The image is iconic in contemporary political art. And it's been inside your head for more than a year. Art critic Peter Schjeldahl of The New Yorker has referred to it as "the most efficacious American political illustration since 'Uncle Sam Wants You.'" Indeed, it may still be seen in a variety of places, including during your daily commute. Just look for it on the tailgates and rear windows of nearly every other pickup and car in a town of liberal-minded voters — that simple red, white, and blue head-and-shoulders shot of Barack Obama peering outward in a pensive gaze with the word "hope" written across the bottom. The image was designed by Los Angeles street artist Shepard Fairey in 2008.

It's hard to believe that such a straightforward poster became a nationwide symbol of change during the few months leading up to the presidential election. And yet it also spawned a couple of national exhibitions — and a lingering firestorm of controversy.

Fairey admits that he appropriated the picture of Obama from a copyrighted photo taken by Mannie Garcia for the Associated Press. Consequently, the AP took legal action against the artist for copyright infringement. In turn, Fairey filed his own lawsuit against AP citing the fair-use doctrine, which is often an issue for artists using copyrighted imagery for their own purposes. It's an argument that, in various forms, has been debated for hundreds of years. In the modern era, beginning around 1912, one can point to Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque for incorporating newspaper and magazine images into their papiers collés. The best known appropriator was Andy Warhol, who blatantly recycled celebrity photos of John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Mouse, Mick Jagger, and Marilyn Monroe, among others, into his screen prints — which today may fetch five figures or more at auction. But the most direct example of appropriation in art may be in the work of Sherrie Levine, who has simply photographed existing photographs by Walker Evans and Edward Weston and presented them as her own.

Fairey's artistic activities have brought him fame and drawn some consternation in the art world. He has been arrested 15 times for tagging and other antics as a guerrilla street artist. Despite, or perhaps in part because of his notoriety, Fairey's original spray-paint and collaged image of Obama, from which his subsequent posters were based, has since been acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. After all, it did become the most recognizable portrait of any presidential candidate in recent memory and was the centerpiece for the exhibition Manifest Hope, which took place first during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver and was in large part reinstalled for President Obama's inauguration festivities. The event was organized by Obey Giant — Fairey's business firm — Evolutionary Media Group, MoveOn.org, and Popular Media Organizing, an initiative of the Service Employees International Union.

"There has never been an artistic movement like this in history," San Francisco artist Michael "Mikey" Cuffe said when asked about his participation in Manifest Hope. "It was a time when artists of all mediums came together to support a cause they believed in. I looked around at these two huge floors of gallery space and all the artists speaking from their hearts about their art. It was truly a moment that I think will have even more artistic significance many years from now," he said.

Cuffe did a bit of appropriating himself for the exhibit. His acrylic and mixed-media painting The Hopeful Hearts Club is a takeoff of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album jacket from 1967. "When creating the piece, my goal was to do an image that was immediately recognizable and had social context to the Obama movement. My girlfriend and I were at an art fair looking at some really wonderful '60s-styled art, and she said, 'What if you did a Sgt. Pepper Obama piece?' Instantly, I knew it would be a hit. It not only satisfied American's love of pop culture but also had a strong historical significance."

Cuffe's work fulfilled his expectations and, in retrospect, he had no qualms about using the Beatles' cover art as a platform. "The response to The Hopeful Hearts Club was amazing," he said. "It really hit me when we were walking around the National Mall during the inauguration and how many people knew the piece when I mentioned it. All I had to say was 'Obama Sgt. Pepper,' and they'd go, 'Oh, that was you!'"

Not surprisingly, the majority of works in Manifest Hope were portraits of Obama in various styles in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, needlepoint, collage, mixed media, computer-generated imagery, installation art, and posters, most of which are featured in Art for Obama: Designing "Manifest Hope" and the Campaign for Change, which was edited by Fairey and Jennifer Gross and published by Abrams Image in October. Included are reproductions of 150 works by more than 100 artists who participated in the exhibitions, including Fairey's posters and Cuffe's painting.

One of the more poignant images, however, is by Taiwanese-born designer Ginger Ché, who was raised in Germany and now lives in La Jolla, California. What's Going On? is a mixed-media concept in black and white of Obama's head seen in profile with eyes shut propped on folded hands done in an expressive manner that allowed for some painted areas to drip, alluding to tears. Surrounding Obama's head as a background, and serving to define his hair and facial features, are hand-written lyrics to Marvin Gaye's seminal hit song referenced in the title. "It tells about Gaye's political concerns, the need for change in our world, and the necessity for actions of love, which are still current today," Ché comments in the book.

When contacted by Pasatiempo, Ché elaborated on her use of text in her visual work. "I love the power of words. Sometimes I use single words or phrases that inspire me; sometimes I add my own poetry to my work. There are some song lyrics that have moved me so deeply as I connected with its message that I have made them part of my 'materials' for my expression. 'What's Going On?' by Marvin Gaye is one of them. ... The dripping symbolizes not only our country's fears and tears, but the fears and tears of all people."

Collectively, the exhibits displayed images of Obama to suit any taste, from the most abstract to more traditional fare. There was more than one reference to Obama as Abraham Lincoln, including a morphed likeness of both men, Blue Abraham Obama by Ron English, and The Man from Illinois by Scott Siedman, which depicts Obama as a farmer standing in a harvested cornfield and is done in the style of regionalist painter Grant Wood. Dressed in work clothes and work boots, pants held up by suspenders, Obama peers out toward the horizon. In his right hand he grips a hoe, while in his left is an open book. Adjacent to him is an upright bundle of cornstalks reminiscent of a fasces — an ancient symbol of authority, consisting of rods wrapped around an ax, that was associated with Roman magistrates and, later, Italian Fascism (something close to Fox News art critic Glenn Beck's heart).

One of the most imaginative portraits in the show is made up of black tension wire sprouting from a common base like a groundswell, swirling and twisting upward to form Obama's likeness in profile. Similar in feeling to gesture drawing, artist Michael Murphy's wire sculpture is free and expressionistic in tone, yet visually complex.

A Disney-like Snow White character makes an appearance in Gary Baseman's painting Hope. Suspended in a nebulous pink void amid an array of what look like balloons, the elegantly dressed cartoon figure is carried aloft by two white doves that look a lot like Loplop, the birdlike alter ego of German surrealist Max Ernst.

Another work that does not depict Obama but is representative of the values he promoted during the campaign is Unlimited Love, an ink on scratchboard by Cathie Bleck. "This particular piece was initially commissioned by the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love," Bleck told Pasatiempo via e-mail from her studio in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. "This art exhibition was to be a celebration of those values Obama celebrated, and it was in that context that I was approached."

Bleck's style is both stark and graphic, much in the manner of work by American artist, illustrator, and social activist Rockwell Kent from the 1930s and 1940s. "I was inspired by Kent's work when I first began working in the medium of scratchboard 20 years ago and began collecting his books, prints, seeking out his paintings in museums and reading his writings," Bleck said. In the book, she explains the meaning of Unlimited Love: "Inspired by a recurring medieval symbol called the 'Wheel of Fortune,' it represents the concept that if we are attached as a community to the rim of the wheel of fortune, we will be either above going down or at the bottom coming up. ... At the center glows a sun or moon symbolizing bliss, which is found through the affirmation of others and rejection of selfishness."

Only a few artists in Art for Obama have accompanying statements about their work. But for many, their imagery alone is statement enough. Those statements and the obvious references to work by other, more established artists, living and dead, make the book an enjoyable read. It's also gratifying to know that artists flocked together as one voice, one mind, in furthering a cause in which they believed. As an exhibition and an event, Manifest Hope stands as one of the most thematic and politically motivated shows in recent history and, by some accounts, helped secure the presidency for Obama. As always, art is a wondrous and powerful force.