fly-posting. The 18 x 24 inch format frames cleanly and sits comfortably alongside other early-2000s Obey Giant screen prints. Notably, its source-stated edition of 100 is smaller than most of its 2001 peers, which makes it attractive to buyers seeking the more limited runs from this era. Collectors building a narrative around the evolution from street campaign to studio edition will find it an especially apt anchor piece.

Historical Context

Ripped Poster fits Fairey's early Obey Giant studio era around 2001, a period in which he translated the visual and physical language of his street campaign into editioned screen prints. By imitating the torn, layered look of pasted urban posters, the work directly references the fly-posting practice that grew out of his late-1980s OBEY sticker beginnings and late-1990s poster output. It sits among a dense run of 2001 Obey Giant releases but stands apart through its smaller stated edition and its focus on the street medium itself rather than a single icon or figure.

FAQ

Related Works

Revolution1999 · Late-'90s OBEY print rooted in the same street-propaganda lineage Ripped Poster references.

Che1997 · Early Obey Giant propaganda-icon screen print from the formative street-to-studio period.

Tank1997 · Early high-contrast propaganda print sharing the graphic vocabulary.

50's Guy1997 · Early Obey Giant pop-culture screen print from the same formative era.

Cop1998 · Late-'90s OBEY print engaging authority and street imagery, thematically adjacent.

Fairey Anti-Bush2003 · Later poster-format Obey Giant print extending the propaganda-poster approach.