Poster House Opening

Interview

Poster House Opening

by Angelina M. Lippert

Chief Curator Poster House New York, USA

We are very much looking forward to the opening of Poster House, a new museum in New York dedicated exclusively to posters. Poster House opens to the public on June 20 and we conducted a brief interview with Angelina M. Lippert, Chief Curator of Poster House.

What is the focus of your collection?

Our collection is as broad and expansive as the history of the poster. We define a poster as a public-facing notice that marries word and image. So, this means we have posters from the 1870s to the present day, from all around the world. As such, we have examples by iconic artists like Lautrec and Mucha, as well as contemporary advertising posters from agencies like Dentsu in Japan or McCann in Peru – and everything in between!

What is the main aim of Poster House?

Poster House aims to educate visitors on the tremendous variety, vibrancy, and importance of posters as both art objects and historical documents. I often say that when you read a history book, you’re looking at history from the top-down: major events that impacted large amounts of people. When you look at ephemera – in our case, posters – you’re looking at history from the bottom-up: small but important things that shaped the average person’s daily experience. From products that were being used to performers that were in a small town for one night only, posters tell intimate stories about society, and those moments of discovery are absolutely fascinating.

Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau/Nouvelle Femme exhibition June 20, 2019 - October 1, 2019

www.posterhouse.org

Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau/Nouvelle Femme exhibition June 20, 2019 - October 1, 2019

www.posterhouse.org

Describe one of the most interesting posters in your collection.

Oh we have so many! Right now, I’m particularly fascinated by a collection of six Croatian posters from the mid-1960s by Mihajlo Arsovski. They’re all for a series of B-level American Westerns starring Johnny Mack Brown. What’s interesting is that the movies themselves were released in the 1940s, but clearly re-released in Zagreb twenty-odd years later. So the posters are this combination of classic cowboy silhouettes in psychedelic colors. They’re incredibly rare, and just a really great glimpse at a unique moment in time.

How will Poster House engage with its audience?

Since posters are the people’s art, it’s very important to us that we speak to all audiences. As such, our opening show has three levels of wall text meant to engage everyone from the scholar to the friend that was brought along but didn’t really want to go to a museum. We have a robust educational department that offers school and group tours for all ages, with supplemental, free material in the galleries and online so that families can prepare for visits and continue talking about posters when they get home. We will be offering numerous public programs that allow for different levels of engagement with the posters. For example, with the Mucha show, we are hosting a drink and draw event with live models in period dress so that you can take your hand at being Mucha, as well as a flower crown making workshop so that you can become one of his muses. We also plan on hosting things like design trivia nights, talks with contemporary poster artists, book signings, etc. We’ve created a design game that teaches you a basic history of poster making, and why, for example, there’s a reason you never see a political poster in Comic Sans. There’s also a photo booth near our entrance where we’ve commissioned new technology to allow you to insert yourself into a classic poster – so you can become Rosie the Riveter. We are also working with Visions, a resource and residency for vision impaired and blind New Yorkers. They are located just a few doors down from the museum, and it’s important to us that we find ways to bring a two dimensional, highly visual medium to them – be it through descriptive tours of a show or workshops demonstrating how you can feel restoration on a linenbacked poster.

Please let us know your exhibition plans for this year.

We are opening to the public on June 20 with two shows. The larger is titled Alphonse Mucha: Art Nouveau/ Nouvelle Femme, and it looks at Mucha’s Paris period and how his relationship with Sarah Bernhardt resulted in him changing the way women were presented in advertising. At the same time, in the smaller gallery, we are showcasing the early posters of Cyan, an East German collective which was at the forefront of digital manipulation within posters. In October, we will be switching to a large exhibition on the Gold Age of handpainted Ghanaian film posters, as well as a show about the posters of the 2017 Women’s March and how so much has changed in the messaging over the past three years. Finally, we will begin 2020 with an exhibition detailing 100 years of Chinese poster design, as well as a look at the iconic posters created for General Dynamics by Erik Nistche in the 1950s.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced since starting the project to open Poster House?

One of our mandates is that every year we will feature at least one non-Western and one female-focused exhibition. The non-Western part hasn’t been that difficult since the entire world has had posters in its history. What has been a challenge is finding female poster artists or posters that speak directly to the female experience. So, if anyone reading this has suggestions, please email me immediately!

How did the idea of opening a poster museum develop?

There are a handful of poster museums around the world, but they are primarily in Europe and Asia. The fact that there isn’t one in the United States, let alone in the graphic design mecca that is New York City, seemed like a missed opportunity.

Designing Through The Wall: Cyan in the 1990s exhibition June 20-October 6, 2019

www.posterhouse.org

Designing Through The Wall: Cyan in the 1990s exhibition June 20-October 6, 2019

www.posterhouse.org

Designing Through The Wall: Cyan in the 1990s exhibition June 20-October 6, 2019

www.posterhouse.org