Gauntlet Gallery
What is Shepard Fairey’s piece called “People's Discontent”?
Artist Statement
I teamed up with my good friend and documentary photographer, Martha Cooper, on a new print release called "People's Discontent." Martha Cooper has been photographing creative kids in action on city streets since the mid-1970s. I remixed one of Martha's iconic photos from her book, Street Play, titled "Hitchhiking a Bus on Houston Street" that she shot in 1978 in the Lower East Side of New York City. There was no advertisement on the back of the bus in her original photo, and since disco was the rage in the late '70s, I thought it made sense for me to add a disco radio station with the slogan, "Listen To The Sounds of People's Disco." I added the "DISCO-ntent" and the spraypaint can in the kid's hand as if he sprayed that on there. It's a nod to that era but also to what's going on now with the unrest around social justice issues. This limited edition print was first released through Urban Nation Museum in Berlin as part of their current show "Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures" curated by Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington of Brooklyn Street Art and will soon be up on my website this Thursday at 10 AM PT. Check it out! – Shepard Fairey People's Discontent. 24 x 18 inches. Screenprint on thick cream Speckletone paper. Original illustration based on a photograph by Martha Cooper. Signed by Shepard Fairey. Numbered edition of 550. $85.
Summary
People's Discontent is a 2021 Shepard Fairey screen print published by Obey Giant, measuring 24 x 18 inches on thick cream Speckletone paper, signed and numbered in an edition of 550. The image is an original illustration based on a 1978 photograph by documentary photographer Martha Cooper titled "Hitchhiking a Bus on Houston Street," shot in New York's Lower East Side. Fairey remixed the scene, adding a disco radio-station ad reading "Listen To The Sounds of People's Disco," a "DISCO-ntent" slogan, and a spray-paint can in the child's hand. The work first released through Urban Nation Museum in Berlin as part of its Martha Cooper exhibition.
Why It Matters
People's Discontent is significant as a documented collaboration with Martha Cooper, a foundational figure in street and graffiti photography, built directly on one of her iconic 1978 Street Play images. Fairey's intervention, layering a fictional disco station, the "DISCO-ntent" wordplay, and a spray-paint can onto a child's candid street moment, turns a period photograph into a commentary that bridges late-1970s New York energy with present-day unrest over social justice. That double timeframe is the heart of the piece: it honors the creative, improvisational street culture Cooper spent decades recording while pointing at contemporary discontent. The print's first release through the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin, as part of "Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures" curated by Brooklyn Street Art's Jaime Rojo and Steven Harrington, situates it within an institutional celebration of Cooper's legacy, adding provenance value beyond a routine drop. For collectors and researchers, the explicit credit to a named source photograph and a named exhibition makes this a richly contextual entry, distinguishing it from prints that exist only as standalone images. It also exemplifies Fairey's remix practice, transforming existing documentary material into new graphic statements.
Collector Perspective
This print draws collectors interested in the intersection of street photography and street art, particularly admirers of Martha Cooper's documentary legacy. The narrative density, a real 1978 photo reworked with disco-era and present-day cues, gives it strong storytelling appeal for those who like prints with a clear backstory. Its Urban Nation exhibition origin adds provenance that museum-minded collectors value. Visually, the 24 x 18 horizontal composition and the playful "DISCO-ntent" twist make it lively and conversation-driving on a wall. At an edition of 550 it is reasonably available among Fairey's signed screen prints, making it accessible to mid-level collectors. It fits naturally into groupings focused on collaboration, social-justice themes, or Fairey's photo-based remixes.
Historical Context
People's Discontent sits within Fairey's ongoing practice of collaborating with and remixing established photographers, here Martha Cooper, whose mid-1970s-onward documentation of street creativity helped define the visual record of early hip-hop and graffiti culture. By reworking her 1978 "Hitchhiking a Bus on Houston Street" image, Fairey links his own lineage in street-based art to its documentary roots. The print debuted in late 2021 through the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin alongside Cooper's exhibition, reflecting how Fairey's editions increasingly tied to institutional shows and curatorial partnerships during this period. The added disco-station motif and social-justice framing show his habit of collapsing past and present to comment on continuity in cultural unrest. Within his arc, it belongs to a cluster of justice-themed 2020-2022 releases that pair pointed messaging with collaborative or photo-sourced imagery.
FAQ
Who is the print based on?
People's Discontent is an original illustration based on a 1978 photograph by documentary photographer Martha Cooper, titled "Hitchhiking a Bus on Houston Street," shot in the Lower East Side of New York. Fairey remixed the image as a collaboration honoring Cooper's decades of street photography.
What did Fairey add to Cooper's original image?
Per his statement, Fairey added a disco radio-station advertisement reading "Listen To The Sounds of People's Disco" on the back of the bus, the "DISCO-ntent" wordplay, and a spray-paint can in the child's hand, nodding to the late-'70s disco era while referencing present-day unrest around social justice.
Where was this print first released?
It was first released through the Urban Nation Museum in Berlin as part of the exhibition "Martha Cooper: Taking Pictures," curated by Jaime Rojo and Steven P. Harrington of Brooklyn Street Art, before going up on Fairey's website.
What are its size and edition details?
People's Discontent measures 24 x 18 inches, is a screenprint on thick cream Speckletone paper, is signed by Shepard Fairey, and is a numbered edition of 550. Its original issue price was $85.
Related Works
About the Artist
Shepard Fairey (b. 1970, Charleston, South Carolina) is an American street artist, graphic designer, and activist, and a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. His 1989 “André the Giant Has a Posse” sticker grew into the global OBEY GIANT campaign — an ongoing experiment in propaganda, obedience, and visual culture. He reached worldwide recognition with the 2008 “Hope” portrait of Barack Obama, now held by the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Across screen prints, stencils, murals, and collage, Fairey channels propaganda aesthetics toward themes of peace, justice, environmentalism, and civil rights. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and LACMA.