It took more than two months for a massive mural taking up a downtown Los Angeles corner with a pro-Bernie Sanders message to become the target of vandalism.

The artist, Lydiaemily Archibald, said she rarely worries her political expressions will be tagged because art like this is respected and governed by “the law of the street.” That means she doesn’t go over other artists’ work, and taggers don’t put their mark on hers. Until now.

Some time over the last week, someone put an “X” through “Bern” in the “Feel the Bern” section of the mural at 3rd and Main streets. There also were a number of other street tags. The mural has been up since late August.

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Daniel Lahoda, the unofficial “mayor” of street murals, said he would have the Sanders art restored by the end of Friday.

He wasn’t worried about it and called street art the “most democratic art form known to man.”

Taggers hit a mural depicting presidential candidate Bernie Sanders that had been left alone for months. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s all part of the process; it’s all part of creating a dialogue in the streets,” he said.


The mural was an element of a recent Los Angeles Times article about how grass-roots supporters of the presidential hopeful are taking matters into their own hands without official coordination with the campaign.

Lahoda noted Archibald has a new mural of the senator from Vermont in Silver Lake and that he speaks with the campaign to keep them informed of what he dubs “cultural propaganda.”

Maybe it was a Hillary Clinton fan? Seems unlikely given that it was left unharmed for so long.

“Everybody was screaming ‘Go Bernie’ all night as I was doing it,” Archibald said last month.


That’s one reason she did a similar mural in Austin, Texas, fearing it was a bit too much “preaching to the choir” in Southern California, where more than 27,500 turned out for a Sanders rally in August.

Lahoda had a different idea that it could have been pent-up frustration. “The world has become a stressful place this week,” he said.

bellantoni@latimes.com

Follow @cbellantoni on Twitter


For more, go to latimes.com/politics.

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