Yosi Sergant and the Art of Change: The Publicist Behind Shepard Fairey's Obama Hope Posters

The facilitator talks Obama, art, the DNC and Fairey's Denver arrest

Comments (0) By Seven Mcdonald Wednesday, Sep 10 2008

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“Yosi has been the strategist and facilitator for aspects of the [Obama HOPE] campaign, ranging from getting the go-ahead for me to do my Obama portrait and putting the posters in the hands of grass-roots volunteers to organizing the Manifest Hope gallery during the DNC,” Fairey says via e-mail when asked about Sergant. “Many of us have worked hard to support the HOPE campaign, but the convergence and collaboration of so many great people was primarily organized by Yosi.”

A few days after returning from Denver, a tired Sergant talks about his DNC experience via phone. “There really wasn’t much of a grass-roots presence at the Democratic National Convention,” he says. “[Unconventional ’08] was truly a different voice from any other event. People responded to the intensity. The art was beautiful, powerful, diverse and inviting. A hundred artists participated, and there were 124 pieces of art.”

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Fairey, who was arrested in Denver for plastering his images around the city, also made a one-of-a-kind 10-by-14-foot canvas that incorporated his HOPE imagery. Sergant says it sold to a private collector for an undisclosed amount. About the arrest, Sergant is unapologetic. “Shepard is who he is. He has never claimed to be anything other. He didn’t become famous because he sat by idly and watched others doing the work for him. He is an active participant, and, as such, he was out with some locals and they got busted. I don’t know that many details ’cause I was scraping paint off of the floor [in the gallery] when it happened.”

Sergant says one of his favorite pieces in the show was by David Choe, who, along with four others, including Sam Flores and the Date Farmers, created on-site work. “David Choe’s mural was one of the most breathtaking and jaw-dropping,” Sergant says. “It was intense and personal. He painted with fervor; paint was flying. He ended up with as much paint on him as on the mural. He used everything and anything he could get his hands on: stencils, paintbrushes, pencil, pen and a mop.”

Besides bringing in high-profile artists, Sergant also partnered with MoveOn.org to create a contest for artists across America to submit works for inclusion in the gallery. “In the first two days we got more than 1,000 submissions,” he says. “The idea is, even though we will only show five winners, we have created thousands of pieces of [progressive-themed] art.”

The only problem was that Sergant was so busy planning the event, he arrived in Denver with no passes to the actual convention. But he was able to haggle his way into some of the speeches, including Hillary Clinton’s.

“Like Sundance,” he says, “you horse-trade introductions and tickets from one event to another.”

On the last day of the gallery show, Sergant says, he had to turn people away — he and the other volunteers, including his parents, who flew in from Culver City, needed to leave to catch Obama’s speech at Invesco Field. “We tore out of there,” he says. “We made the point clear we were going to Obama. I have workedreally, really hard for a really long time and to hear him say those words, ‘I accept the nomination.’I had goosebumps. It was a very intense feeling to be there among supporters who had traveled from all across America, it felt pretty good.”