The Fader Magazine
#41 Oct/Nov 2006

Portraits of the Artist: Fahamu Pecou might possibly be The Shit by Alex Wagner

From the Artist's Statement: I began a sticker and poster campaign that read, "FAHAMU PECOU IS THE SHIT". The idea seemed to work; soon I was met on the street with comments like " Hey! you're the shit..." or "Are you in any trouble, I saw a sign that said you are the shit." I was warned by a few to be cautious of the language... "Do you really want to be known as the shit?" they would say, but I figured "Fahamu Pecou is Really Good" would not have quite the same impact, so I stayed with my original idea.

Fahamu Pecou's work finds Pecou himself at the peak of his superstardom, accompanied by a posse of bodyguards and models wherever he goes, tucked behind velvet ropes at his own openings and featured on the cover of every swishy magazine from Art Forum to Art News to Art in America to like, Anthem (those are just the As). In full tuff guy regalia (shirtless/with cigar/in boxing ring/flanked by sloe-eyed ladies), Pecou paints himself into these media landscapes and presents himself as an art world sensation, cheerfully parading into galleries wearing the emperor's new clothes: the press, the paparazzi and the posses aren't celebrating the art-they are the art.

Yes, faking celebrity to become a celebrity isnt the brand newest of ideas (see: JT Leroy, Fischerspooner, the Game) but its Pecous approach-one that challenges omnipresent and self proclaimed celebrity in the hip-hop world and needles the uncomfortable relationship between the whitewashed art world and black street culture-that makes his work compelling. (less curatorially speaking, how often do you see the headline "King Kong aint got shit on me" printed on the cover of The Blow Up? Ans. Not so often). The Atlanta-based Pecou began his magazine series with a basic desire for exposure, ("When you see somebody on the cover of a magazine, you start thinking, 'I should know who this person is,'" he says), and from there began channeling those elements which to him seemedmost natural. " I made a consicous decision a while back that I wasn't going to try and mask who I was, or hide from being a young black man who is an artist," he explains. "I try to do my work so there's no shame in it."

Along with his outlandish magazine covers (each canvas averages six to seven feet in height), Pecou continues to up the ante on his celebrity (fake paparazzi, Cristal, velvet ropes, etc) parrallel to the norms of hip-hop/art world stardom. As those worlds get more surreal, so does he. "A few weeks ago I was driving and I saw these hot air balloons promoting Yung Joc and T.I., and I was like , "What in the hell?'" says Pecou. "Thats the kind of shit that I love".