A New Avenue : Art: Street guerrilla Robbie Conal brings his biting political posters to Golden West College.

Robbie Conal is known for the political posters he splays across urban settings under cover of night. But now the guerrilla artist’s works hang in galleries by day: They’re on display at Golden West College. And he’s even doing bus shelters.

Has the biting provocateur decided to gum the establishment? Has Robbie Conal softened?

“I hope, “ Conal, 50, answered with a laugh. “I’m not less angry. I’m just older, certainly not wiser, another crotchety old guy. I just don’t have the street energy I used to have. I’m always hoping that there are younger people with their own issues out there (who) can make their own posters. This isn’t rocket science or anything. . . .”

Besides, he said, “an artist can run around the street like a midnight maniac, splattering himself with glue in the most dangerous urban areas in the universe, and also show the original art in clean, well-lighted spaces that afford a more contemplative relationship with the audience. Sometimes it’s incumbent on an artist to do both.”

Whatever the venue, he said, “with people like Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms and Pat Roberston declaring cultural and political civil war on the country, it is incumbent on people to fight back. Even artists.”

The exhibition at Golden West’s Fine Arts Gallery, “Greetings From Los Angeles . . . ,” includes original portraits, paintings, prints and drawings and runs through March 31.

Conal, who is based in Los Angeles and who has a master’s degree in art from Stanford, began postering in 1986 at a time when galleries were snubbing him. He since has used the medium for assaults on the U.S. Supreme Court, Gov. Pete Wilson, former President Ronald Reagan and wife Nancy, and former L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates.

He made his first foray into Orange County in May, plastering Yorba Linda with images of Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole and the late President Richard Nixon.

Apparently, timing is everything in guerrillart warfare.

Thousands of “NEWTWIT” posters just went up in Los Angeles, San Diego, Cleveland and New York.

Newt’s been a hoot. But Dole proved a dud.

“The Dole poster (inspired by the senator’s tears at Nixon’s funeral) was premature,” Conal said. “On a street level, people that far away from Washington weren’t sure about who he was.

“But I had to go down there and do it for myself. I couldn’t let it go unremarked, unviolated. It was such an opportunistic move on (Dole’s) part; it was as if the Nixonian torch was being passed . . . . It was an epiphany.

“It assured me that all reports of Nixon’s death were highly exaggerated. I don’t have any proof that he’s dead. If there are sightings of Elvis . . . . If the King isn’t dead then the President certainly isn’t dead. And nobody’s shown me a wooden stake or silver bullet. When Dole rose up out of the ashes, I knew (Nixon) was alive.

“This is my problem. Nixon is my evil muse. I do at least one painting or drawing of him every year.”

OK, but does Conal have to paper the streets with such images? Though he is somewhat careful about where he puts his posters--avoiding store windows and churches, for instance--his detractors surely would say he is defacing public property. He has never been arrested for posting his art. “Just lucky,” he said.

The line between his art and other forms of street expression such as graffiti may be a fine one.

“The line is in the content,” Conal said.

“Graffiti is a symptom of a very deep class chasm in the U.S. where you get more and more very poor people who are invisible to the power structure, and a small number of very rich people well represented by the power structure. Graffiti is an angry expression, a cry, saying, ‘I’m not invisible. I exist.’ I’m sympathetic to that.

“What I do is more a form of minor civil disobedience, a direct satirical charge against people who have abused their power and who are partly responsible for graffiti by ignoring the social welfare of the majority of their constituents.”

In at least one case, Conal has gone urban without the guerrilla. As a public service, Gannett Outdoor recently provided space on 75 bus shelters in Los Angeles to the American Civil Liberties Union, which Conal was thrilled to fill. His image--of the Scopes trial chimpanzee, Oliver North and others, with the message: “Sooner or later, everyone needs the ACLU”--went up Feb. 24.

“The ACLU is the only organization that litigates in defense of the Bill of Rights,” Conal said. “For them, I figured I could do something legal.”

* Works by Robbie Conal remain on display through March 31 at the Fine Arts Gallery, Golden West College, 15744 Golden West St., Huntington Beach. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; also 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Free. (714) 895-8356.