Finding the Frequency: Shepard Fairey’s New Modular Works Radiate at Subliminal Projects

In Modular Frequency, Shepard Fairey returns to Subliminal Projects with a body of work that feels less like a recap than a sharpened presentation of where his language has landed—and where it’s still mutating. The show gathers new mixed-media pieces into a single, intentional atmosphere: street-born immediacy retooled for the gallery wall, where pattern, portraiture, and typography can stack up, scrape back, and reveal their own archaeology.

To quote ourselves from a few weeks back, the exhibition showcases “three decades of modular geometry … into a tight visual rhythm.” That rhythm is the point of entry here: a pulse built from Constructivist angles, propaganda-era clarity, new ventures into the color palette, and the saturated pressure of pop culture, all reorganized into compositions that you can scan quickly—then return to slowly, detail by detail.

Shepard Fairey. “MKL Modular”. Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)

Fairey’s own framing is rooted in the experience of living inside a constant feed. “I’m confronted with an overwhelming number of images and messages daily,” he says, and these works feel like a mature and practiced response to that condition: taking the barrage and compressing it into symbols you can hold in your mind—icons and archetypes that keep circling back to peace, justice, and environmental responsibility. Hung in salon-style groupings that orbit shared themes, the installation lets the pieces talk laterally, collectively radiating like planets in the darkness—separate bodies, shared gravity.

Coinciding with the opening, the project spills into print in a way that echoes the show’s punch and cadence: the two new screenprints Modular Sound & Vision and Dreams of Peace translate the series into collectible form, alongside a letterpress print titled Modular Frequency. And in the wider wake of the exhibition, collaborations extend the conversation—most concretely, the co-signed “Frequency” print with ADD FUEL, which ties Fairey’s modular iconography to a tile-pattern sensibility that feels both ornamental and insurgent.

Shepard Fairey. “Mujer Fatal Modular”. Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Shepard Fairey. “Basquiat Modular”. Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Shepard Fairey. “Bowie Modular”. Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Shepard Fairey. “Rise Above Rebel Modular”. Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Shepard Fairey. “Art Is Fore Everybody Modular”. Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Shepard at work in the studio for Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Shepard at work in the studio for Modular Frequency. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Opening night for Shepard’s Modular Frequency at Subliminal Projects in Los Angeles, CA. (photo Instagram)

Shepard Fairey’s Modular Frequency is now open to the general public. Click SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS for hours, scheduled events, directions and other details.