We’re not even mentioning that the bracketing of Occupy Wall Street, various revolutionary uprisings abroad and Russia’s post-election protests into one group, or rather, one person, might be well-intended and topical, but comes off as a generalizing cheat move and a transparent attempt at pandering. Ok, yes, we are mentioning that.

This just isn’t a good look for OWS. Los Angeles Times critic Christopher Knight puts it concisely:

“The style oozes cozy, collectible nostalgia. On the cover of Time, the schmaltzy result trivializes the portentous power — and authentic potential — of the “Arab spring,” Occupy Wall Street and whatever might-or-might-not be breaking now in Russia. Questioning authority never looked more corporate and conventional.”

“…Going right behind my desk. It’s my first art purchase!”
“You’ve bought art before.”
“I know but this is not a print. It’s an original… I know, right?”
“I’m so happy for you!”
Huggyhuggy kissykissy.
“All your hard work is finally paying off.”
“Thank you.”
Enter father-suit character.
“Did you see this?”
“I see this. That is…”
“The first piece in your son’s art collection!”
“That’s a… Shepard Fairey original, isn’t it? The price tag for one of these is usually in the thousands. Don’t you think you’re getting a little bit ahead of yourself?”

Yeah, hot shot, maybe you should have picked yourself up a bargain Obey™ pillow instead.

Since the left-leaning activists were evicted by the government in 2007, the sore sight and surroundings of the former Jagtvej 69 Youth House is covered with graffiti, but judging by the “Go home Yankee hipster” wall insignia, Peace was not welcome from the beginning. Judging by the ongoing methodical vandalism, the Fairey-purging ritual will only continue — just like it did in NYC last year. (Photos: Hyperallergic)

Shepard said one of the young men who instigated the fight was “maybe 19 or 20,” and set things off by yelling, “Obama illuminati, fuck you, go back to America” at him.

When the police showed up, he decided not to even bother filing a report, since he couldn’t really identify them, but also because he didn’t want to sound like a pussy or lose what’s left of his street cred. He writes:

I’m not a huge fan of the cops anyway. The only thing I could see coming out of it was further media commentary like ‘street artist whiner Shepard Fairey can’t hold it down in a fight so he snitches to the cops’.

A few days before this altercation, it was one of his seven murals that took a beating. The locals weren’t feeling his olive-branch themed wall at the site of Jagtvej 69 or “Youth House,” a place historically bustling with left leaning activists before they were evicted and it was torn down by city officials in 2007, and so they threw paint bombs at it and wrote “Go home Yankee hipster.”

Fairey believes the media might be to blame for falsely reporting that the work he was installing at the contentious location was placating propaganda, commissioned by the same city responsible for the demolition of “Youth House.” Then again, he’s the one that painted the words “PEACE” juxtaposed with the number “69″ at the spot, which is a direct reference to the former radical stronghold.

He quickly restored it and asked more artists to contribute, adding a new scene at the bottom, but that got blasted as well and Shepard has no plans on fixing it at this point:

All’s well that ends well right! Not so fast… things were peaceful for a few days, but the mural was fire extinguisher bombed last night. Like I said, I tried to work out a positive solution for the wall and I can only control my own actions, not the actions of others. I have always understood that street art is nothing to be precious about. The fate of the mural is out of my hands now, but I’m sad that such a great piece by the RaxArt guys was attacked. It was clearly a piece about social justice and I find the attack senselessly barbaric. It’s not the first time I’ve encountered hostilities, but this is one of the most dramatic, and I’d say demoralizing if I even let that possibility exist.

(Before and after mural photos: Arrested Motion)

It’s that they both really, really hate “phonies,” right?

Shep on his politicized art… from the heart:

So it’s at once very personal but also very political in a lot of ways. It seems rendered personally but speaks to broader political concerns. Absolutely. Whether its reading “Catcher in the Rye” and seeing this character who feels directionless in life but bears some wit and observational skill, or something else, now I know how to describe how I feel. I feel like Holden Caulfield. Some of these references are more popular and some of them are more deep or political. But trying to make feelings that are personal to me more universal is incredibly important because I know other people feel the same things. I’m trying to communicate this through imagery all the time. So there is this mixture of the personal and political.

Shepard Fairey also says he’s still waiting for the Obama people to contact him, but he’s not doing Prez campaign posters anymore, and it has to be issues-based work and they have to ask him.