While painting and printmaking remain central to their approach, over the past decade FAILE has adapted its signature mass culture-driven iconography to an array of materials and techniques, from wooden boxes and window pallets to more traditional canvas, prints, sculptures, stencils, installation, and prayer wheels.
Separated in 1996 when Miller remained in art school in Minneapolis and McNeil continued to New York, by the end of the decade, the duo reconnected and, with the addition of then artist Aiko Nakagawa (born 1975, Tokyo, JP), "A Life" was conceived.
During the early years of their career, influenced by contemporaries Shepard Fairey, BAST, and WK Interact, FAILE generated both a process of assemblage and urban circulation, and consistent visual cues and themes.
The overlap between FAILE's art practice and design background was pronounced during this early period, and found them collaborating on clothing and shoe lines (including Paper Denim, Comme des Garcons, and Pro-Keds), and music projects, as well as work on the street.
"[5] This first phase of FAILE's career was markedly experimental and varied—constant travel, a lack of studio space, and a rapidly evolving process meant that work was made for (and usually at) specific sites, from Manhattan to London and Tokyo.
"[15] Inclusion in the Tate show, which received widespread media attention and reached a large public, brought FAILE more fully into the international spotlight and further established them as one of the most recognizable names in an increasingly globalized and multi-platform art world.
The work within the exhibition derived much of its force from ironic juxtapositions, such as a reworking of the American flag in the style of a Navajo ceramic in the acrylic on canvas Star Spangled Shadows, and the textual interplay on the prayer wheels of phrases like "In search of sacred" and roadside advertisements for "cold beer" and "snacks."
At other times, the work is more explicit, depicting a suit-wearing kachina figure amidst the backdrop of a pulp serial promising "A Betrayal Story," in the painting of the same name, or implying an alternate America in It Could be Beautiful.
[19] Consistent FAILE themes such as the Challenger shuttle and urban signage were featured alongside new figures and decorative elements derived from traditional figurines and baskets, as well as appropriated 20th-century imagery and pictures from the American southwest.
[20] From 12 February to 27 March on Greek Street in London, and again from 30 April to 27 May 2010, on artist BAST to produce an installation dubbed Deluxx Fluxx, comprising custom-made, operational arcade games and a foosball table.
The entire salon at 158 Allen St. and the arcade cabinets therein were wheatpasted by FAILE and BAST, and blurred the line between the traditional "white cube" method of art display and the commercial operation of a gaming parlor.
"[23] In so doing, Deluxx Fluxx obscured the lines between artist and consumer, and viewer and participant in an attempt to recapture the recent history of the Lower East Side as a haven for anti-elitist art practices such as graffiti and punk rock.
Temple brought together a variety of earlier motifs—street art vernacular, prayer wheels, and a dualistic interest in the globalization of commerce and new forms of spiritual immanence—with the site specific concerns of working in an historically Catholic country.
Familiar FAILE images appear in relief (an update on 15th-century Florentine sculptor Luca Della Robia), the previously 2-D "Scuba Horse" was realized as a sculptural fountain, and the white, blue, and gold color palette was a nod towards the Portuguese landscape.
[26] Temple marked FAILE's first contribution to the international festival circuit, and brought their practice full circle, taking high concept studio art back to an accessible, urban setting.
In the fall of 2012, FAILE worked with the Tiger Translate program to construct a massive (15 ft. high) public sculpture at the National Garden Park complex on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, the capitol of Mongolia.
Of the installation, the Village Voice argued that the project signaled the emergence of the internet generation into a bastion of elite culture, and that it effectively connected "relatable populist imagery with the most rigid of bourgeois arts.
At the Brooklyn Museum, signature arcade cabinets were complemented by new FAILE-designed pinball machines that were (like their digital counterparts) fully interactive and cultivated a sense of play and leisure within the otherwise "white cube" space of the gallery.
Throughout their work and your imagination and assumed role, you may be villain, distressed damsel, wolfman, fairey, vandal, wrestler, hot-rodder, madonna, whore, supplicant, avenger, surfing horse or simply an arcade hero who is whiling away windowless hours punching buttons, popping flippers and pumping FAILE tokens into tantalizing art machines.
Hung salon style, Strong Currents brought together a range of studio-based works, and featured familiar motifs such as the reclining "wolf man" and the geometric American flag from the Lost in Glimmering Shadows era.
In them, FAILE emphasized vibrant color, broad expanses, and more evident brushwork, as in a multihued bouquet of flowers on a white background, or the show's centerpiece, a woman and her horse at rest in an open field.
For this exhibition, FAILE also applied black-and-white pieces directly to the walls of the Springmann Gallery, and created a literal stage marked off by a diamond-shaped portal that framed a woman in a bandanna strumming a guitar.
In 2017, FAILE visited Strasbourg and studied its local lore, ultimately writing a poem to be illustrated by a series of massive black-and-white panels on the exterior of the Musée d'Art moderne et contemporain.
[43] The museum's site notes that text and images are epic in tone and rich in metaphor but connect to local luminaries from Marie-Antoinette to Hans Arp, as well as important geographical features like the Rhine River.
"[48] FAILE's work with tile murals is ongoing, and they have executed a range of custom projects in Southern California, including a home in Venice (2017)[49] and a low-slung building in the downtown Arts District, Los Angeles (2018).
For example, for a public installation in Orange County's Playa District (2018), FAILE created a slate of bespoke patterns suited to the area, tessellated layouts derived from film reels, the coastal landscape, deco design, and indigenous craft.
"[53] In this sense, Deluxx Fluxx is simultaneously an interactive art project and an active performance venue, the space hosts DJ nights focused on Detroit genres (soul, techno) and national acts (e.g. Avey Tare, Chromeo).
Although street art is a consistent aspect of FAILE's practice (in concrete terms and as a source of inspiration), the post-2005 period has permitted them to work more slowly, generating thematically driven suites (War Profitees; Lost in Glimmering Shadows),[59] small print runs, and increasingly three-dimensional media, from arcade cabinets, salvaged wood, and large-scale casting.
[61] While there is not an explicitly partisan or anti-capitalist edge to this type of work, it is structurally a political act in its flouting of laws, embrace of punk-rock and hip-hop aesthetics, and function as a means of populist or direct to the masses expression.
"[64] The openness of meaning and emphasis on the experience of the viewer marks a shared affinity with both the anti-elitist impulses of recent street art,[65] and the more institutional ideas of site specificity and relational aesthetics.