SID, SUPERMAN IS DEAD

On the occasion of the launch of the Obey x Sex Pistols collaboration, we hosted an exhibition dedicated to Sid Vicious in our basement in Milan.

From 9 to 13 June, the exhibition presented 10 works from the “SID, SUPERMAN IS DEAD” collection, created by Shepard Fairey and based on the images of the English photographer Dennis Morris, who has followed and photographed Sid Vicious throughout his career.

These are the words of Shepard, who directly explains what the real cultural impact of the Sex Pistols was and how intentional his continuous reference to the English group was throughout his career:

“I have a vivid memory of the first time a friend of mine played" Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols "on his bedroom turntable. I got chills in my arms as soon as he started the opening track, "Holidays in the Sun", which begins with the sound of marching boots followed by percussion and dissonant fifth chords, with Johnny Rotten barking the line "A cheap holiday in other people's misery ”(a poor holiday in the misery of others). The album opens with incredible power and peevish disdain, never backing down, moving from "Bodies", "Anarchy in the UK", "God Save the Queen" and "Pretty Vacant" in its path. The Sex Pistols created the perfect debut album, and they changed my life before I even realized they would change the whole rock 'n' roll paradigm.

The first group that approached me to musical subcultures were the Sex Pistols. At first I liked music, but the more I got to know them the more I realized they had created an extraordinary cultural upheaval, involving talented people not only in music but in art, fashion, and even business. With the fantastic poison of Johnny Rotten, the mighty guitar of Steve Jones, the style of Vivenne Westwood, the graphics of Jamie Reid, the media manipulation of Malcolm McLaren; the Sex Pistols were the brightest "talentless" group to scam the rock 'n' roll industry to the top.

I studied Jamie Reid's collages and absorbed his bold subversion of the iconography of the dominant culture. I casually made my own the words of Malcolm McLaren: “Cultivate the curiosity of the press. Focus on creating generational detachment. You have become a new idea. Others want to join. You got credibility out of thin air - use it as a story to sell. Terrify, threaten, and insult your own useless generation. "
I used the Sex Pistols as a guideline for what my intent was: to create provocative art, but also to infiltrate the system, intrigue the media, and cover every facet of culture ”.

DISCOVER THE OBEY X SEX PISTOLS COLLECTION