{"id":453801,"date":"2026-09-04T22:12:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T22:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/453801\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T22:12:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T22:12:17","slug":"robbie-conal-l-as-most-infamous-street-art-firebrand-is-still-flaming-our-power-mad-leaders-at-81-l-a-taco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/453801\/","title":{"rendered":"Robbie Conal, L.A’s Most Infamous Street Art Firebrand, Is Still Flaming Our Power-Mad Leaders at 81 ~ L.A. TACO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: You can read this article in print (!) in the L.A. TACO post. Copies are available at over 90 locations throughout L.A. <\/p>\n

Ronald Reagan\u2019s face is decaying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bruise-purple skin sagging. Eyes squirming to the side. Lips wrinkled and puckered like an angry arsehole. The zombie president\u2019s lacquered hair ever-perfect.<\/p>\n

Glued to the gray flank of some civic structure between the pun: \u201cCONTRA DICTION,\u201d the image remains imprinted as one of my earliest L.A. memories, our family\u2019s gray Datsun station wagon flying across town.<\/p>\n

Like many in L.A., the 80s were my introduction to the wicked work of guerrilla artist Robbie Conal, legendary for spackling the distorted visages of our ghouls-in-power onto the city\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

Conal\u2019s gruesome black-and-white posters of wannabe despots, set deep with creases, plagued grimaces, human rot, and screaming puns, laid these sociopaths bare as the monsters they are, stinging with all the \u201cMe Era\u201d satire of a savage Dead Kennedys song.<\/p>\n

\"art“Ceremonia” by Robbie Conal.<\/p>\n

A besuited skull before a camouflage backdrop stamped with \u201cCONTRA COCAINE.\u201d Embezzling preachers Tammy Faye and Jim Baker looking syrupy sweet above the words \u201cFALSE PROFIT.\u201d George W. Bush dissolving in an acidic, skull-bobbing sea, trapped in the phrase \u201cPATRIOT INACTION.<\/p>\n

If you were too young or bubble-wrapped to know your politics, Conal\u2019s images pierced through, tendering strange proof that not everyone worshiped the mad kings in our land of confusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you were too young or bubble-wrapped to know your politics, Conal\u2019s images pierced through, tendering strange proof that not everyone worshiped the mad kings in our land of confusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They let us know that someone was angry about things. And perhaps more importantly, doing something about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With art, humor, and fire.<\/p>\n

The 81-year-old\u2019s career and infamy span four decades. But he\u2019s been driven by making art since he can remember.<\/p>\n

Raised by Communist, union organizer parents on Manhattan\u2019s \u201cUpper Left Side,\u201d he grew up drawing his family\u2019s two Siamese cats and various sports stars. After school, he was \u201changing out with Guernica\u201d and political works by Orozco, Rivera, Posada, Daumier, and Goya at major museums.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

After graduating from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, Conal landed in Haight-Ashbury in 1963 to attend San Francisco State, devoted to making abstract expressionist works like his heroes Matta and De Kooning and selling weed and psychedelics<\/a> to pay tuition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was totally cosmic, dude,\u201d Conal kids. \u201cMaking art, but not about social and political issues directly. It took me a long time to get my personal issues about politics and social conditions in the world as subjects of my art.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"a“Fireball” by Robbie Conal.<\/p>\n

The Gipper\u2019s election changed everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cRonald Reagan happened,\u201d Conal tells L.A. TACO. \u201cI really felt the need to address these, you know, little issues like \u2018democracy,\u2019 little issues like, you know, in what the government was doing to us that I didn’t like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conal was kicked out of SFSU for protesting, ending up in Canada to play semi-pro baseball, before returning to the Bay Area to get his MFA at Stanford and subsequently moving to L.A. in 1984.<\/p>\n

\u201cRonald Reagan happened,\u201d Conal tells L.A. TACO. \u201cI really felt the need to address these, you know, little issues like \u2018democracy,\u2019 little issues like, you know, in what the government was doing to us that I didn’t like.\u201d<\/p>\n

In September 1986, as the Iran-Contra scandal dominated front pages, Conal was living in Venice with a collection of what he calls \u201cnasty little black and white oil paintings of Ronald Reagan and members of his cabinet,\u201d which he\u2019d shown at a gallery, but was craving a more public forum for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Familiar with the history of political street art and postering, he teamed up with the first baseman of his co-ed Mar Vista softball team, a Santa Monica printer by trade, who taught Conal how to make what he calls \u201cthis little pathetic poster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI put one word: \u2018men with no lips\u2019 under each of the portraits, and broke the piggy bank, and got\u00a0about 1000 of them, and I talked my best friend into coming out with me in the middle of the night and putting them around the town,\u201d Conal recalls.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t afraid of cops, tagbangers, gangs, or legal repercussions, noting, \u201cIt’s a minor form of civil disobedience, which I totally believe, but also because of my background coming from this family, and their perspective on the capitalist cultural economy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"PostersPosters of Rupert Murdoch and John Boehner by Robbie Conal in 2011. Photo courtesy of Robbie Conal.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, by the time of Contra Cocaine, he\u2019d enlisted a “tigress mother\u201d lawyer who also represented the creators of “The Simpsons” and “SpongeBob SquarePants.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cShe took care of me and kept me out of jail. Most of the time,\u201d Conal adds.<\/p>\n

For L.A.\u2019s 80s babies, Conal\u2019s art is indistinct from the city we glimpsed it in, repurposing our concrete landscape in the name of resistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

Conal remembers starting out fairly \u201cgreen\u201d in L.A. Notably, when he kept seeing signs for \u201ctacos al carbon\u201d everywhere he looked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m driving around, and I keep seeing all these King Taco establishments,\u201d Conal says. \u201cAnd \u2018taco this,\u2019 and \u2018taco that,\u2019 and, and all of them say, you know, like \u2018King Taco, Al Carbon, Al Carbon,\u2019 and I’m thinking, \u2018Who is this guy, Al Carbon?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Conal feels L.A. played an indispensable role in spreading his work and feelings.<\/p>\n

\"trump's“Tarrified” by Robbie Conal. Photo courtesy of Robbie Conal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bay Area seems to think it’s in France . . . it’s like a closed cultural system, so even if I had, you know, produced this art there, there would be very little chance that it would get anywhere else,\u201d he says. \u201cLos Angeles, as far as I’m concerned, is the capital of popular culture production in the United States, if not the world, and so I did have this sense that if I did this in L.A., it would have a larger reach, more distribution, and be paid more attention to. And I think I was right about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the last four decades, Conal has made over 100 political posters, with his work featured in major magazines, books, and gallery shows while being praised worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who come out with us in the middle of the night, volunteering for this kind of midnight mischief for the cause,\u201d he says. \u201cI’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many people actually are willing to do this. It’s incredibly heartening.\u201d<\/p>\n

For him, the biggest honorifics come from the involvement of his various co-conspirators, including his wife, movie title designer Deborah Ross, photographer Alan Shaffer, as well as untold numbers of volunteers who help to put the art up.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who come out with us in the middle of the night, volunteering for this kind of midnight mischief for the cause,\u201d he says. \u201cI’ve been pleasantly surprised at how many people actually are willing to do this. It’s incredibly heartening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"aGuerrilla etiquette briefing at Canter’s Deli. Photo by Alan Shaffer (@alanshafferphotography), courtesy of Robbie Conal.<\/p>\n

Conal is also moved by the sheer number of people who see his pieces on the street that he gets to meet and who say nice things about his work.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay I\u2019m at the grocery store or something, especially around L.A. I’ll get a tap on the shoulder and say, ‘You’re Robbie, right?\u2019\u201d he says. \u201c\u2018Yeah, don’t hurt me.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He continues, \u201dSomething like, what you said to me, is like, \u2018I grew up seeing your art on the streets, and you know, thanks for that, because I thought I was the only person who felt this certain way, or whatever.\u2019 So that kind of warms the cockles of my old heart, that it\u2019s actually getting out there, and whatever people think of it, they see it. That’s my goal: to express myself in public about these issues that I really care about.\u201d<\/p>\n

We ask Conal whether horror movies were any kind of inspiration for his literal murderer\u2019s row of ghastly politicians and power brokers. He wryly replies, \u201cNo, the subjects of my art are horrific enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

We ask Conal whether horror movies were any kind of inspiration for his literal murderer\u2019s row of ghastly politicians and power brokers. He wryly replies, \u201cNo, the subjects of my art are horrific enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like most of us, Conal is tired of a certain orange blob who runs things, and believes we\u2019re dealing with a different form of bloodsuckers than we were in earlier decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s gotten so much worse,\u201d he says. \u201cI woke up at three in the morning a couple months ago going, \u2018oh no, I have to do another Trump,\u2019 you know, like, \u2018oh my, I’ve done him, and I don’t want to ever do him.\u2019 And I made the angriest poster I’ve ever made, actually . . . we just put it up in L.A. a bit last Friday night. It’s ‘Uncle Don Fucks You.'”<\/p>\n

The poster features J.D. Vance on the flipside, with the words \u201cDick Tater Tot,\u201d riffing on an earlier Conal piece calling Trump \u201cDick Tater.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"fliersPhoto courtesy of Robbie Conal.<\/p>\n

Conal isn\u2019t without hope, however. He\u2019s heartened by the rise of politicians like Mamdani, Kiros, and Crockett, and the perseverance of Bernie Sanders, his \u201cbrother from another mother.\u201d Nor are all his pieces dedicated to skewering American ghouls.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery once in a while, my darling wife will say, \u2018you know, everything you do is so negative, why don\u2019t you do, like, something positive?\u201d Conal says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The exchange led to Conal\u2019s series on inspirational women, including portraits of Angela Davis, RBG, Toni Morrison, Greta, and AOC. He\u2019s also painted the Dalai Lama, MLK Jr., Mandela, Gandhi, Hendrix, and Bob Marley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funny thing is I can’t apply all my gnarly, grotesque, corrosive, painterly techniques to these lovely people, right?\u201d he says. \u201cSo I have to use a completely different technique for painting wonderful people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conal, who lives in Los Osos with Ross and their two cats, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, has never abandoned hope. There are always like-minded people out there willing to stand up to power. And there\u2019s always the power art has to fire our voices at those who would oppress us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018No Kings\u2019 marches are fantastic,\u201d he says. \u201cI have this image of little old ladies sitting, sitting at their kitchen table with cardboard in their crayons, making their handmade posters, and they’re fantastic, you know, like they’re very creative, they’re very lively, and I just love that so much. I’m so heartened by that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor’s Note: You can read this article in print (!) in the L.A. TACO post. Copies are available…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[48,52,51,47,50,49],"class_list":["post-453801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}