LA artist forced to remove 5-day-old LeBron mural after fans take matters into their own hands
After fans in Los Angeles twice defaced a mural of LeBron James painted by artist Jonas Never, the artist finally decided to paint over it with white paint to prevent further vandalism and ending a drain on his time from going back and fixing each instance of desecration.
Never decided to erase his work Wednesday after a vandal had used yellow paint to deface the mural on the wall of the Baby Blues BBQ joint in Venice.
Never had a bit of sangfroid about the reaction to his work, which was seen as a disrespectful gesture to previous Lakers greats Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson because Never’s artwork referred to LeBron as “the King of LA.”
“I thought I had learned a long time ago to never touch religion or politics,” said Never, who then cracked the joke, “I guess it is never touch religion, politics or anyone against Kobe.”
Never, the Los Angeles-based muralist who has also immortalized Anthony Bourdain and Stuart Scott with his street art, decided to leave his mark on the moment when James signed with the Lakers.
Working alongside graffiti vandal-gone-legit Fernando Valdez, Never took 12 hours, 75 spray cans, and a bucket of traditional paint to anoint James with the catchphrase that raised the hackles of the Kobe loyalists.
Lakers fans — their indomitable spirit in the face of somehow thinking James would not improve a 35-win team with one of the worst second-overall-pick busts in NBA history at point guard in Lonzo Ball — attacked the mural with “We Don’t Want You,” “No King,” and, perhaps hilariously in light of the franchise’s recent futility, “3-6,” LeBron’s record in the NBA Finals. Apparently those fans forgot that in the past eight seasons, LeBron has been to the Finals eight more times than the Lakers’ entire franchise.
Never, meanwhile, defended his work.
“I got a ton of support,” Never said. “At first when we had the original piece, there was a ton of positivity, but also a ton of like pro-Kobe, anti-LeBron sentiment. [Some] people didn’t like it in general, not necessarily the work, but the sentiment that went with it. People had a big problem with the word ‘of.’ I get where they are coming from.”
After the second vandalism job, Never finally decided that the reward wasn’t worth the effort and just cut and ran.
“I know when to cut my losses,” said Never. “The first vandalism was made easier to swallow because, by all accounts from the Twitter debate [over it] that we saw, it looked like a guy offered up a $300 bounty to anyone who destroyed the mural. Some guy did it and posted video of him doing it and responded to the guy and said ‘Pay me.'”
Curiously, the second vandal, presumably tilted into the better-anonymous-than-potentially-arrested camp by the lack of a $300 prize, remains unidentified.
Never, meanwhile, simply continues his art career, another reason he decided to paint over rather than babysit the LeBron piece. He is going to be in the San Fernando Valley next week working on another project.
And in the over 100 projects Never has done around Los Angeles, including a popular Karate Kid work and a painting, ironically under the circumstances, of Kobe Bryant, perhaps none have drawn this much controversy.
As for his next project, well…Twitter had the best idea of them all: New Laker and old James provocateur Lance Stephenson.
It's a bummer they had to paint over the LeBron mural, but IMHO this new one is better anyway. pic.twitter.com/ACQ9zdMagI
— Dave “Mortgages” Searle (@MillerTimePod) July 12, 2018
After all, we all know who the real new king of Los Angeles is.
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