It’s the kind of cultural exchange any diplomat would savor: A prominent American street artist paints a mural, dedicated to the cause of climate activism, on an apartment building in one of London’s hippest neighborhoods.
Jane D. Hartley, the United States ambassador to Britain, who proposed the idea to the artist Shepard Fairey, has a track record in these projects. When she was ambassador to Paris from 2014 to 2017, she asked another well-known American artist, Jeff Koons, to create a sculpture to honor victims of terrorist attacks there.
But when Ms. Hartley was on her way to the dedication ceremony for this latest project on Monday morning, she got word that a small band of pro-Palestinian demonstrators had gathered in the Shoreditch neighborhood, beneath the red-and-blue mural, which rises four floors above the street.
They began chanting anti-American slogans and unfurling banners calling for justice for the Palestinians in Gaza — a message that seemed even more fraught than usual, given the timing on the first anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel.
It was another example of how the Israel-Gaza conflict has reverberated around the world, fueling protests, large and small, on college campuses, city squares,and in this case, in a normally tranquil neighborhood.
Ms. Hartley’s security team diverted her car, while Mr. Fairey, who was on hand to greet her, hurriedly relocated with embassy staff members to a nearby café. He seemed bemused by the disruption, noting that much of his work has a protest element, even if his patron on this project was a government official.
“I’m on their side,” Mr. Fairey said of the protesters, noting that he had created an image based on a Palestinian child for UnMute Gaza, a project that supports photojournalists in Gaza. But he added that his view of the conflict was “nuanced,” and that disrupting this event seemed a poor use of the protesters’ time.
Mr. Fairey defended taking the commission from Ms. Hartley, whom the protesters branded an agent of the “genocidal” Biden administration. “To be asked to paint a mural on a social justice theme by a member of the U.S. government is a very exciting thing,” he said.
The protesters saw it differently. “Shepard Fairey, Ambassador, we’re disrupting your business and we’ll keep disrupting your business until we get justice for the Palestinians,” one shouted through a megaphone,
They declined to say how they had heard about the ceremony, which the embassy did not widely publicize. It had invited local residents, prompting speculation — or as one resident put it, “a murder mystery” — about whether one of them had tipped off the protest group, “Health Workers and Allies for Palestine.”
Ms. Hartley said she first bridled at the idea of turning around and leaving. “I’m a believer in free speech,” she said.
But she said she recognized that her presence could further agitate the protesters, who later gathered around two of her female aides in the street, prompting them to retreat back into the restaurant.
“Mostly, I was just sad,” Ms. Hartley said. “I did not want to exacerbate something that was meant to be a triumph for Shepard.”
The protesters did not disturb the mural, which was financed by the Ford Foundation and features a large flower above a set of scales. Mr. Fairey said the flower was meant to symbolize health and the environment while the scales represented the social injustice created by climate change.
Perhaps best known for his “Hope” portrait of Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, Mr. Fairey re-emerged recently with a portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris, under the banner “Forward.” Mr. Fairey said he met Ms. Hartley at an exhibit of street art at the Saatchi Gallery in London last year, and she proposed the project.
Ms. Hartley, a former media executive who is well-connected in political and art circles, is no stranger to cultural controversy: It took three years to find a site for Mr. Koons’ monumental sculpture, “Bouquet of Tulips,” during which French critics debated the merits of the project, as well as the artist’s motives.
“This was a combination of people who wanted to do the right thing,” she said of Mr. Fairey’s mural. “Today maybe wasn’t the day for it.”
The post In London, a Pro-Palestinian Protest Disrupts the Launch of an American Mural appeared first on New York Times.
