Shepard Fairey first showed his admiration for the great musician Neil Young by including a portrait of Young in his 2010 exhibition portraying cultural heroes.

And so it seems Young has returned the favour by inviting Fairey to do a painting that represents each song on Young's new album Americana with Crazy Horse.

According to the NY Times Arts Blog, Fairey was surprised at just how involved Young was in the process, which involved Fairey mocking up several ideas which Young then picked his favourite.

The final works will be shown at a private event next month at the perry Rubenstein gallery in Los Angeles and the paintings will then be available to purchase and may be used in accompanying music videos for the album and/or stage design on Young album tour. 

Street artist Shepard Fairey apparently played a crucial role in securing the film rights to George Orwell's seminal novel 1984 for Brian Grazer and Ron Howard's production company Imagine Entertainment, and Fairey may even be a producer on the film.

This new adaption of 1984 is still in its early days, reportedly the group are looking for screenwriters before they approach a studio for funding, according to one news outlet.

For those who have followed the street artist's work, this may not come as a surprise. Four years ago Fairey re-designed the  cover for Orwell's dystopian classic for Penguin (pictured) and Fairey's signature 'Obey' is even a nod to the famous novel.

The novel tells of a country run by a totalitarian government system called English Socialism, which keeps control of people's minds and actions through a complex surveillance system.

Fairey is no stranger to the world of film and TV. He appeared in Banky's documentary Exit Through The Giftshop and also recently made a cameo on The Simpsons playing a policeman posing as a street artist.

 

 

Urban artist Shepard Fairey will guest star on the 23rd Season of the iconic television series,The Simpsons in episode 15 – 'Exit Though The Kwik-E-Mart', which will be aired in the US on March 4, 2012.

The episode's plot is this: In order to get back at his dad, Bart goes undercover as a graffiti street artist and plasters Homer’s unflattering image all over Springfield. But one night, Bart and Milhouse get caught in the act by established street artists Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Kenny Scharf and Robbie Conal (guest voicing as themselves), and to Bart’s surprise, they invite him to exhibit his satirical artwork in his very own gallery show. Meanwhile, a hip, new health food superstore opens in Springfield that threatens to put Apu and the Kwik-E-Mart out of business.”

“Part of being on The Simpsons, is you’re being honored as a reference point in culture,” Fairey said on his website. “But you also can’t be too sensitive about that part of culture being made fun of…There’s irony that comes with something outsider becoming insider. And they do a great job of examining that.

"The Simpsons has been one of my favorite shows since the early '90s. When I was running my screen printing studio in Providence R.I. my crew and I lead a Spartan existence consisting of long hours and a seven day work week. Our only recreational indulgence ritual was to stop work early Sunday evenings to eat dinner together while watching The Simpsons.

I’ve always loved The Simpsons blend of humor and social commentary, so it is a huge honor for me to appear as a guest character on the March 4th episode. The story line is great, and they were kind enough to indulge a couple of my dialogue suggestions designed to make the social commentary more pointed(even though I had to make fun of myself to do so). I can’t wait to see it!

For more on Shepard, click here.

Here's this week's round-up of our favourite new urban art on the street!




Shepard Fairey, via Street Art News

Suewde, via VAndalog

 

LYN via Vandalog


Optimo, via Brookyln Street Art



Mambo, via Unurth



Torsco, via Stick2target

 

 
Fresh from creating the poster for the Occupy Wall Street movement, Shepard Fairey fittingly designed the new cover of Time Magazine's Person Of The Year, which this year went to 'The Protesters'.

Time's Person Of The Year usually goes to one person deemed the most influential of that year, but this year Time gave a nod to all of the people on the street who brought about change in the Arab world as well as those that protested against corporate greed in the West.

 

Time magazine said on their website:

Shepard Fairey’s iconic designs require work by hand and digital rendering, so when faced with creating an image that must illustrate a body of unrest that has spent the year not only protesting on the streets, but online, he’s a perfect fit.

As the artist behind our Person of the Year 2011 cover commemorating this year’s pick, The Protester, Fairey says his cover image is based on a composite of 26 different photographs of real protests from around the world. “These organic protest movements have arisen around the globe and a lot of it was fueled by social media, but it was a pervasive phenomenon,” he said. “It wasn’t one specific movement but general unrest. I wanted to look for ideas to represent that.”

Fairey, who also created TIME’s Person of the Year cover for our Barack Obama selection in 2008 (based on his famous “Hope” poster), illustrated the cover by hand using the primary images as his reference, a selection of photos sent to him from TIME’s editors, and ripped heavily contrasted photos out of their prints to collage them before scanning them back into the computer. “I play around with different color combinations and different degrees of contrast of background material,” he said. “I’m always looking for the right push and pull between all the elements.” Like tone.



Click here to see more of Shepard Fairey's artwork and prints.