DECAY & RESET , Lodown/Obey Print

18 x 24 inches. Screen print on 80# cream Speckletone paper. Signed by Shepard Fairey and Marok (only here at Lodown). Numbered edition of 450.

About:

It has been a long time since Obey and Lodown collided and left their mark on popular culture. Almost thirty years ago, the paths of Shepard Fairey and Thomas “Marok” Marecki crossed in San Diego, USA. Lodown Magazine was still in its infancy, and Fairey’s artistic evolution was only beginning. Both shared the same urge: to stir things up, to inject activism into culture, and to build something of their own.

After finishing graphic design school, Thomas traveled to Southern California in 1994 — the holy land for anyone obsessed with skate and surf culture. The scene was small, concentrated, and alive, encounters with entrepreneurs like Ken Block, Founder of DC and Droos Clothing or BMX pioneer Bob Haro were inevitable. In 1996, due to regular sommer stays in SoCal Thomas met Shepard for the first time exchanging thoughts and contribution for Lodown’s first book about graphic design.

Thomas carried with him the experience of West Berlin, where he had grown up in the American sector during the Cold War. At the Post Exchange in Zehlendorf — a sealed-off mall built for American GIs — Berlin kids found their way in, scavenging the imported goods, magazines, and music. Information flowed from the PX newsstand, while, just above, the radar station on Teufelsberg scanned the skies for enemy maneuvers.

West Berlin was a paradox: surrounded by the repression of the DDR, yet saturated with signals of freedom. Radio waves carried it all — Sender Freies Berlin, or the AFN, the American Forces Network, where late-night shows slipped new music to a restless youth. Parties at the Shalamar in Zehlendorf Mitte became a soundtrack of resistance and escape.

Those were the days.

But now the ground has shifted. The Pax Americana has decayed like the ruins of Teufelsberg. The so-called guardians of peace and stability have failed. The elites — political, cultural, economic — have squandered trust, leaving people unprotected, voiceless, divided.

A reset is no longer a choice. It is mandatory. But what does it look like?

It will not come from above. Not from governments, not from corporations, not from fading superpowers. A reset must be built from the ground up — through creativity, through voices unafraid, through networks that resist control. Freedom of speech is fragile, but it is also our most potent weapon.

Decay is the reminder. Reset is the challenge.
And the start is here. The start is now.