Meet the guerrilla artist plastering a liberal metropolis with pro-Trump posters – Washington Post

Look, its Sabo, the conservative guerrilla artist of Los Angeles. A rare sighting. Sort of.

Hewas spotted this weeksmotheringrent-a-bike baskets withMake America Great Again stickers in one of the most liberal cities in the country. On a wall between two movie ads, heslapped upposters of President Trump in the lotus position, serenely raising two middle fingers to whomever.

And stuckto a sidewalk bench, before Sabodisappeared back into semi-anonymity: REPUBLICANS ARE THE NEW PUNK.

The news profiles saySabo, 49,works under darkness adorninga city that overwhelmingly wantedHillary Clinton forpresidentwith posters of her wearingan ill-fitting thong, tattoos and nothing elsebefore the election; andportraying the transgender icon Caitlyn Jenner as a monster clownfrom the movie Itearlier this year.

But Mondays spottingtook place in broad daylight, so afilm crew couldfollow Saboaround.

Peopleused to doubt Sabo even existed, so novel wasstreet art with conservativepolitics,David Weigel wrotefor The Washington Post in 2015.

He rosefrom obscurity on the streets ofLos Angeles to become a minor starin 2015 by encouraging Sen. Ted Cruz to run for president.

The artist had portrayedCruz asa muscled rebel against conventional politics, covered in prison tattoos.

The Texas Republican did run for president, and Sabo a retired Marine who named himself after a round of ammunition lent the candidate his urbanstreet cred, absorbing fame in exchange.

Sabowas then all over Fox News and CNN, and ever since has stoked his celebrity with artwork perfectly synced to the spasms of national politics.

[How Ted Cruzs street artist gets it done]

Sabo hasmanaged this evenafter some of hisracial-slur-filled tweets made newsin early 2016, promptingCruz to stopselling his works.

But the artist would go on to find other muses.

Saboslatest round of attention a short documentary withRuptly and a profile in the Guardianlast month follows him as he plasters Los Angeles in pro-Trump art, his latest guerrilla campaign.

At the beginning of his fame,heopenly despised Trump.

Hes a circus clown, the artist told the Daily Beastin early 2016, when he began selling posters ofTrump as Il Douchin military garb The Reich Choice.

Despite his early disdain for the man who is now president I just didnt think we had the luxury of taking a chance of electing a reality star, he told The Post Sabo used the Republicanslikeness to poster-bomb an L.A. art showsupporting Democratic candidate Bernie Sandersin January of that year.

In Sabos imagination and the walls around the gallery Trump was depicted asa human finger, rising from the center of a disembodied fist.

Trump-as-middle-finger was not an ambiguous statement, Sabo told The Post. It was asymbol of contemptfor the art world.

More than any ephemeral political fury, Sabo is fueled by disdain for his fellow artists. Hesettled in Californiaafter a stint in the Marines in the 1980s, he told The Post, and studied art in Pasadena before moving to Los Angeles, where the liberal culture scene turned his stomach.

For eight years, Obama was dropping missiles on wedding parties, he said. A lot of these artists in L.A. were doing pretty pictures. They werent doing anything.

Prime example: Shepard Fairey, whose art essentially became Obamas campaign poster. AndSabo is more often compared to Banksy a conservative inversion of that world-famous street artist and his progressive causes.

[Banksys striking new mural imagines Steve Jobs as a Syrian refugee]

But Banksy works in true anonymity; the world has never seen his face.

Sabos face wasfully visible graying beard and calm smile in a photo that ran above aCNN story on Election Day, when the artistdeclared he would be voting for theman he once calledIl Douch.

One thing Trump consistently did was attack the media and attack liberals, Sabo explained toThe Post. I fell in love with the guy the minute I realized.

His conversiondidnt seem to hurt his credibility. Sabo appeared on Fox News with Tucker Carlson in February, after plastering Hollywood with posters attacking the Oscar lineup as unwatchable movies from unreadable books.

Carlson called it a pretty coherent critique of Hollywood.

But two months later, Sabo would be poster-bombing the same Fox News host asCarlson prepared to interview Caitlyn Jenner about transgender rights under President Trump.

Sabo put upfake movie posters around the studio:Tonight on Tucker Carlson. IT.

And so it goes: a cycle of bombastic street art, offensive tweets and surprisingly polite interviews with the same media that Sabo says he loves Trump for attacking.

Heis no longer the only conservative street artist in Los Angeles,the Guardian noted when it profiledhim last week,and some on the right consider Sabo a showboater.

For his part, he portrayed himself to the magazine as more introspective than his art suggests.

The blacks, the Jews, the underdogs no one has a bigger heart for them than me, Sabo told the Guardian.

On the phone with The Post, Sabo said he told the same Guardian reporter that he would happily kill liberals along with militant Muslims when the great culture war came.

That line wasnt inthe profile.

Anyway, Sabo is pushing up on 50 now, a little tired of the media rounds, he says, and he no longer stalks the streets of Los Angeles every single night.

Hes thinking of taking a few months off to study up on the latestPhotoshop techniques, he said.

The artistsanonymity has withered a bit under all the media attention, too. His neighborsall pretty much know who he is, he said.

The girls upstairs are probably social justice warriors, Sabosaid. A Mexican-Mexican Latina chick, and a blue-haired writer, both super liberal. They both tolerate me. We just wont talk politics that much.

And looking back onall his artwork, he is not without second thoughts about some pieces.

The posters depicting Jenneras a monster, for instance.

I thought it was a funny idea, but I knew it was hurtful, he said.I dont care if youre gay. I dont look down upon you or anything like that.

Sabohas since designeda sequel to that series. Restroom woman symbols, he explained, with male genitals coming out of the figures dress.

IT, the stickersread.

Sabohasnt put them on display yet; heisnt sure he has the heart. A tweet from last week suggests otherwise. And anyway,youcanbuy them on his Web store.

More reading:

Banksy takes on Brexit in new mural

Fearless Girl ignites debate about art, Wall Street and the lack of female executives

10 years after his graffiti campaign, the artist known as Borf paints a new life

How Yayoi Kusama, the Infinity Mirrors visionary, channels mental illness into art

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Meet the guerrilla artist plastering a liberal metropolis with pro-Trump posters - Washington Post