PAINTER SHOWS MIKE THE MAT
ANGRY-man artist Scott LoBaido is once again turning his paintbrush on his nemesis, Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
LoBaido, who protested the shuttering of a Williamsburg firehouse last August by painting a mural of a smiling mayor shooting a man in the back, has been asked by the National Arts Club to show his latest Bloomberg-bashing - a rendering of a cigarette-puffing Frank Sinatra giving him a bloody beating.
The painting, titled "Black Eye, Bloody Nose and Fat Lip Courtesy of Frank Sinatra," shows a battered Bloomberg sprawled in an alley next to a "No Smoking" sign, as Sinatra walks away trailing a plume of smoke.
"Bloomberg is destroying the romance of the city," LoBaido fumed to PAGE SIX. "If Sinatra was sitting in bar having a cocktail with two lovely ladies and Bloomberg walked in to hang up a no-smoking sign, then what do you think Frank would do? That's exactly what the painting is about."
National Arts Club president Aldon James, who invited LoBaido to show his "American Pride" exhibit at the club's Trask Gallery beginning Jan. 6, defended the provocative painting.
"Politics has always been bloody," James said. "It's not that the National Arts Club is against Mayor Bloomberg. We don't have to always agree with what our artists are saying, but we feel they have a right to be shown. I'm sure even Mayor Bloomberg would respect the artist's right to express himself." A Bloomberg spokesman did not return calls.
LoBaido claims his "Angry American" style - other works depict President Bush on horseback holding the head of Osama bin Laden and a stars and stripes-covered anvil falling on Saddam Hussein - has kept his work out of most galleries.
"I'm very patriotic and I use my artwork as a soapbox," LoBaido said. "For years, galleries have shunned me because of my political ideology. Just because I vote Republican, I wave my flag and I love my veterans, they don't want me. But I think I'm finally getting a little respect."
This isn't the first time the Staten Islander has caused a commotion. He is on probation for hanging oversize American flags on the façade of the French Consulate. He also painted a flag on School District 3 headquarters after it ruled against requiring students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.