posters

Hooray for librarians!

As if there wasn’t enough to thank your librarian for, from Berkely to Madison, Palo Alto to Whatcom County, librarians are taking a stand against the USA Patriot Act.

Via Wired I discovered the work of Jessamyn West a librarian in Rutland, Vermont.

While the Patriot Act says you can not tell patrons if the FBI is monitoring library computers or requesting patron records, it doesn’t say you can not not tell them:

The Vermont Library Association has provided copies of the sign to every library in the state.

See more signs here.

Classic book cover design on display in the streets in New York City.

The posters were designed by the artist Chuck Close. You can download high resolution PDFs here and here.

See the American Library Association’s list of 100 most frequently banned books.

Read more about Banned Books campaigns by the ACLU and the ALA, and about the ACLU’s concert event.

Manifesto issued by the Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors, 1922

“Social, Political, and Aesthetic Declaration from the Union of Technical Workers, Painters, and Sculptors to the indigenous races humiliated through centuries; to the soldiers converted into hangmen by their chiefs; to the workers and peasants who are oppressed by the rich; and to the intellectuals who are not servile to the bourgeoisie:

We are with those who seek to overthrow of an old and inhuman system within which you, worker of the soil, produce riches for the overseer and politician, while you starve. Within which you, worker in the city, move the wheels of industries, weave the cloth, and create with your hands the modern comforts enjoyed by the parasites and prostitutes, while your own body is numb and cold. Within which you, Indian soldier, heroically abandon your land and give your life in the eternal hope of liberating your race from the degradations and misery of centuries.

Not only the noble labor but even the smallest manifestations of the material and spiritual vitality of our race spring from our native midst. Its admirable, exceptional, and peculiar ability to create beauty — the art of the Mexican people — is the highest and greatest spiritual expression of the world-tradition which constitutes our most valued heritage. It is great because it surges from the people; it is collective, and our own aesthetic aim is to socialize artistic expression, to destroy bourgeois individualism.

We repudiate the so-called easel art and all such art which springs from ultra-intellectual circles, for it is essentially aristocratic.

We hail the monumental expression of art because such art is public property.

We proclaim that this being the moment of social transformation from a decrepit to a new order, the makers of beauty must invest their greatest efforts in the aim of materializing an art valuable to the people, and our supreme objective in art, which is today an expression for individual pleasure, is to create beauty for all, beauty that enlightens and stirs to struggle.”

David Siqueiros, et al., originally published as a broadside in Mexico City, 1922. Published again in El Machete, no. 7 (Barcelona, June 1924).

English translation from Laurence E. Schmeckebier Modern Mexican Art (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1939), p. 31.

The convention is over, but the traces remain — the stories emerge and the protests continue.

Click on an image below to view a larger version.

Via Reuters:

“A protest sign is held up behind U.S. President George W. Bush as he delivers his speech to the delegation during the final night of the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City on September 2, 2004. The protester was removed from the convention hall by authorities. Photo by Rick Wilking/Reuters”

On August 18, 2004, a group of New Yorkers launched a 15-foot banner suspended by helium balloons in the main concourse of New York’s Grand Central Terminal. The banner read:

NO
BUSH
LIES
WARS

They walked away unhassled, amid cheers.

The banner hung from the Vanderbilt Avenue end of the Terminal’s vaulted ceiling for an entire day, across from the large American Flag hanging above the eastern end of the concourse.

Read more, or just skip to the pictures.

The Center for the Study of Political Graphics has posted three new online exhibitions of posters from their archives. The collections are organized thematically, around a dozen posters per theme, spanning several decades, countries, and struggles.

Notice the tiny “next” links at the bottom of some of the pages. They’re very easy to miss.

Earth, Wind & Solar
International Ecology Posters

From the site:

“Global Warming. Arsenic in drinking water. Pesticide Poisoning. Environmental Racism. Nuclear Waste Disposal. Irradiated and Genetically Modified Food. The list is endless. Where pollution is concerned, the world is a global village where no continent, country, or neighborhood is safe. Multinational corporations’ insatiable need for new markets and greater profits consistently overrides environmental concerns, and few governments oppose them. But these posters convey an increasing sense of urgency, as international artists continue to use the power of graphics to organize a frontline of defense against rapidly escalating pollution.”

The posters are organized as follows:

1. Early Environmental Awareness
2. Global Warming
3. Water Pollution
4. Air Pollution
5. Deforestation
6. Pesticides And G.M.O.s
7. Nuclear Power And Waste
8. Environmental Disasters
9. Environmental Racism
10. Martyrs
11. Green Alternatives
12. Visions For The Future

We Shall Not Be Moved
International Graphics on Gentrification and Homelessness

From the site:

“A missed paycheck, a health crisis, or an unpaid bill are all that separate many people from homelessness. As America’s income gap widens, renters worry if they can ever buy homes of their own—or keep their rentals through retirement. The lack of affordable housing is not just a U.S. problem. We Shall Not Be Moved uses domestic and international posters to show that homelessness and gentrification are major issues throughout the world—and from the U.S. to Europe to Australia, posters remain the resisters’ tools of choice. Posters announce demonstrations to oppose demolitions, support squatters’ rights to move into abandoned buildings, and organize tenants’ unions. They document victories, defeats, and ongoing confrontations. Posters both record these struggles, and are central to them. They show that victory does not happen overnight—it can take years—but it is possible to fight city hall and the developers and win.”

The posters are organized as follows:

1. Introduction
2. Development & Speculation
3. Homelessness & Poverty
4. Organizing Resistance
5. War & Displacement
6. Conclusion

Solidarity Forever!
Graphics of the International Labor Movement

From the site:

“Organized labor has consistently produced more political graphics than any other domestic movement for social change. Labor posters are often produced in the midst of a strike or boycott and convey the urgency of the times. Others are commemoratives, marking the anniversary of a victory or a martyred labor leader. They remind viewers of a too often hidden history, rally against dangerous conditions in the workplace, and warn that such injustices still occur. Although many of the posters are historical, the issues are not. The eight-hour day is no longer sacrosanct. More and more children are entering the workforce. Pesticides threaten farm workers and consumers. Sweatshops are proliferating domestically and internationally. These graphic expressions of international solidarity are a powerful combination of art and politics, crossing borders of time and place.”

The posters are organized as follows:

1. Workers of the World Unite
2. Why Organize
   1. Workplace Hazards
   2. Child Labor
   3. Sweatshops
   4. Emerging Issues
3. Strikes and Boycotts
4. Heroes & Martyrs
5. International May Day

Rene Wanner has maintained his Poster Page on the Web continuously since August 21, 1997. In May, he started a blog. Yesterday, he noted:

“[August 1] is the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation in World War II, during which more than 250,000 people were killed and the city was largely destroyed. Some posters made by the insurgents have survived, among them the famous “Call to Arms!” (Do Broni!) by Mieczyslaw Jurgielewicz. A year before, in 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which also failed, extinguished the lives of the jewish population of Warsaw, which was about 375,000 before the war.”

...

Also on August 1, 1944, four thousand Roma were gassed and incinerated at Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the end of the war, between 70% and 80% of the Romani population had been annihilated by Nazis. In Romani it is called “the Devouring.”

After the war, no Roma were called to testify at the Nuremberg Trials, and no one came forth to testify on their behalf. No war crimes reparations have been paid to the Roma as a people. And no posters of resistance are known. [source]

OK, OK, OK.

So, every time I show someone a graphic idea for a flyer or something they inevitably say, “You know, that would make a great T-shirt.”

Alright, then. I’ve created a few at CafePress. You can order them online at http://cafeshops.com/nornc

For sale: T-shirts, tank tops, posters, postcards, and stickers to welcome the Republicans in style.

Only three designs so far, but let me know what you think and I might make more.

Note, all prices shown are CafePress’s base prices. I’m not making any money here. I just want to get the word out.

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And by the way, if you want to design some T-shirts yourself, CafePress makes it fairly easy. Basically, you upload a high resolution graphic through your Web browser to their Web site, select the product, and order it online. Voila! They handle the payment processing, printing, shipping, and customer service. You can put your design onto T-shirts, hoodies, lunch boxes, frisbees, postcards, and more. (See for instance, this lovely turntable mousepad I made.) Setting up a basic store online is free.

One often hears the criticism that political graphics are just “preaching to the converted.” After all, no one’s mind is changed by a poster. Why waste limited time and energy on mutual admiration? A self-reinforcing love-in doesn’t move the masses.

This criticism assumes that such graphics are actually intending to change the mind of the viewer. In turn, this is based on a narrow conception of how advertising works: one sells an idea, brand, or product to a passive and otherwise uninterested consumer.

Whatever the intention, the function of posters is often not to change people’s minds outright, but to push them in a certain direction. Posters make ideas publicly visible and provide alternative explanations, interpretations, narratives, and myths, or reinforce existing ones. Whether or not they directly convince, posters can provoke skepticism. And, without putting forth a nuanced argument, posters can provide notice of an event or opportunity.

Within politically marginalized communities, posters are a way for the community to assert its voice publicly, to put forward its own images and narratives, promote collective action, and ultimately seize political power and push for social change. When no dissent is visible in the corporate media, posters and graphics are one alternative venue. Showing cracks in the ‘consensus’ may convince others to speak out.

While many in the street are ephemeral and quickly replaced or washed away, posters also have historical value. They are often collected and preserved by a variety of individuals and institutions. As Carol Wells, of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, points out, when history is written by the victors, posters provide a tangible record of social movements otherwise confined to the margins or entirely left out of the ‘acceptable’ narrative. Such grahpics are a visible voice from the past that future generations can learn from and build upon.

But if graphics don’t change people’s minds, how does one reach those ‘moderates,’ ‘undecideds,’ and ‘swing states’? drapetomaniac once proposed that changing minds is often an indirect result of propaganda. No one I know listens to right-wing talk radio, yet somehow its arguments seep into the “mainstream,” occasionally tilting “conventional wisdom,” and ultimately trickling into casual conversation. I imagine that hearing an idea one agrees or learning additional facts, broadcast with conviction from a source you trust may do something to bolster one’s own confidence. And in conversations with others, this must surely come across.

While those 92% of people polled who said political ads had not swayed them to change their prospective votes, how would a poll measure the impact of the ads on the people who agreed with the messages? i.e. of those people on others?

So why not preach to the converted? There’s certainly a value in bringing people together around an issue, rallying the base, and reinvigorating exhausted campaigners.