There’s a new mural on the outside of Mesa Arts Center, and the artist behind it was recently part of a controversy surrounding an exhibit inside the gallery. LA-based artist and activist Shepard Fairey says his piece, called “Interdependent Nature” expresses two, somewhat overlapping messages: one around environmental responsibility and the other about peace.
But in 2023, the opening of an exhibit of Fairey’s work at Mesa Arts Center was delayed by a month. A city official wanted one of the pieces in the show removed, over fears it’d be controversial with police. The print was ultimately allowed to stay, but the center’s former chief curator filed a lawsuit against the city, in part over allegations of censorship and violations of First Amendment rights.
Fairey joined The Show to discuss his thinking behind doing the mural at Mesa Arts Center, and what appealed to him about the project.
Full conversation
SHEPARD FAIREY: Well, I love doing large-scale public works because it allows my art to engage with the public that doesn’t necessarily go into a place like the Mesa Arts Center or a gallery or any other museum. Those places are sometimes intimidating for people who don’t have an art background or strong art knowledge. So I think that the opportunity to communicate with people is really valuable on that scale.
Then also, because I had been included in a significant show at the Mesa Arts Center, there was a connection into what I call my inside-outside philosophy, which means that I like to work outside the system. I’ve done a lot of street art that wasn’t legal. I’ve done a lot of things that were self-produced, DIY things, but I also work with institutions and corporations to infiltrate the system.
And this sort of shows the multiple dimensions of that approach. Considering also that my work was almost removed from that show at the Mesa Arts Center. Yet the Mesa Arts Center staff, as well as a lot of the public and my fellow artists that were in the show, stood up for keeping my work in the show.
It’s a bit of a triumph, I think, that my work is now adorning the exterior of the space — even though they were allies the whole time. But due to some friction with the police, there was a controversy there.
And I’m a big believer that art can stir up really difficult conversations, but it can also get people talking. And I think it functioned that way in this. So it’s symbolic of my entire thought process behind my work and what I’m hoping it can achieve.
MARK BRODIE: Was there ever any thought in your mind, given what happened during that exhibition, to not doing the mural?
FAIREY: Well, my thought was, if I’m able to do with the mural what I believe in — which is to make imagery that has my point of view without being outright censored — then I still want to do it.
I don’t think that being offended by disagreement and then deciding to be uncooperative or being paralyzed by that, I don’t think that helps anything ever in any situation in the world. So I certainly didn’t want to be part of a mindset that I’m trying to encourage people to avoid. On my own part.
BRODIE: Well it’s interesting. It seems like it would have been easy to either say, “Yeah, no, I’m good based on our history” or to say, “OK, I’ll do it” and then — not literally, of course, but sort of figuratively — paint a middle finger, as it were, as part of the mural. It seems like you chose neither of those things.
FAIREY: Yeah. You’re right. I wanted to work with the Arts Center, knowing that they have a lot of pressure to make sure that the community best interest is taken into account. And — believe it or not, for having been somewhat of a provocateur throughout my career — the community best interest is exactly why I do everything I do.
I sometimes think that that means that you have to shake people up a little bit, but other times I think that finding common ground is important. And with this mural, I was able to find common ground with the Mesa Arts Center and the city, where I was able to convey what I wanted and they were.
Mesa has a climate action plan. There is an interest in making sure that the natural environment is considered, that the future for people and the consequences of climate change are taken into consideration. That’s a big theme for me. So that was some easy common ground for us to find.
There was one small alteration to the mural that I made that they requested. I had a factory with this ominous black smoke in one of the geometric compartments of the mural. And they said that that felt very negative in the midst of something that mostly felt very positive, and they’d prefer if it wasn’t there.
And that was a compromise I could make, even though I felt that the contrast between the positive and the ominous factory made what’s at stake even more compelling. I still think that the mural is conveying what I want and powerful as it stands.
BRODIE: So you described yourself as an artist and an activist, and I wonder, how would you describe the state of activist art or protest? Where is it right now?
FAIREY: Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s as robust as it was in 2016-2017, right after Trump was elected the first time. I think that people maybe are regrouping because a lot of the things that we thought were shattering norms that a piece of art could push back against have now become the norm. So in a way, the antidotes aren’t obvious.
I’m feeling that. I know a lot of other artists I’ve talked to are feeling that. I I can’t speak for the state of activist art in a complete sense, because I don’t know everything that’s out there.
But what I do believe is that the kind of art that is meant to push back using some of the same rhetoric and anger and, I guess, very short-lived ideas that is the way that the people I’d consider the oppressors are communicating. I don’t think that’s the solution. So I’m looking always at ways that, yes, I can point out where there are things that need to be fixed, criticize them but also point to solutions.
And I don’t want to amplify the us-versus-them approach. I’m looking for things that largely we can be united behind.
BRODIE: So has all of that led you to rethink the way that you create art or maybe the subject that you take on, or the way that you try to get across what you’re trying to get across?
FAIREY: Not fundamentally. If you’re talking about how I’ve shifted since Trump was reelected, I have been evolving my strategies and diversifying my strategies for many years. I’ve been doing this kind of work for 35 years now.
So when I was younger, I was antagonistic because I was just realizing my power to say, “I don’t agree with everything going on.” And then I evolved to want to look at not just criticizing things, but presenting alternative ideas. And now I really look at just as much how I can seduce people to contemplate something challenging rather than provoking them.
So this is something that I consider in a very empathetic way, that even people I disagree with — who, in my opinion, might be voting against their own interests — are feeling anxious and upset for reasons that one can relate to. But I just don’t agree with how they’ve been manipulated into thinking the certain causes they believe in are legitimate.
