'Warning: Addictive' by Shepard Fairey, 2020
Special release apparel collab. with New Deal Skateboards.
Collectible 100% cotton t-shirt with screen printed artwork.
Based on the artist's 'Warning: Addictive' artwork, 2019.
Size: Adult L
Limited Edition (Sold Out).
Artist's signature on screen printed artwork.
New/folded in shipping bag.
ABOUT THE ART
NEW DEAL x SHEPARD FAIREY SPECIAL SUPER LIMITED RELEASE EXCLUSIVE AUTHENTIC CAPSULE POP-UP COLLECTION ARTIST EDITION
New Deal Skateboard Products proudly announces NEW DEAL x SHEPARD FAIREY Special Super Limited Release Exclusive Authentic Capsule Pop-Up Collection Artist Edition, a collaboration with iconic street and museum artist Shepard Fairey, dropping at 3:43pm pst on newdealskateboards.com.
OG street artist Shepard Fairey has helped shape our modern day visual culture with iconic imagery originating in an early 90’s experiment in phenomenology featuring the infamous professional wrestler Andre the Giant. But many current day fans of the artist’s work don’t realize that as a teenager Fairey ripped on a skateboard and found early inspiration in the art and subversive voice of New Deal Skateboards, which actually helped inform his signature color palette, found today in his paintings, prints, and on murals in cities around the world.
In celebration of the anniversary of the launch of New Deal Skateboards 30 years ago, Fairey helped relaunch the brand with a groundbreaking exhibition of original New Deal art and ephemera in 2019, including additional all-new reimagined artwork from over 40 artists, inspired by the brand. Co-curated with New Deal founder Andy Howell and hailed by industry insiders as the “Cultural event of the year,” the NEW DEAL 1990 Exhibition at Shepard’s Subliminal Projects Gallery in Los Angeles brought together skateboarding legends Steve Caballero, Chad Muska, Ed Templeton, and Eli Morgan Gesner, as well as art icons including DALEK, Greg Mike, Jeremy Fish, and dynamic duo Kai & Sunny, among many others, in order to create a 2 month extended exhibition (and an opening reception to remember!).
Shepard described the exhibition as a celebration of the influence of New Deal brand and art within skateboarding, “The New Deal 30th anniversary art show was a great concept because there’s so many artists who were impacted by New Deal, who now have successful art careers. The great thing about New Deal was that when it launched, it was saying, ‘Hey, the art side is really, really crucial.’ That was something that had always been important within skateboarding, but somehow was sort of relegated to behind the curtain in a sense. Now being an artist within skateboarding is cool, you’re out front about that. To take the evolution of the culture that really New Deal was pushing from 30 years ago and look at where a lot of these artists are now, as well as younger artists who maybe the ripple effect is two generations deep, but they still were feeling the effects of what New Deal did. It’s pretty amazing.”
Describing the original painting he made for the exhibition, iWARNING ADDICTIVE!, Shepard explains, “I was trying to find the perfect hybrid of my sensibility with my Obey Icon face, with New Deal. I do a lot of illustrations using a spray can because a spray can is a tool that is essential to my art. Where there was overlap between what Andy had done for New Deal and what I do with my own work. I wanted to marry the two."
“It’s a tribute to that moment in skateboarding and how much it meant for me. I wouldn’t have potentially used the spot colors I use in my work, red, black, and white, if I hadn’t been inspired by both New Deal and then things like Russian constructivism and Barbara Kruger’s work. New Deal was a big part of that limited color palette.”
Just weeks after the NEW DEAL 1990 exhibition, which launched on September 28th of 2019, and prior to the scheduled release of a special artist series deck, art print, and T-Shirt collaboration, Shepard’s original iWARNING-ADDICTIVE! painting and 50 limited edition prints of the work from the exhibition, along with hundreds of other works of art, we destroyed in an electrical fire that took Andy Howell’s home and 30-year art and skate collection. Devastated by the loss, Andy reached out to Shepard to tell him of the news that all the art and prints had been destroyed, and Shepard responded with an offer that brought Andy to tears. “Don’t worry, man, I’ll make you another one. And we’ll get you those prints too. In fact, I bet every artist in the collection would do the same.”
Fairey’s kindness helped Andy make it through a very challenging first half of 2020, and inspired him to push through to recreate the collaboration with the artist for release at the end of summer. On Shepard’s suggestion, the release of the NEW DEAL x SHEPARD FAIREY ARTIST EDITION Capsule was aptly scheduled for September 28th, 2020, exactly one year after the opening of the first NEW DEAL 1990 Exhibition at Subliminal Projects.
Shepard describes part of the draw of New Deal for him as a teenage skateboarder and artist was the witty and playfully subversive commentary in the ads and communications, as well as his inspiration for iWARNING ADDICTIVE!, the painting on which this collaboration capsule is based. “Useless Wooden Toys, what a great name. To take what’s usually a disparaging commentary and turn it around and embrace it and say, ‘Yeah. Well, look at what we’re doing with these useless wooden toys.’
“Then there was also this Surgeon General’s warning which I slightly re-worked: ‘The surgeon general has determined that skateboarding and art in any form are hazardous to the health of our society because they promote creativity and individuality at a young age. Prolonged indulgence in these unacceptable activities can result in addiction and devastating amounts of enjoyment.’ That, for me, is kind of an encapsulation of the way skateboarders take things and subvert them and in a witty, smart way. The idea that everyone else is just a slave to the status quo or to conformity, but people who can think for themselves and create for themselves are such a threat. That was right up my alley.”