The People's Propaganda

THE CONTENT GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

09 Good things are not beautiful.

11 Sacha Jenkins In a War Zone Wide-Awake Jon Naar in New York, c. 1973 22 Street art vs intelectual property 24 The Most Radical Question, The Most Dangerous Answer.

What is property?

28 Graffiti vs. the Dominant Culture 30 Shepard Fairey vs. Associated Press

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN 34 graphic design

38 too much like art?

50 revolution and peace 58 most people just dont 58 the third wave 61 Why graphic design?

62 Working with Irony, Cynicism, and Attention Deficit 64 minature monuments 65 what we got 66 whats next

MANIFESTO Let’s get something cleared up right here. We are only half real at best. You may like to think that there is some kind of mundane or prosaic quality to your existence. You may entertain the idea that you are bored and need to be distracted with something ‘exciting ‘ such as the deliciously illicit subculture celebrated in this grubby little book. You are forgiven for both counts of self-deception. We have come to believe that the only reality that matters is the reality of matter. Of course we had our reasons for this. We lost faith in the big ISMS when the 20th Century saw hell come to earth in a way that makes Hieronymus Bosch look like a pussy.

We’re talking of course about mechanized, and now digitalized warfare. However, in spite of all this bone crunching physical reality we are still creatures of fiction as much as flesh. Our ideas are not real and yet our ideas are more than real.

In fact no real experience counts for a damn thing without the ‘self’ (The biggest fiction of them all) to experience it. And what relevance has all this pop-philosophizing got to do with street art?

It is intended to remind you that what you are doing is not naive, incidental or inconsequential. As an artist you are intervening in the flow of ideas. You are monkeying around with the software.

You are reprogramming the OS. You are changing the realm of the idea. These are actions as real and consequential as any other. Our culture has proven incapable of fulfilling the needs of the species. The struggle to evolve a new culture that is capable of this will be fought as much in the realm of ideas as any other.

For these reasons we have arrogantly drafted a manifesto that you are free to ignore or modify to your own nefarious ends. This is not ironic. If our ideas evolve our culture will follow. Stadium rock is not going to end world hunger. What is?

The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Dynamic balance endures and evolves!

You are America... just aan nation of two hundred million acceptable used car salesmen with all the money need to level ofwethreat buy guns and no qualms and if you about killing anybodywere else innot the world whowould tries to you make us uncomfortable. know about it.

04

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

GRAFFI STREET GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

05

ITI AND T ART

cre bala chan 1 2

YOU MUST CREATE. (Think with your hands)

STAY PLAYFUL .

(Fat birds can‘t fly)

3

NO DOGMA. (Learn to understand change)

4

DOWN WITH ENTERTAINMENT (Viva independent, DIY, participatory culture!)

5

PRACTICE DYNAMIC BALANCE .

(Don’t screw yourself up, we need you.)

eate ance nge

08

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

GOOD THINGS ARE NOT BEAUTIFUL. BEAUTIFUL THINGS ARE NOT GOOD. Everybody loves a bit of Salvador Dali, but before he got his greasy mitts on the concept of surrealism, another group of fabulous art nutters were already there. They called themselves DADA, a deliberately nonsensical noise like the sound of an idiot child trying to annoy its parents, DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA. Dada(ism)* was a direct response to the enormous, mechanised violence of World War Two. The artists used art as a way of attacking the eminently sensible things that the bourgeoisie would say to justify the utterly insane actions they were capable of and disposed toward performing.

Dada was a punk scream of despair, shock and disbelief directed at a ruling class that had broken the world in two and slaughtered an entire generation of European, Japanese, Australian, Indian and American young people (if I missed any please forgive) . Dada sought to reveal the meaningless void behind the genteel charade of society. All these supposedly noble ideas of duty, patriotism, courage and honour were all just DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA DA. The real truth was a vast meat grinder, an inhuman machine capable of using untold cruelty to maintain its precious social order.

"We had lost confidence in our culture. Everything had to be demolished. We would begin again after the tabula rasa.

(Blank slate) " Marcel Janko

So DADA was the first beautiful idea that was ugly because it had to be ugly to be beautiful, and if you are punk you will know what that means. *Intellectuals came along and added the ISM bit later to make it sound a bit more sensible

09

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

SACHA JENKINS IN A WAR ZONE WIDE-AWAKE JON NAAR IN NEW YORK, C. 1973 The first wave of snot-nosed knuckleheads who were willing to bleed for fame called the sport “writing. “ These were the inner-city toughs of the late 1960s who played stick ball and touch football on New York City’s sticky-tar streets. “Writing” or “graffiti” (a distinction that many pioneering writers say was doled out by the media and the “man”) was just another name for another game that a lot of people played back then. Julio 204 is one such “writer” or, ahem, “athlete,” or, ahem, “evangelist,” who many say was spreading his personal gospel ‘round the grande Apple town as early as 1968 (it must be noted that Philadelphia writers like Corn Bread and Cool Earl were tearing up the City of Brotherly Love years before cats like Julio was down by the schoolyard getting famous-ask Simon or Garfunkel.

He was writing his name. On public property. Getting up, as they say. And getting over. And getting back. This was the era when your favorite civil rights activists were being gunned down on Southern motel balconies. Revolution was in the air at a time when there was no Internet teeming with millions of brilliant photographs of globalahem-” graffiti. “ Back then, revolution was face to face and in your face, as in “say it loud!” “The term ‘graffiti’ is to ‘writing ‘ what the ‘N’ word is to African Americans and what the ‘S’ word is to Puerto Ricans,” says Mico, a first generation writer of Latino descent from Brooklyn who made a name for himself by crafting protest paintings on the sides of

11

14

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

subway cars (“Hang Nixon ... Free Puerto Rico!”). In those formative days, on walls alongside names like Julio 204, one might spy sprayed-on slogans like “Black Is Beautiful” or “Power To The People.” The New York transit system would soon become the precursor apparent to the information superhighway. Busses and subway cars with thousands of (nick)names sprayed and dripped all over ‘em reached out to a “global” community that raced from Manhattan to the Bronx and from Brooklyn to Queens at very high speeds. The “writers” wanted their own governing bodies, their own kingdoms. Instinctively, they yearned for an alternative to the body of brains responsible for the bloodshed in Viet Nam (and, of course, one must factor in the fearless spirit of youth).

The writers would go on to elect their own presidents of independent nations and corporations by way of creating “crews” (a process some today might call “branding”)-groups of social order and prominence, existing for the preservation of writers and writing. The crews-with names like the Ebony Dukes and the Ex Vandalswere gangs not bound by turf or terrain. The New York subway system would morph into this message-inthe-bottle kind of medium. Like baby Moses floatin ‘ down the Nile, the words got around. They were “toughs” not because they were bloodthirsty; they were toughs because times were hard on the boulevard. The writing on the walls and subway cars was a reaction to the times and a reflection of the conditions in which writers and their civilian families lived. In 1971 -the year the New York Times published the very first insightful piece on writing culture or the “graffiti subculture”- New York was a city

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

growing more and more fiscally and emotionally depressed. It was this booming bust which created the conditions kids needed in order to have their say. Think about it: when do children-or young adults-ever have their say? “As writers, we were pretty much left to exercise our free will anywhere we pleased,” remembers Stag 161, a writer who gained notoriety for his appearance in Jon Naar’s and Mervyn Kurlansky’s and Norman Mailer’s pioneering book The Faith of Graffiti. “We would write out in the open. Citizens were intimidated to the point where they would not say anything. We had free reign over the [subway storage] yards and lay -ups. “Yes, there were token arrests, “ Stag 161 continues, “but while one guy was getting escorted out the south side of the tunnel , there would be three or four more writers on the north side still carrying on with their craft.

You could hear the radios of the cops on one side, and the cans shaking and spraying on the other. “ In 1972 Mayor John Lindsay announced the first “war” on graffiti; a year later Mr. Lindsay declined to seek another term, and the mounting conflict between the kids and the City of New York was a blemish the official couldn’t fade. “The city itself, with all the crime and corruption, had much more of an edge to it,” says Chris “Daze” Ellis-a writer who grew to prominence in the early 1980s and has since exhibited his paintings around the world.

“There was no question that graffiti ruled the subways then; the insides and outsides were killed-all city!”Jon Naar’s incredibly important photos-originally made for The Faith of Graffiti-were shot over a two-week period during the winter of ‘73. Most of the photographs to which you are about to bear witness have

15

16

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

never before been published. The original slides have been living quietly in nice transparent sleeves for well over thirty years. Faith was an assignment. Naar knew nothing about the subculture.

He roamed the streets of New York City, armed with the eye of a combat photographer. Naar would step through the war zone wide-awake; he would take no prisoners except on film , but those captives speak volumes. The tome that hit the shelves of book stores and libraries in 1974 would have both an immediate and a long lasting impact on the movement of writing. “The book came out shortly after I left NY and moved to Vermont,” explains Stag 161. “I went from a city of 6 million to a hamlet of 600 in the summer; the first time the local bridge got tagged the police came straight to my door,” he adds coyly. “I never saw the book until about 30 years later. I didn’t keep up with the graff scene.

When writers meet me today, they break out their copy and ask me to sign page four!”

“Norman Mailer interviewing writers like Japan 1 and Cay 161 instead of Andy Warhol meant that graffiti writers had attained the fame they sought,” says Jason, a writer who’s been dedicated to the movement for more moons than most. “Although Naar wasn’t familiar with the graffiti food chain, the book caught graff at the transitional stage between tagging and piecing. Pieces were merely filled in tags outlined in another color. In those days, style meant handwriting and that’s vanished from the game.” Right. And so the handwriting would become more elaborate. And then the trains would become so covered with graffiti that there would eventually be no room for more. What’s next?

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

The status quo sucks.

You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet.

You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.

17

20

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

Get big. Bigger. And bigger still. Go over others to the point where there is no record of their existence. More colorful. More psychedelic. Add clouds, flames, bubbles. Arrows, stars. Throw in cartoon characters or busty women -1973 was the year that all of these ideas were truly about to flower. Competition would inspire others to play the game. The writers would critique their works. An aesthetic value was being factored in. If you produced sloppy, sub-par works you were labeled a “toy.” The writers were becoming art critics and historians. What these beautiful pages will hip you to are the conditions that birthed writing -and the culture of hip hop. Writing , as we know, was bubbling up a bit before 1973-the year that hip hop ‘s founding father and OJ, Kool Here, spun records in the basement of his South Bronx apartment building for the party people (Here himself was a writer before he pioneered the new rock ‘n roll.) But who knew?

Who knew that so much culture would rise from the ashes of torched tenement buildings and the fingers of swashbuckling shorties?

Who knew that books like The Faith of Graffiti and Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper’s Subway Art would spread New York City street culture across the continents? Who knew that Kool Here rocking a wide variety of records for friends in his neighborhood would kick start a multi-billion dollar industry? Jon Naar’s shutter testifies in ways that words never can. His is a vision of New York as it will never be again- until the Apocalypse.

Mayor Lindsay’s war on subway graffiti would rage on after he left the scene, until May 1989, when the last fully-graffitied train rolled off into the sunset. New York had its own Viet Nam. But

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

just because passengers didn’t see writing on trains didn’t mean it wasn’t still happening: writers would risk their freedom in order to paint trains no one would ever see except for themselves and their extended crews. It ‘s a tradition that continues today-painting trains just for photographs. It ‘s like wild game hunting.

European writers vacation in New York so they can say that they, too, slew a stainless-steel rhino. The demise of subway writing would aid in the evolution of graffiti media-today there are magazines, video magazines, and websites from all over our Earth that feature styles and concepts that are native to their respective regions.

So now a writer in Astoria, Queens, can keep up with trains that are being painted in Florence, Italy. In the ‘70s, writers would hang out in train stations and watch the names go by.

They called it “benching” because they sat for hours on the hard wooden benches designated for strap-hangers and the homeless. Now writers across the country paint freight trainsand these trains travel far, far away from the five boroughs of New York. Graffiti writers have officially become train spotters ... Oh, and there are products marketed directly to writers -like spray paint. Back in the old New York, writers would “invent” or “rack” (i .e., steal) their paint. It was part of the game. Now, there are colors of paint named after legendary writers. Today writers are big-time graphic designers and fine artists and clothing designers and schoolteachers and video game designers and transit workers and parents and magazine publishers and, ahem , writers. Who knew that the style-ized signatures of inner city kids would go on to have such a monumental impact on popular

21

22

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

culture? We’re just lucky that Jon Naar was there. “The Faith of Graffiti remains the original and only pure document of a time when there was still no blueprint,” says Eric Haze, an influential graphic designer who first caught the writing fever back in 1973. “Where a few cans of paint combined with the desire for self expression created what would become the language of the hip hop generation, and perhaps the only other truly American art form born in the wake of jazz.” Write on.

STREET ART VS. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY Think about Intellectual Property for a minute. Indulge me. You got it? Good, then let’s begin. Isn ‘t it absurd to suggest that a thought can be owned? The thing about intellect is that it isn’t a thing , and you can ‘t own things that aren ‘t things because that is just the same as owning no thing which is nothing at all.

Ok, so maybe in some instances it isn’t all that simple. It takes time and effort and a lot of thought to put together a piece of writing for example (not this one though , five minutes tops. I don’t get paid enough to waste my whole afternoon on this shit.) So surely the guy or gal who writes an article should get paid and be protected from unscrupulous bastards stealing the whole article verbatim and selling it themselves? Yeah maybe, maybe not.

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

You see the words, the ideas, the language, the grammar, the alphabet and so on and so on do not belong to the writer, but they are all an essential part of the process. At what point do you slice out the bit which the author owns? Is it the idea for the article, the subject, or the structure? All these are ineffable subjective things.

Then there are the more concrete and objective factors involved in the creative process. Who made the computer?

Who designed the software? Who works on the water, gas and electricity that make the creative workspace inhabitable? Surely all these people are entitled to a claim of the intellectual property of the work?

Street Art is rooted , to greater or lesser degrees in Hip Hop culture and tends towards cut and paste aesthetics which means that it has as much contempt for intellectual property as it does for placement. Street Art attacks intellectual property in the same way that break beat does, sampling and remixing without asking anyone’s permission. This is the future. Don’t look back!

Remember, plagiarism is simply stealing from one source, while research is stealing from many.

Who is winning? YOU ARE!

23

24

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

THE MOST RADICAL QUESTION, THE MOST DANGEROUS ANSWER ...

WHAT IS PROPERTY? “Property is an interaction between people and not really a fixed object” Street Art and Graffiti are always defined legally as property damage. This is a crucial distinction because without it neither graffiti nor street art would recognizably exist. That’s why this question strikes at the very heart of all of this monkey business that you see so beautifully photographed and printed in this tome. If you like street art, and let’s presume that you do, then it’s obvious that your own notion of property is not clear cut. If you agree with the notion that city walls do not belong to you but to the owners of the individual buildings and/or municipal authorities then you should agree that you don’t have the right to paint them. If you do think you have the right to paint on them then it must be because you, at root, whether you think about it consciously or not, have an issue with the idea of property. So what is property? The people who built the wall certainly don’t own it. The people who occupy the building probably don’t own it either. The people who walk past it every day or see it from their living room windows, well it’s not technically theirs either. It doesn’t belong to the council workers who clean it and if it needs to be fixed then everyone will try and say it isn‘t theirs.

So who do the streets belong to? The owners are out there somewhere. The owners are a distant bunch of ghosts and shadows, rarely visible from street level , but their advocates and servants seem to be ubiquitous and their rights are upheld

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

05

26

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

in the most impressively efficient and extraordinarily expensive of ways. To really discover where we stand in the world as individuals we can do few more interesting mind experiments than consider our own idea of property and how it relates to the legal version. The choices we make depend on our own values. We might be devastated if someone steals our new phone for example, but we might not care two hoots if a friend doesn’t return a book we lent. Similarly we might choose not to paint on the shop window of an independent business but be happy to paint away on the side of a warehouse or factory. These are decisions based on how we negotiate with the idea of property. We are angry when spoiled kids have things they don’t use, but we don’t tend to criticize someone for having things that they take great pleasure in using. The law by contrast has no capacity to recognize this subtle negotiation of values. Property becomes even more complicated by the issue of collective use. Public space is collectively used so surely it should be collectively owned?

And there is the rub, it is not, and it is increasingly used as a vehicle to influence the public mind through ever more invasive commercial messages. No can do this, no can do that, what the hell can you do in this place that you call your town?” Gogol Bordello, Super Taranta. What is radical about Street Art is that it attacks the notion of property as it is presented to us by the dominant culture. It really is as simple as that. The more you look at ‘property’ the deeper you realize the rabbit hole goes. The whole house of cards is built on the notion that property is an abstract value with a permanent force outside of our control. It is not. Property is an ongoing negotiation between real human beings, and that is still the most dangerous idea in the world.

Masochism is a valuable job skill.

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved.

Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.

27

28

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

GRAFFITI VS. THE DOMINANT CULTURE “Graffiti is a highly visible symbol that the dominant society isn‘t Completely in control and cannot arbitrarily dictate the terms of access to expressions that give cultural meaning to spaces.”

Rob Weinberg , Shooting the Messenger: Rethinking Confrontation in the War Against Graffiti, 2003

A bit of a mouthful from big Rob there but you get the point, right? The dominant culture, which for want of a better term we tend to call commercialism or capitalism or whatever, uses public space in the urban environment as a way to communicate to people what it wants to communicate.

Big corporate buildings say to the individual: “We are massive, you are tiny. “ When in truth, the corporation is a tiny organization when compared to the number of citizens who live in the city in which it is based. Corporate public art, neatly manicured patches of grass and designer fountains, all communicate messages to the user of the space as to how they should behave within it. And what is generally communicated is that one should as an individual, opt into corporate culture, as it is the mature, sensible and even moral thing to do.

GRAFFITI AND STREET ART

The dominant culture is pathologically paranoid about any other voice being heard because other voices might detract from its power. That is why the little boy must not shout out that the emperor wears no clothes, because the emperor is too much afraid of losing control to tolerate even the smallest of oppositional voices. This is the real reason why the war on graffiti is pursued with such prejudice, because it is part of a wider battle for control of the flow of ideas. He who controls the topic of conversation controls the city. “The dominant culture protects its messages in many ways; the war on graffiti is not merely a war on vandalism and social chaos fought along strict legal boundaries as its agents often claim, but part of a war against all messages legal or otherwise that distract from the dominant presentation. “ Rob Weinberg , Shooting the Messenger: Rethinking Confrontation in the War Against Graffiti, 2003 Who is winning? Who knows? Keep pushing!

29

30

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

SHEPARD FAIREY VS. ASSOCIATED PRESS Regardless of what you think of Shepard Fairey his impact on Street Art has been massive and the eventual outcome of the protracted legal battle he has been fighting with the AP is sure to set a precedent in US law. If you don’t know already, the dispute is over the source photo used for the Obama poster campaign designed by Fairey. The photograph, taken by Mannie Garcia is cited to belong to the AP, and they want Fairey to pay for it. Fairey claims he had the right to use the image without permission under ‘fair use’. This would mean that he has changed the image sufficiently for it not to be regarded as a copyright infringement. “If the AP wins their case, every Obama art (or any other politician that was based on a photo reference that was not licensed would be rendered illegal. “ Shepard Fairey, The Huffington Post There are no winners with this. Some photographers just need to get over themselves. In remix culture, intellectual property looks like a dinosaur up to its tits in a tar pit, looking dumbstruck and enraged while the meteors begin to fall. Even so, Fairey clearly doesn’t share quite as radical vision as we do. Don’t forget that this is the guy who reportedly sent a Cease and Desist order to the artist Baxtar Orr on grounds of plagiarism ...

POLITIC AND GR DESIGN

POLITICAL POLITICAL ART AND ART AND GRAPHIC GRAPHIC DESIGN. DESIGN.

CAL AR RAPHIC N

34

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

GRAPHIC DESIGN The field to which I've devoted my life, isn't mentioned often in popular fiction. A rare exception can be found in Richard Price's epic 600-page 1992 novel Clockers. In it Price tells the story of a young drug dealer, Strike, describing his desperate, day-to-day existence in harrowing detail. My profession makes its appearance while Strike is visiting his parole officer: The walls of the waiting room were hung with blackand- white cautionary posters, encircling Strike with admonitions, the subjects ranging from AIDS to pregnancy to crack to alcohol, each one a little masterpiece of dread. Strike hated posters. If you were poor, posters followed you everywhere-health clinics, probation offices, housing offices, day care centers, welfare offices-and they were a/ways blasting away at you with warnings to do this, don't do that, be like this, don't be like that, smarten up, control this, stop that.

That three-word sentence stopped me cold: "Strike hated posters." Graphic designers, as everybody knows, love posters.

The difference between these two points of view couldn't be more disturbing to me. I love posters. I love looking at them, and I love designing them. By the time I'd read those words, I'd spent countless hours designing many of those "little masterpieces of dread." Bold. Black and white. Designed to, yes, blast away with their admonishing messages. I had to do some soul searching.

Who was I designing for, anyway?

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

35

The poster for the pro bona cause is, frankly, a bit of a cliche in contemporary design practice. Like many others, I was always happy to take them on because of their meaty subject matter. Forget the struggle to find drama in inherently dull commercial subjects. Here, instead, were the great themes: life, death, good, evil, the very future of humanity.

And my imaginary audience was, often, humanity itself. At least that's what I told myself. If I were completely honest, I'd admit that my real audience was one I know a little bit better: my fellow designers. Or perhaps even a more cynically limited subset fellow designers who judge design competitions.

Right around the time I first read Price's words, I was ready to make some changes. Design for designers is great, but the real challenge in doing cause-related work is communicating with the larger public beyond our small circles. It's harder in every way: harder to compete with all the other noise, harder to reach the people who can really make a difference.

This means thinking differently, in five specific ways.

1

co mu ica

BE CLEAR ABOUT YOUR PURPOSE If you're acting as a communicator, be clear about what you're communicating. "Building awareness" can be a copout, an excuse to separate cause and effect. What do you want your work to accomplish? How will you know if you 're successful? Make your goal action, and determine the most direct way to provoke it. Be outrageously ruthless.

2

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE Who are you trying to reach? Don't start until you have an answer to this question. A message that doesn't ring truevisually, verbally, and in every other way-will get dismissed or, even worse, ignored. Understand the context of the people who will be seeing your work. The more you can master that language, the more your message will get through.

3

TRY NOT TO USE DESIGN AS THERAPY When horrible things happen, feeling bad is an understandable reaction. Helping makes us feel better. Figure out the best way to help. Is maki.ng a poster the best way? Sometimes, donating your talent is great. Often, simply donating money is better.

om unate 4

DON'T BE "CREATIVE" The brilliant Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena says, "Creativity is what you do when there is not enough knowledge. If you have knowledge, you do not need creativity." Don 't use work for social causes as a showcase for your cleverness, or as an excuse to stretch your creative muscles without the constraints of demanding clients. Do your research , get the knowledge you need, and then find the fastest, most bullshit-free route from point A to point B. If you can be clever on the way, go ahead-but not at the expense ofgetting your point across. Be your own demanding client.

5

NO MATTER WHAT, BE OPTIMISTIC AND POSITIVE The best designs and the most effective campaigns are inspiring, not depressing. Don't admonish; don't talk down to people. At its best our work can serve as a rallying cry and give voice to people who might otherwise feel isolated and silent. Use your work to visualize the future, and lead the way with enthusiasm and passion.

38

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

TOO MUCH LIKE ART? In 1949, Pablo Picasso, a French Communist Party member, designed the poster for the first World Peace Congress, held in Paris by the European communist movement. He and Louis Aragon, poet and leading Party member, agreed that the motif of the poster should be a white dove, standing on the ground and executed as a black-ink lithograph. The dove had traditionally been a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and a dove clasping an olive branch as the symbol of reconciliation between God and humankind, for such a dove had brought Noah the good news that the Flood had abated. Now it became “the dove of peace” and a white dove, shown flying and with no other attributes, has become a globally recognized symbol.

Since Picasso, artists all over the world have increasingly used the medium of the poster to address the political events of their day - criticizing, satirizing, or depicting a positive alternative.

They have rarely worked on behalf of those in power - with the exception of the first few years following the Russian Revolution, when Lenin was working to instill revolutionary enthusiasm and artists like El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko helped to disseminate revolutionary slogans. Since then, avant-garde artists have distanced themselves from totalitarian regimes.

Instead, they have worked for the disenfranchised, using their designs to attack the evils of hunger, war, and oppression, and to promote human rights and environmentalism, consistently seeing themselves on the side of the people rather than those James Rosenquist (*1933) See Saw (Class Systems) Chicago 1968 Lithograph 61x87,5 cm Published by Richard L Feigen Gallery, this print has its text on the reverse side.

Rosenquist shows the mayor of chicgo, Richard J. Daley. “seesawwing” as the tittle indicates, between upper middle lower classes. Daley forcefully opposed the anti war demonstrations during the Democratic National Convention in 1968 ordering arrest of the “Chicago Seven” (to the right)

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

39

40

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

in power. In 1937, when Joan Mir6 published his anti-fascist poster in a magazine, he wrote underneath: “In the current battle, the only powers I see on the fascist side are the forces of the past, whereas on the other side are the people, whose boundless creative resources will bring a new dawn to Spain that will astonish the world.”

The political poster has a surprisingly short history. After the emergence of the modern poster, almost a century went by before the first political posters appeared. With a few exceptions, this was not until the First World War. This makes politics the third major theme of modern posters, after cultural events (theater troupes and book publishers began advertising by poster in the first half of the 19th century) and advertisements for products, which became common from the mid-19th century onwards.

The forerunners of political posters were magazine advertisements in the form of posters that expressed the magazine’s political outlook. Our story therefore begins with two works by Alexandre Steinlen, a politically aware artist best known for his work as a magazine illustrator, caricaturist, and poster artist. He was instrumental in popularizing a repertoire of images which, after the Russian Revolution, became the epitome of revolutionary imagery.

Eugene Delacroix painted his “Liberty Guiding the People” (“LaLiberte guidant le peuple’’) inspired by the July Revolution in Paris. It was to become the prototype of all revolutionary images.

The personification of freedom is always female and strong, pointing the way to the future. This allegorical figure’s attributes are the red flag, burst fetters, and streaming hair, and she is closely akin to the personifications of Peace and of the Republic that represented a progressive alte native to monarchy in the

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

19th century.Through the designs of Stein/en, these allegorical figures, whose forerunners stretch far back into European art history, found their way into post-First World War revolutionary propaganda. With her figure of Nana, an embodiment of the modern woman confidently stating her claim to power, French artists Niki de Saint Phalle still followed the same tradition.

Posters designed by artists and not by graphic designers generally stand out through their use of an individual visual language not easily read or widely understood. The same is true of political posters by artists: they are clearly different from other political posters, such as the propaganda posters of authoritarian states or the generally dull election posters of Western democracies.

During the first half of the 20th century, posters by artists were very rare, and only after they were successfully introduced in Paris in the 1950s did they become, during the 1960s, a regular feature of the international art scene. They usually announced the artists’ own exhibitions or other cultural events; they very seldom dealt with politics. It was only in 1968 - a year marked by protests - that political posters became really significant. Suddenly, a large number of artists felt compelled to make statements in the form of posters, on themes including the Vietnam War, May ‘68 in Paris, and the general resentment against the armed powers involved in the Cold War. This period of protest came to an end in 1972: with the election of the Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern in the USA and the new SPD (Social Democratic Party) Chancellor Willy Brandt in Germany, the aims of the protest movements became more integrated into mainstream politics. New themes and new forms of publishing emerged for posters by artist.

During the 1970s, UNESCO and international human rights

41

42

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

organizations published several series of posters (sometimes very extensive) in which artists attacked South African apartheid, condemned torture in South America, or declared support for the autonomy of the people of Catalonia, who were oppressed by General Franco. One major new theme that became prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s was the environment. It was followed, a little later, by demands for equal rights and for the “politically correct” treatment of dissidents and those subject to discrimination. The end of the Cold War, and a new perspective on the world, which in political terms was called globalization, also found expression in many posters by artists.

Most notably, Robert Rauschenberg organized an international exhibition tour that disregarded all national boundaries and political enmities. The Goethe-lnstitut (a German institution that undertakes cu tural activities in countries all over the world) sponsored a remarkable series of large posters entitled “I Am You” to promote the fellowship of all human beings.

The slogans of the French Revolution - freedom, equality, and fraternity - still accurately summarize the content of these posters by artists. Such ideals seem almost romantic and naive when we look at what the world is like today. But unlike election or propaganda posters, political posters by artists do not need to aim at realistic goals; they do not have to glamorize anyone or gloss over anything. They are free to take sides independently of commercial or political considerations, and can address their theme using any motif and (in theory) any content they choose.

Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008) Poster for Senator Javits Re-Election Campaign New York 1968 Offset print, 58 x 56 cm Republican senator Jacob K. Javits from New York was one of the first opponents of 1he Vietnam War in the US Senate. Rauschenberg’s poster, which has no text, may have been used for fund-raising.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

43

44

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

Unknown artist U.S.A. Surpasses All the Genocide Records!

New York 1969 Reproduction by the German Reflection Press , Offset print, 40 x 61 cm Macrunas’ protest against the Vietnam War focuses on the victims of American wars. “ who hides his identry, including his name, behind other artists, was particularly close to George Macrunas, who contributed considerably to the reputation of this American.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

45

Listen, ATHEISM the next IS A NONrevolution is gonna PROPHET be a revolution of ORGANIZATION. ideas.

46

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

Nevertheless, it is important to note that modern artists almost never side with those in power. Unlike in the world of politics, where different interests collide and need to be negotiated, among artists there seems to be a consensus to support democratic rights and individual freedoms.

What might lead an already successful artist to take a position on a topical political theme? Is not free art, by definition, independent of any kind of commission? Certainly artists have always retained their creative freedom (no one commissioning an art work today would demand that the artist use a certain motif), but the fact remains that the artists who created these posters - from the Expressionists of the 1920s to the Conceptual artists of the present day - were commenting on subjects that had been proposed to them. They were asked to use their talents to announce an event or to protest against an injustice. Normally this is the job of graphic designers, whose profession it is to express a certain content in a concise and at the same time comprehensible way.

On the other hand, political posters by artists have the individualistic character of modern art - which does not always make their visual language easy to understand. Joseph Beuys experienced this when, as a founder member of Die Griinen (the German Green Party), he designed an election poster that was rejected by the party in a majority vote.

“When it came to the poster, it soon became clear that most Greens preferred a very different kind. Our poster was ‘too aloof,’ ‘too un-political,’ and ‘too arty,’ and they felt that it would be more likely to put voters off.” (J hannes Stiittgen, “Zeitstau. lm Kraftfeld des erweiterten Kunstbegriffs von Joseph Beuys’; Stuttgart 1988, p. 133). In the end, the young party chose a brightly colored sunflower poster which, resembling a child’s cheerful doodle, rapidly achieved a popularity that Beuys’ intellectual design could never have equaled.

The phrase “too much like art” could describe many of the posters in this book. For instance, the “I Am You” poster series commissioned by the Munich Goethe-lnstitut - which, unlike most of the posters shown here, were actually displayed in the street- had a rather alienating effect.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

The 20 large-size posters were shown not only all over Germany, but also in Ulan Bator and on the Odessa Steps. While these posters allowed the sponsors to make their statement “against intolerance and xenophobia,” people with no knowledge of modern art often expressed their bewilderment when confronted with the designs. Obviously, expectations are different for images in a public space than for those in a museum.

Publicly displayed posters are expected to be easy to understand.

Viewers expect legible slogans and clear motifs, as with commercial adverts, in which the relationship between text and image is unambiguous. Artists’ posters rarely display this kind of explicit message; they are more likely to provoke, intrigue, arouse curiosity.

Posters are a public medium. Although the posters presented here are more likely to appeal to collectors and enthusiasts, they still have the public function of getting a message across. Many of the artists have responded to the specific functions of the poster medium by using text with their images, or by employing images that can be seen from a distance and are readily comprehended.

Artists don’t always create special images for a topic; sometimes they simply offer one of their recent works. The motif may have little to do with the cause, but the name of a well-known artist may still help to raise funds for a campaign or to give it a higher profile. On the other hand, there are artists who publish their designs on their own initiative. This is an “intervention” in the traditional sense- taking sides, agitating, criticizing. Examples include Oskar Kokoschka’s poster from the post-Second World War period to raise awareness of starving children, which he had posted up in the London Underground at his own expense, or Richard Serra’s aggressive posters campaigning against the reelection of George W. Bush, which Serra distributed via the Internet.

47

48

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

We always know the theme of these posters, or rather the purpose for which they were created. This means that one feels obliged to attribute meaning to the works of artists whose art usually defies a definite interpretation. A good example of this is the Amnesty International poster by Max Bill, whose black areas are immediately recognizable as walls surrounding colors that represent life. And then there are artists who are clearly committed to the cause and who create surprisingly explicit and unambiguous images very different from their usual works -Alexander Calder and Roy Lichtenstein are cases in point.

Perhaps the greatest appeal of the posters presented in this book is precisely this: the fact that they deal unambiguously with a certain theme. This places the work of many of the greatest artists of the 20th century in a new context, creating surprising contrasts. At the same time, they present a new and refreshing view of the protest and opposition movements of the past 60 years.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) Conspiracy Means lo Breathe Together New York 1969 Offset print, 107 x 72 cm This poster, depicting an electric chair from 1963, helped to finance the defense of the “Chicago Seven, • the seven people arrested at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago n 1968 for incitement to riot. Abbie Hollman, Jerry Rubin, and five others were accused of “conspiracy, • a statutory offence that was defined in 1945 in order to condemn Nazi criminals.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

49

50

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

REVOLUTION AND PEACE According to Vladimir Mayakovsky, the great poet and prop ganda artist of the Russian Revolution, ‘’Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Like other artists who subscribed to the aims of the Russian Revolution and wished to set the ease/ aside, he wanted to develop a pictorial form for his propaganda works that would be crystal clear and hard-hitting, but also affable and humorous.

Emilio Vedova (1919-2006) To This America, Saigon These two posters are a series of 6, and condemn the Vietnam War. Besides this poster about Saigon there is also one about North Vietnam. These collages are strikingly different from the Venetian painter’s otherwise abstract oeuvre. The artist has, however, retained his preference for black and white contrasts, which also permeate his paintings

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

51

52

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

This is demonstrated particularly clearly by the so-called ROST A windows. The style is based on the Russian popular print or “lubok,” uniting this folk tradition with a modern figural language.

To this he added a very innovative manufacturing technique due to severe shortages during the Russian Civil War, everything had to be improvised and produced by hand.

Renowned Russian artists, from El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko to Wassi/y Kandinsky and Marc Chagall (the last two returned to Russia from Western Europe to support the new regime), were the only 20th-century avant-garde artists who consciously placed their art at the service of their government. This happened at a time when the Russian Revolution was still seen as the great hope for humanity, and the hunger of millions still made sense. There were also progressive artists in Germany who supported the Communist Party and the aims of the Communist International (Comintern) in seeking to transform society. Heinrich Vogeler travelled to the Soviet Union in its early days, and George Grosz designed an election poster for the KPD (German Communist Party) that could hardly have been any more radical. Grosz was later invited to visit the Soviet Union. After he had seen the country for himself, however, he increasinly distanced himself from party politics. When Picasso designed posters for the World Peace Congress in the years following the Second World War; and so ultimately for communist clients, conditions were very different.

Hans Erni (* 1909) No to Nuclear War Lucerne 1954 Offset print, 128 x 90,5 cm This antinuclear war poster was published by the Schweizer Konferenz fiirden Frieden (The Swiss Conference for Peace) on the occasion of the first international nuclear conference in Geneva in 1955. The five nuclear powers of the age - the USA, the USSR, the United Kingdom, France, and China - made optimistic speeches about the opportum~ies for the peacefuf use of atomic power in the future.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

53

54

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

Guerrilla Girls The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist New York 1988 Offset print, 43 x 5 6 cm This is a typical text-only poster from this group of women artists. In satirical phrases (almost in the style of Jenny Holzer) it lists the supposed advantages of being a woman artist: being able to work without the pressures of success, not having to take part in exhibitions with male artists, being able to escape to a parttime job, knowing that your career might take off at the age of 80, the certainty that whatever kind of art you produce it will be described as feminine, and so on.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

55

Equality is the Imagine books and music and soulbeing of liberty; movies filtered and homogenized.

Certified. Approved there is, for consumption. People will be in fact, happy to give up most of their culture for the assurance that no liberty the tiny bit that comes through it.White noise. iswithout safe and clean.

56

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

57

58

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

MOST PEOPLE JUST DON’T get climate change.

Few grasp the need and, more important, the opportunity to transform our society. So the people who do get it need to be louder, more insistent, and more effective tat getting the message across.

This is predominantly a framing problem, and a framing problem is, in essence, a marketing problem. With the Green Patriot Posters project we looked to the graphic design and artistic communities for ways to invigorate and mobilize people to remake our economy for a more sustainable future. We wanted to contribute something to the re-branding of contemporary environmentalism, bringing climate change and the drive for clean energy to center stage and minimizing fear-mongering about eco-apocalypse and mushy anthropomorphism of “Mother Earth” with their hand-me-down aesthetics and naive obsessions.

With this in mind we set out to collect and commission posters that created a stronger, more urgent, and more relevant movement. Like most people looking to build something from scratch, we started with our friends and branched out from there.

WHERE IS THE THIRD WAVE? This year we celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day in the United States, but of course the environmental movement in this country is much older than that.

In a 1986 Wall Street Journal editorial, Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense Fund broke down the history of

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

frederic tacer

59

60

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

the movement into three “waves.” The first wave, he wrote, “was a reaction to truly rapacious exploitation of natural resources in the wake of the Industrial Revolution” and the est lands and wildlife, especially in the West.” The second wave “recognized that the contamination of water, land, and air had sown seeds of destruction for both wildlife and humans. The strategy in this second phase has been to try to halt abusive pollution.”

The first two waves had great success. First wave: the creation of our National Forests, the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964; second wave: the passage of the Clean Air Act, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Our air and water are cleaner and more land is protected. Our very consciousness about the environment has changed. We have become more sensitive to ecology.

Yet Krupp was right to point out that the environmental movement needed a new direction, a third wave, and that the old paradigms starkly opposing industry and nature were worn out and counterproductive. An emphasis on conservation and purity made the movement seem precious and out of touch. Not far off were the cries concerning “the end of nature” and “the death of environmentalism” (both titles of books that would be published in the years to come).

The problem is that twenty years later the focus has been found, but the strategy has not. Climate change is clearly the challenge of our times, but is the environmental movement doing a good job of motivating the public to address it? In our view, despite its successful history and the urgency of its current agenda, the environmental movement has not evolved to meet the challenge of this third wave. It is broad but weak-weaker than it should be given the imperative of its message.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

It is a movement that primarily seems to concern affluent people in mostly superficial ways. Younger people, who are the real stakeholders given that they will inherit an environmenton the verge of collapse, are weirdly apathetic, hedonistic, and cynical. Less affluent people, who are the most likely to feel the impacts of climate change-crashing economies and starvation-can’t find enough head-space for these concerns in a world overcrowded with anxieties. Conservatives have become convinced that this once nonpartisan issue is now a threat to their core values. America’s future is at stake and precious few seem to really care or even understand.

WHY GRAPHIC DESIGN? So why graphic design? What can it do? The inspiration came first from WPA (Works Progress Administration) and World War II posters. During the war the United States was able to mobilize industry and its citizens with breathtaking speed. Factories were overhauled and consumption habits were transformed. Conservation (in the form of rationing) became a patriotic act. Strong, graphically compelling posters played a crucial role in the success of this campaign. In these posters, taking action was presented as vital for the good of the nation, and those who were willing to sacrifice were portrayed as dynamic American heroes. This is just what we need today.

Contrast the power and effectiveness of these World War II images with some of the current visual media in the environmentaln advocacy realm. In the latter there are essentially three modes: 1) Save the Earth (which to us seems meaningless and apparently strikes the general public as crying wolf); 2) Save the animals (not meaningless at all but dodges the crux of the matter: future human suffering vs. continued human prosperity); 3) Eco-apocalypse (a legitimate possibility, but a trope that often feels whiny and too distant to be actionable). All of these strategies also suffer from the fact that by the time their truth is tangible to the public it will be far, far too late.

61

62

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

So what is right for our time? We took the approach that no one person knows the answer, and that is why we opened up the project to multiple designers and to the general public.

But the posters we selected for this book represent a particular vision-the vision of the editors. We believe that graphic design does not just respond to the zeitgeist it helps shape it. With that in mind we generally sought posters that convey urgency and/or optimism (in a word: strength), but we remained open about the specific content or imagery we received.

WORKING WITH IRONY, CYNICISM, AND ATTENTION DEFICIT Conceptual problems and lingering cliches were not the only obstacles we faced as we began to wade into the design community. Society has changed since the environmental movements of the ‘60s and ‘70s and, of course, it has changed even more since World War II. Our culture has become extremely skeptical of, even hostile to, sincerity, conviction, and inspiration.

Visual culture is dominated by irony, detachment, and snark.

Idealism in visual communication is perceived as phony and quickly parsed for inconsistency and hypocrisy.

Designers and marketers have created a visual culture that is almost toxic for advocacy. Brazen dishonesty in advertising and branding have made the public rightly suspicious, but perhaps more pernicious is the fact that once that dishonesty became widely understood, it was replaced with a kind of self-referential nothingness. Ads are filled with nonsequiturs, boring office set-ups, and talking babies. Graphic design has become glib and self-deprecating in the extreme. Dishonesty has been replaced with a void.

Part of the reason for this void is the lack of institutions with the cultural or social authority to back up a call to focus then “was on conservation, stemming the loss of for-t action. The World War II posters we were inspired by were effective partly

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

diego gutierrez

63

64

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

because there was confidence in our government and the industries that supported the war effort. People were likely not only to trust the government, but also to feel a sense of common purpose with it. Today virtually all institutions-government, the military, the press, big business-are viewed with suspicion, if not hostility. Environmental activists deserve some of the blame for this. Legitimate criticism and protest have evolved into a culture of knee-jerk anti business, anti government conspiracy theories to the point where all big institutions (even large environmental organizations) are considered illegitimate because of their size. Unfortunately we will need big institutions and mass organization to get us out of this mess. Such deep-seated cynicism created one of the core challenges that faced this project. It was clear that no institutional partner or media sponsor would likely inspire meaningful participation. In our networked culture it is the individual that has credibility, not institutions.

People trust their friends; they don’t trust the government.

Consensus comes in the form of a mesh of likes, links, comments, and recommendations. The institutional has been replaced with the social. To be credible we had to make our own minisocial network that enabled the authority and credibility of the community to guide the project. The Green Patriot Posters website enables peer-to-peer creation and valuation of images through online submissions, community-based voting, and frictionless sharing across social networks.

MINIATURE MONUMENTS Basing a poster project around a website seemed like a bit of a contradiction. The obvious question (one that came at us often) was, “Why posters”? The web has not only changed how consensus and community work; it has become the dominant medium for visual communication as well.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

Posters were traditionally a way of dominating public spaces like street corners and bus stations, but now our public space is on line. How does a poster work in a world where it is more likely to be seen on a Facebook wall than an actual wall?

One fundamental principle of this project is that the poster has retained the power and impact of its roots even as it has been squashed down into a jpg. The idea of the poster has survived even as the context and medium have shifted.

This is partly because, ironically, the design challenge of making something impactful in a Twitter feed is very similar to that of making something readable from across the street. It requires scale, contrast, and bold messaging.

In the endless stream of information and updates that characterizes the web, the visual properties of a poster ·are quite effective-they are miniature monuments. Each online poster also serves as a thumbnail for a bigger idea, a hyperlink to the greater project of fighting climate change.

Building a better button is now more important than building a better mousetrap. A clever or arresting poster design garners clicks; the quality of its design is a call to action in and of itself-”click here.”

THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN AND FAIREY’S HOPE POSTER The relative weakness of the environmental movement, the lack of credible public institutions, and the fracturing of our culture into a peer-to-peer network made us doubtful that public art or cause-related imagery could have a meaningful impact in fighting climate change. But Barack Obama’s campaign for president changed that.

For the first time in a generation, there was a cause, a movement, an institution that young people felt was worthy of not just trust, but also action and personal sacrifice. And a poster played a major role in that

65

66

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

campaign. Shepard Fairey’s poster Hope demonstrated that an unironic, idealistic image could take hold in our culture and inspire people, particularly young people, the way World War II posters had. It was the widespread embrace of that image and the vision of young people volunteering on the campaign and voting in record numbers that made us feel like a poster might actually be able to contribute to a broader movement for sustainability and the fight against climate change. Our hope has been affirmed by the quality and the sheer number of poster designs that continue to flow into the Green Patriot Posters website. Clearly there is a great deal of interest in rallying around the fight against climate change to create a more sustainable future.

WHAT WE GOT As posters started rolling in some inspired us, some depressed us, and some just confused us. But several topics recurred, including bicycles, local food, and renewable energy/the end of oil. Notably each of these is positive, solution-oriented, visualizable, and realizable, and each gives distinct agency to the individual.

The bicycle is a nonthreatening, nonideological image, unsanctimonious and almost childlike. At the same time its mere presence is a direct challenge to our car culture, which drives so much C02 into our atmosphere. It is also a symbol of individual responsibility and empowerment in the face of an overwhelming challenge. As we mentioned above, the individual is the most meaningful institution in our culture today, so it is probably no coincidence that the bicycle-a vehicle built for one-would be so resonant. Posters about local food were among the most fun and the most inclined to employ retro imagery-a reminder that the values of this movement have deep roots in American society.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

Shepard Fairey

67

68

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

Alternative technologies were valorized in many of the posters, including Fairey’s iconic windmill. These images reflect a faith that technology and innovation are the great assets of America that will surmount the challenge of climate change-an interesting update to the qualities of determination, grit, and resourcefulness, which were the focus of the World War II-era posters. These works represent a yearning for a different kind of industry, one that harnesses technology, capital, and innovation in the interest of more than just shareholder value-actual values.

There is clearly an opportunity for energy companies to replace reckless, shameless practices like deep-water drilling with clean-energy exploration. Not surprisingly, many designers, particularly many of the youngest designers, deftly adapted the humor and irony that dominate our culture to the cause, hijacking this vernacular for a higher purpose. Jeremy Dean’s co-opted rap lyric in It’s Getting Hot in Here and Xander Pollock’s melting of Al Gore’s face proved that a contemporary environmental movement needs to speak in a contemporary language. Several designers, perhaps frustrated with the lack of credible institutions, made up fictitious ones-Eric Benson’s Renewable Electrification Administration, DJ Spooky’s People’s Republic of Antarctica. Yet what struck us the most was the polyphonic nature of the submissions.

There is no one prevailing ethos, aesthetic, or message. We see this as a strength, not a weakness. It is a sign of the times and of what is needed to invigorate the environmental movement to address the challenges of climate change and energy independence: flexibility, dynamism, and the embrace of complexity and multiplicity.

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

joe scorsone alice druding

69

70

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

WHAT DO I DO NOW? Obviously the poster itself does not create the change we need. That takes people. So what do we hope is the outcome of our book? Real movement-building. And that takes time. If you are inspired by a poster, tear it out and hang it up. Or carry it at a protest. Or find it on our website and pass it on digitally. Make your own poster. Post it. Let it enter the culture and begin its work changing consciousness.

If you want to do more, do it. On the back of each poster is a link to “Go Further” with an idea or action represented in the design. Creating a strong, visible sentiment that raises eyebrows and pushes markets and policy is work in and of itself. But this book is not just about graphic design; it’s about making real change. Follow a few of the links in the book. Act-and urge others to do the same. Hold yourself and others accountable.

The most important people to hold accountable are your elected officials. Contact your representatives; organize a demonstration or other local action. Be louder, more insistent, and more persistent. Create the third wave. The ball is in your court.•

POLITICAL ART AND GRAPHIC DESIGN

steve le

71

72

THE PEOPLE’S PROPAGANDA

QUOTATIONS

“You are an acceptable level of threat and if you were not you would know about it.”

— Banksy “ America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

“ You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world” — Chuck Palahniuk “The status quo sucks!”

— George Carlin “People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas.

Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”

— Chuck Palahniuk

REFERENCE

“Masochism is a valuable job skill” —Chuck Palahniuk “Listen, the next revolution is gonna be a revolution of ideas.”

—Bill Hicks “Atheism is a non-prophet organization.”

—George Carlin Equality is the soul of liberty; there is, in fact, no liberty without it.

—Francis Wright Imagine books and music and movies being filtered and homogenized. Certified.

Approved for consumption. People will be happy to give up most of their culture for the assurance that the tiny bit that comes through is safe and clean. White noise.

— Chuck Palahniuk

73

74

THE PEOPLE’S PROPATRRRRTGANDA

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Banksy Jon narr Shepard Fairy James Rosenquist Unknown artistt Robert Rauschenberg Andy Warhol Emilio Vedova Hans Erni Guerrilla Girls diego gutierrez frederic tacer steve le joe scorsone alice druding

REFERENCE

RESOURCE REFERENCES Untitled. Street art in the counter culture. published by Pro-actif Communications Great Britain 2008 untitled III. This is street art. published by carpetbombing culture and Pro-actif Communications Great Britain 2010 The birth of graffiti by Jon Naar published by Prestel publishing 2007 Power to the imagination. Artists, posters and polotics.

by Jurgen Doring Hirmer publishing copywrite 2011 Green Patriot Posters. Images for new activism. by Dmitri Siegel and Edward Morris published by Gemini G.E.L.

New York ,NY.

75