David Choe’s Barack Obama posters are part of an ongoing series from Upper Playground of artist collaborations in support of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Upper Playground has endorsed Obama’s campaign by creating posters featuring artwork from Grotesk, The Date Farmers, Munk One, Ron English, Alex Pardee, Morning Breath, Mac, Sam Flores and Mear One, in addition to printing T-shirts with Shepard Fairey’s Obama graphics to help support the campaign. There were 200 prints made that are signed and numbered of each design, and each poster retails for $200. The limited edition 18″X24″ prints are available exclusively online here and here. All proceeds from the sales of the posters will go directly to creating more campaign t-shirts, posters, and stickers by other artists in support of Obama’s bid for President. The prints will not ship until Oct. 15, 2008.
Statement from David Choe:
“I’m just an artist. All I do is paint pretty pictures, and sometimes when I go someplace and the Asian kids recognize me they project all their hopes and dreams on me like I was the next coming of Bruce Lee, like I’m a role model, and I start to get stressed out. I’m just an artist.
“Obama might soon be the most powerful man in the world. That’s heavy. I’m not really a political person, but our country is in such a mess, and if Obama gets elected next, I can’t even believe the pressure this guys gonna be under. He’s gotta carry the weight of the world on his shoulders and lead the entire nation. Millions will look up to him, while others will look down on him under close scrutiny. This society we live in just waits for people to fall, so they can point and laugh at our imperfections on late night TV.
So I was looking at this newspaper of a profile of Obama’s head, and looking at a globe in my room, and I was thinking of an atlas kind of image with Obama carrying the world on his shoulders. He’s gonna have to become like a superhero to get us through this, but this battle is not so much physical in that it’s more mental. It was late at night and my eyes were getting kind of blurry and I noticed Florida all the way to the bottom tip of Texas on my globe—looked like they followed Obama’s hairline on his side profile. I sketched out Obama on the computer and put a map of the U.S. around his head, and it fit perfectly. America with all its ills and beauty, with all its economic, racial, religious, and political problems weighing heavy on Obama’s mind, but for the first time, in a very long time, there seems like there’s hope.” – David Choe
