U2's Bono taps street artist to create murals for new (RED) campaign to raise AIDS awareness

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ABC/Adam TaylorBono has enlisted 17 street artists, including Shepard Fairey, to contribute to a new initiative designed to raise awareness about the fight against HIV/AIDS.  The initiative is in conjunction with the (RED) charity that the U2 frontman co-founded.

The artists are painting murals that will go on display next month in seven major cities around the world, in advance of The Global Fund’s next Replenishment Conference, which will take place October 9-10 in Lyon, France.

The “Paint (RED) Save Lives” murals will be located in New York City; Washington, D.C.; London; Berlin; Paris; and Lyon.

“Street artists have been raising the alarm in the fight against AIDS since HIV appeared — from the streets of New York in the 1980s, and now in the next weeks in cities around the world with Paint (RED) Save Lives,” Bono says in a statement. “There has been a lot of progress, more than many experts predicted, but not enough yet to put the sirens to rest.”

He adds, “Young women continue to bear the brunt of this disease and maddeningly, every week 6,000 of them are needlessly infected. I’d call that an emergency. (RED) is the color of emergency.”

You can check out some of the murals at RED.org. The one Fairey has created shows a rose with a shackle around its stem and a droplet of blood dripping from one of its thorns. The piece also includes the phrases “Health Is Worth Fighting For” and “We Shape the Future.”

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