Triple Trouble – Hirst, Fairey, Invader – Newport Street Gallery, London, October 2025 – The Saturday afternoon after all the hype of the open night a couple of days before. A three artist show and well, that giant ashtray is just awful, awful on so so many levels, it stinks the place out in more than just the one obvious way of actually really doing so. Why? What did they imagine it said? Did they think it was punk rock? We smoke fags, aren’t we cool! Aren’t we oh so Punk Rock just like Sid or Iggy.

Nothing about this show says punk rock, they may be rather desperately trying to claimed it does, indeed they have more than once in interviews and statements ahead of the opening, but this is about as punk rock as an orange haired Donald Trump on a pogo stick. I know what this show says to me. What this says to me, and especially that giant ashtray, is what a sad set of utter washed up tired has-been wankers. Normally, I’d just let it go, there’s far too much exciting art to go see and write about to be wasting time and space on something of this nature, I really don’t have time to be negative about an art show like this, I really don’t have the time or space to clutter up with this. It isn’t that this show annoys or angers, it isn’t that it provokes, it really isn’t good enough to do any of those things, I almost want to to say if ever a show needed one of Emma Harvey’s Fuck Your Boys Club canvases on the wall but really does it even earn the right to be dignified with that? This is surely one the most pathetic art exhibitions in a long long time. No, not one of of the worst, it isn’t interesting enough to be honoured as one of the worst, the reality it is just loads of ‘stuff’, endless ‘stuff’. Brands, three tired brands trying to say gawd knows what.. 

And what are those triptychs of pieces trying to say? The one featuring the three boys club artists, and there just along the wall, a few steps along, mirroring the first three, portraits of Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and (is that supposed to be) David Bowie? Or is it supposed to be yer man out of the new York Dolls?it is hard to tell, but really, are Hirst, Fairey and Invader serious trying to compare themselves with those three? I mean, come on! Who the flip do they think they are? Piss takers. This is an utter car crash of an exhibition. And while we’re wondering, are they trying to line themselves up with Sid Vicious as well!? Why is there a big photo of Sid on the wall along with the other images if him? Are they want to be seen alongside Johnny Cash? And was that really them surrounding their own portraits with Bob Marley, Oscar Wilde and gawd knows who else? Are they really trying to tell us that’s who they are? Three more of the boys? Are they having a giraffe?! Bleedin’ ell! (Actually the portrait of Shephard Fairey had someone standing next to me asking what Elon Musk what doing up there in a slightly horrified voice).  

I guess we kind of expect it of Mr. Hirst these days, I really don’t know much about Invader other than that spotting one of his Space Invaders semi hidden high up on a wall was fun for a Warholian fifteen minutes or so somewhere back there in the last century. Shephard Fairey we (maybe?) could have expect a little more of? I thought I had respect for Shephard as an artist, maybe I was wrong? Why did he allow himself to be dragged down to this level? Or should we ask why did he allow his brand to be dragged down to all this? For that is what this show is, these brands, three rather tired brands that have probably had their day in terms of art, not the art market, had it in terms of art. In terms of the art market and the whole sordid money game no doubt this show will be seen as a rousing success and we’ll be told everything on the walls has already sold, most of it will quietly go into some mysterious storage houses, giant warehouses near airports, left there somewhere alongside Hirst’s recent jizz paintings that they claimed sold instantly at Frieze a couple of years back, just assets on an inventory, justt money stuff. One or two will maybe actually be properly sold to the tasteless rich art collecting sheep to hang in their Dubai towers and the prices for Hirst’s work will remain as over inflated and as protected as the market has had them for years (no, can’t let the price drop, can’t admit it was all the emperors clothing, can’t let our assets and investments drop in value)   

Must admit, for it does feel like admittance now, confession, I must confess I really was an admirer of Shepherd Fairey’s work, his graphic suss. All very slick and photoshop yes I know, by his beautifully understated palette, as a somewhat polite graphic designer, as a pop artist or whatever he is now (or was before he was forever tainted by this show), I’ve enjoy his more recent work and once again in here in, this show, some of his work, when it is away from the work of the other two, is, on a surface level, it is beautiful to look at and yes, true, he hasn’t been on the cutting edge for years (was he ever?) but as pieces of beautifully coloured mostly-harmless graphic design, as good looking eye candy, his work is rather nice. But now there’s all those dots and “pretty” patterns and the wallpaper repeats of those space invaders all over (or under) his work and and well, oh dear! Can’t ever un-see any of that now. Did Fairey really think an Obey logo over those dreadful spin paintings was in any kind of way a good idea? Actually that Obey stuff has always been crap hasn’t it, Camden Market naff? If it wasn’t then it really is surely tainted now?    

And we round the corner and there’s an Invader as cow or shark in a tank of formaldehyde and oh dear! Seriously? OH DEAR! Did I just see that? Did I REALLY just see that?! What the hell?   

And those tedious red spot paintings that surely he should be past by now are mirrored by the security company car that’s driving around the streets outside the gallery… Invader’s emergency exit sign is amusing for a moment, his Invader it the railway bridge over the road… And there’s more of those detestable pulled-off butterfly wings, and more walls of more invaders, more Sid Vicious nonsense, more rooms full of it, and more walls of invaders, and more Obey spin paintings, more and more stuff, more rooms full of it, endless, stuff, brands, sell it now, everything must go… This really is boys club embarrassment (although you do wonder how many females did the actual hands on work in the studio, who did the actual hands on artwork while these three did the jerking off? As Rikki Nadir once yelled “Look at these jerks!”. Ah yes, a whole load of jerking off and there’s more of Hirst’s jizz-covered flower paintings only this time they’ve covered in Invaders as well…  

Punk rock? The whole thing feels like three well past their sell by date bloated stadium rock bands all touring together trying to make a last buck and hold on to a last bit of dignity long since lost; Hirst as a fat bloated tired auto-tuned Whitesnake, Fairey as a grey haired going through the motions Foreigner with only two original members left in the band if you include the drummer who played on that one album way after the hits had dried up and then there’s Invader as Europe opening the bill with his one hit wonder of a Final space invader Countdown repeated endlessly on a wall. Here I go again on my own, going down the only road I’ve ever know… Punk Rock? Don’t make me laugh mate. Everything about this bloated show is awful. (sw)     

Find the show at Newport Street, Vauxhall, South London it goes on until next year, you can look it up if you want to…

if you msut then here’s jsut a small slide show of the stuff, there was so much more of it… Click on an image to enlarge and see the full horror of it all (we go to these things so you don’t have to)