When ARTINFO spoke with Shepard Fairey this week, he took a moment to vent about the usual coverage of him in the media: that it’s sensationalist and attention-grabbing, and lures people in with flashy headlines and drama (Fairey’s a Plagiarist! Fairey Arrested!). But is what the increasingly popular artist, currently being celebrated in a touring midcareer retrospective now at the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, does with his art — distractingly graphic, alluring, and oh so easy on the eye — so different? He admits here that he uses his skills as an artist to bring to people’s attention issues they might not have explored on their own. The distinction, perhaps, is that while the media are trying to “get eyeballs on” their products, as he says, Fairey really does seem motivated by ideals (that public space should be reclaimed from advertisers) and causes (in the last year he’s done work for everything from MoveOn.org to Feeding America to Adopt-a-Pet) rather than profit or fame. Not that he hasn’t earned both.

His latest project is a poster, created in the same style as his ubiquitous Obama Hope image, of Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese dissident and rightful, democratically elected leader of the Southeast Asian country, who is currently under house arrest, and has been in and out of house arrest and prison since 1988. ARTINFO spoke to Fairey about the poster, the cause, and the power of art.

How did you get involved with Aung San Suu Kyi’s cause?

I heard through a friend that Jack Healey, head of the Human Rights Action Center, was making this big push to raise awareness about Aung San Suu Kyi. I had a peripheral knowledge of the situation, and I’ve done work related to the genocide in Darfur, and a lot of people had said that it’s sort of the underreported Darfur, so I met with him and said I’d be happy to work on it.

Everything that Suu Kyi embodies is very positive; she’s a symbol. The monks in Burma who were nonviolently protesting were violently suppressed — it’s an oppressive regime, and the word needs to get out. I think there aren’t quite the same ingredients to inspire the dramatic level of interest that’s happened in other places — like Iran, where there’s the nuclear weapons issue and also oil — but it’s equally important.

What effect do you think your poster might have on raising awareness?

The power of art is that it makes people wonder what the motivation behind it was. Suu Kyi is a very beautiful woman who I think physically embodies what she stands for philosophically — optimism and a passion — and I tried to convey that with my image. I’m trying at least to shed light on the issue for my audience, though I hope it will become viral and do more than that.

I imagine that a lot of people who follow you and your work are not familiar with Suu Kyi’s story.

I definitely think that’s true, and that’s the great thing about art. In life, it seems like people would rather have the pleasurable escapism — eat the junk food rather than the vegetables — but with art, you can make an image that people are attracted to purely for aesthetic reasons that might lead to an investigation with a little more substance.

Some people say that I oversimplify complex things and make a nifty poster and try to be cool. That’s a very pessimistic viewpoint, but also I think it’s not accurate to say that most people want to find out about issues because they actually give a shit and want to expand their minds. They need to develop an association with something on their own terms, and then decide to investigate, rather than being told, “This is what you should care about.”

Can you tell me a little bit about the imagery that you used here?

I chose to license an image as the reference, which I embellished a bit, from Reuters.

Not from the AP?

No, not the AP [laughs]. I chose not to create any legal complications based on the source photo.

In the work, she’s wearing the national flower of Burma, which is the golden flower, and I also saw some references where she had a rose in her hair, so I added both. I also took cues from some of the pro-democracy, pro-freedom Burmese posters where the dove of peace is a fairly pervasive symbol. I really just tried to make it about the idea that there are human rights violations there and that she’s positive, that she should be the leader — she was democratically elected — and the people want her, they want democracy, and that’s what the international community should push for.