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The Anti-ACORN Doesn't Fall Far From the HOPE Artist
Studio No. 1 in March 2008. Photo by WagonMaster via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
People are pretty p-o'd about The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, aka ACORN, and the recent videos that have been released showing undercover conservative activists posing as a pimp and ho pair getting a bit too much help from staffers at several of the group's locations. Anti-ACORN activists expressed their dismay through graffiti left on the exterior walls of Studio No. 1 here in Los Angeles, which is the commercial design studio behind Shepard Fairey's iconic Obama HOPE posters, explains the Washington Post.
Says a Studio rep of the message and its medium:
"While we support free expression, it is ironic that...the conservatives and right-wingers who called pro-Obama art propaganda and if it was posted publicly, they called it vandalism, are now vandalizing private property in their campaign against ACORN," said Jay Strell, a spokesman for Studio Number One and Fairey. The graffiti has been removed, he added.
Studio No. 1 is a strange target, indeed, since they are not affiliated with ACORN, and are not government-funded. The relationship with the arts and the Obama administration has come under much scrutiny lately; Fox News' Glenn Beck singled out former LA-resident Yosi Sergant, who served as the PR rep for Fairey and the Obama art campaign, in a pot-stirring discussion focused on the National Endowment for the Arts, where Sergant currently works.