E Pluribus Venom: The Art of Shepard Fairey

The book of Shepard Fairey's 2007 exhibition E Pluribus Venom at Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York, in which the OBEY artist turned the graphic language of American currency and mid-century advertising against the institutions they represent.

The title, "out of many, poison," reworks the national motto E Pluribus Unum printed on U.S. coins and bills. The works reproduced here borrow engraved banknote ornament and a Norman Rockwell register to question the symbols and methods of the American machine, while a second strand, drawing on Art Nouveau, hippie poster art and revolutionary propaganda, celebrates figures who opposed blind nationalism and war. More than an exhibition catalogue, the volume expands on the themes of the show, with essays by Sarah Jaye Williams and gallerist Jonathan LeVine and an introduction by the artist.

Fairey (b. 1970) began the Andre the Giant sticker campaign as a Rhode Island School of Design student in 1989; it grew into the OBEY Giant project and a body of stencilled, screen-printed and collaged work that has moved between the street, the gallery and political campaigning. E Pluribus Venom sits between the 2006 survey Supply & Demand and the 2008 Obama Hope poster that made him widely known.