Art world’s ‘troublemakers’ Shepard Fairey, Damien Hirst and Invader put on ‘joyful’ London show

LONDON – They come from a world of underground, even subversive, art, but American activist Shepard Fairey has joined forces with Britain’s Damien Hirst and French street artist Invader with a “joyful” exhibition to show that even in dark times, there is always hope.

“We all see ourselves as troublemakers because we have been,” said Fairey ahead of the Oct 10 opening of a new London exhibition of the three men’s individual works, as well as unique hybrid pieces combining elements of all their different styles.

The exhibition, titled Triple Trouble and held at Newport Street Gallery, took some 18 months to put together and was “born from us all liking each other’s work”, said Fairey. The exhibition ends in March 2026.

He shot to global fame when he designed the iconic Hope poster for the 2008 United States presidential campaign of Mr Barack Obama – elected the United States’ first African-American president.

Fairey’s street art piece created after the 2015 Paris attacks, featuring the French national symbol Marianne, hangs in the office of French President Emmanuel Macron.

English painter and sculptor Hirst, who has dominated the contemporary art scene in Britain since the 1990s, is known for provocative works examining death, including animals such as pickled sharks or a bisected cow displayed in a tank of formaldehyde.

Hirst’s works can now command prices stretching into millions of dollars.

Invader is a French urban artist who guards his anonymity behind masks. His mosaics, based on the pixellated art of the original 1978 video game Space Invaders, inhabit city walls worldwide.

The three friends began some time ago to think of working collaboratively.

Fairey said: “I think often artists are seen as very egotistical and unwilling to share or collaborate easily, but this was a joyful process.”

“In this moment of division culturally, the idea that even people as difficult as artists can come together, it’s a nice sentiment,” he added.

“We all proposed ideas to one another. A lot of the pieces were shipped back and forth between our studios. But I think the spirit of the work, if anyone looks around, it’s joyful, it’s playful.”

In the large and airy Newport Street Gallery, all the works on display have been revisited.

In one of Fairey’s paintings, The Flames Of Discontent, a leather-jacketed young woman painted in his distinctive poster style walking into fire is accompanied by Hirst’s butterflies and Invader’s instantly recognisable space-invader characters.

“I’ve always embraced what I call the inside outside strategy. Punk rock, graffiti and hip-hop were influences for me,” said Fairey, adding that skateboarding, like the other genres, is counterculture.

“My idea was, if you can infiltrate the system and change it for the better within – that’s actually a really amazing bit of subversion and detriment.”

But with their artistic success, other questions have arisen.

“What’s authentic, what’s too commercial? These are things that anyone who has a career arc where they go from not being well-known to being well-known has to consider,” Fairey said. “For me, it’s always been about maintaining my principles.”

He acknowledged that since the hope that accompanied the first flushes of Mr Obama’s presidency, “we’re seeing a backslide now”.

However, he chooses to stay optimistic. Pointing to Berlin’s support for the arts and renewable energy, he said: “I think there’s always hope to be had, because even a place that has had some of the darkest, most cruel moments in our history like Germany, it is now a very progressive place.” AFP