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Robbie Conal
By Jeff Penalty and Simon SteinhardtPhoto By Dan Monick
Ronald Reagan made me do it.”
It’s unlikely that such a defense would hold up in a modern American court of law, but that’s how Robbie Conal, best known for gluing disturbing and hyperreal images of political and historical figures to fixtures of the urban landscape, explains his incitement to hit the streets with his trademark poster art.
Behind Conal, and at the forefront of his artwork, is a sense of responsibility for bringing out the inner ugliness of his often morally bankrupt subjects who try to suppress it. His posters usually include a portrait, a slogan or one-liner (the man loves his puns), and some form of overt sociopolitical commentary. The posters are placed by Conal and his “volunteer guerrilla postering army,” a formidable force that has the ability to cover a significant amount of public space in Los Angeles and beyond. Conal convenes his foot soldiers for each mission at Canter’s Deli, L.A.’s closest thing to home cooking for the native New Yorker, and rewards them by footing the entire bill—though they would tell you they’d be just as willing to work for Conal on an empty stomach. Their unwavering enthusiasm towards both his art and his methods are unconventional and controversial—and that, children, is exactly how one becomes an icon.
Conal, though, doesn’t necessarily feel comfortable with that label. “The word ‘icon’ makes me think of a giant wooden cross painted by Cimabue in the late 13th century—Christ writhing stiffly on a 400-pound hunk of black carved wood—looming over my head in the Uffizi Museum in Florence. Nope. I don’t identify.”
But when others think of the word, they may think of someone who has blazed a trail and inspired others to do the same, whose name is virtually synonymous with his or her art form, and under that definition Conal most certainly fits. Numerous artists have sidestepped the gallery system and taken to the streets with buckets and brushes in his wake, inspired undeniably by his consistency and his coverage. When asked at what point he realized that his illegal art would or could eventually gain legitimization, Conal claims, “I never did. But I knew people would see it. Especially in L.A. Everyone (around the world) thinks Angelinos are superficial. But what they don’t know is that we’re deeply superficial.”
Growing up in New York, Conal spent his afternoons making trouble in the city’s museums and galleries, where his parents, both union organizers, would send him after school in lieu of a babysitter. Upon graduating from Manhattan’s High School of Music and Art, he headed to San Francisco State University to study art and, in his words, get “psychedelicized.”
After Conal “graduated” in ’69 (he was actually two credits short of a degree), he and several of his friends were offered teaching positions at the University of Saskatchewan. Realizing he was susceptible to getting drafted and shipped off to Vietnam, Conal ducked out to Canada, where he spent a couple years teaching and playing semipro baseball. “I was the hippie-professor-drugdealer second baseman for the Lumsden Cubs in the Highway League in Saskatchewan, Canada,”
Conal recalls. “While patrolling my position in the dirt infield, the adult fans at our road games called me ‘Mary’ and threw ice cubes from their eightounce glasses of Old Crow, and the kids skipped rocks at me. In other words, I intimidated ‘em.” Conal’s stay in Canada came to an end when he received his draft notice and decided to report to the draft board in Montana rather than face losing his U.S. citizenship. Fortunately for Conal (and maybe for the Army as well), he was given an exemption when he was declared psychologically unfit thanks to his glowing recollections of his experiments with hallucinogenic drugs.
Soon after, Conal found himself back in San Francisco, working on his art and making ends meet driving a taxi, building cabinets, delivering newspapers, and working other assorted odd jobs. He applied to Stanford’s MFA program unsuccessfully, and applied again expecting the same result, only to have a friend come across his acceptance letter months after Conal had given up hope and moved to L.A. In 1978, he received his graduate degree, and eventually moved to L.A. permanently in 1984, where he began synthesizing his art and activism on the streets.
Essentially the art-world equivalent of a street corner Bible-thumper, Conal is not content to sit quietly inside a church and wait for people to come in and find salvation. He goes out into the world to broadcast his message loudly, abrasively, and (mostly) unwelcomely to anyone in range. But whereas most religious figures would encourage heathens to obey, Conal begs people to think for themselves.
He offers the following to those who may want to continue in his tradition: “If you want to communicate your social/political ideas to regular people and have no money, make an interesting little black-and-white picture, turn a few words of the most subversive language on the planet— colloquial American English—inside-out, shake ‘em for loose change, and go to Kinko’s. Mix up the medicine, and text-message your homies after you call your local National Lawyers Guild office.”
With others clearly willing to pick up wherever Conal leaves off, does he ever see his own postering missions coming to an end? “I always see them coming to an end,” he claims. “Every time I stand up on a red naugahyde banquette at Canter’s and yell at the troops about ‘guerilla etiquette,’ the first thing I say is, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this again.’ I’m old.”
Sure, he’s got his own books, Artburn and Art Attack: The Midnight Politics of a Guerrilla Artist, on the shelves, a regular column in the L.A. Weekly, and a teaching gig at the University of Southern California, but if Robbie’s posters do someday cease to appear on your friendly neighborhood electrical box, what will he do for a creative outlet? “My art in the future? I’d like to draw portraits of cats.”