"A World to Win: Posters of Protest and Revolution - Exhibition at the McManus Gallery"

Today I went to see a World To Win: Posters of Protest and Revolution, an exhibition at the McManus Galleries of propaganda posters with works ranging from the early 20th century to the present crises.  The posters were diverse in their content and style which meant that I had a bit to write about.

Fig. 1 Wall photo from Culturescoop website - not from McManus!

  This wall section above (layed out in the same way at the McManus as it is in the picture above) showed posters with the theme of environmentalism and opposition to war.  The red "Stop the Burning Poster" at the far left is by the Body Shop, whose ethical values saw them oppose the mass deforestation in rain forests.  The red background was a deliberate choice by the designers in order to be a shock on the eye and not get lost in the sea of visuals in the visual culture of the time.  Language aside, "Fuck the Draft" stood out for the bold image of a man nonchalantly burning his papers summoning him to serve in the Vietnam war in the 1960s.  The combination of text and image meant that this message could never be perceived in any other way than the obvious.

"Against Apartheid - Boycott South African Goods" is a clever use of contrast and negative space, which served the additional purpose of literally illustrating the issue addressed in the poster.  The poster was created during the struggles of apartheid in South Africa, urging people to boycott exported products from the country.  All of these examples are interesting as they require a little bit of visual rhetoric and cultural understanding of the events behind the posters.

Fig. 2 Wall photo from Culturescoop website

  This section, named "Subvertising", focused on anti-corporate propaganda, which ties in with my recent read of "No Logo" by Naomi Klein.  Many global brands have been exposed as being corrupt in business and/or ethical practices, for example McDonalds taking over chain restaurants in Britain under a capitalist government (top left) and Schweppes swapping their glass bottles for non-recyclable plastics.   These posters urge both the public and designers to reject these businesses whose practices are not in the best interests of the public.  

Other posters in the section above noted below: 

Fig 3 Save The Arctic Stop Shell by Christian Uhlenfelt

Artist Christian Uhlenfelt made a dual visual statement in "Save the Arctic Stop Shell" montage above, manipulating Shell's logo into a caricature of a polar bear (native to the arctic) and contrasting it with a photograph of a terrain that appears to be icy/rocky and soaked in oil on one half.

Fig 4 Sun Mad by Esther Hernandez

Mahlke's "Sun Mad" directly subverts the packaging visuals of SunMaid raisins in an attempt to expose    the company's practices in growing their produce.  This piece is interesting to my research as it could be seen as the "white propaganda" to the original packaging's "black propaganda."  The visuals are a balance between the traditional and familiar subject matte and that which is more jarring (aka the skeleton).  A similar example of blending familiar brand visuals with an anti-corporation message is "Germany - is it?" by Peter Poch.  The poster was created at a time where many European countries were seemingly becoming "Americanised" in their consumer culture.  Poch's visual statement on this is both sarcastic and disapproving of the increasing saturation of US brands in German culture, using the trademark looping font and red and white colour scheme of Coca-Cola.

Fig 5 Germany, is it? by Peter Pocs

Colour schemes and iconography

Fig 6 Victory of the Five Year Plan by N.V Tsivchinskii

Fig 7. 1905 The Path to October by Valentina Kulagina

Fig 8 Workers, Citizens, Farmers, Soldiers; All The People of Germany by Cesar Klein

Fig 9 The Tenth Anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Rebellion by Rene Mederos

Fig 10 So Long as Women are not Free the People Are Not Free by Red Woman's Workshop

Visual features which suggest strength and movement were a prominent theme across the exhibition.  In particular the image of raised fists is used to suggest a power or forcefulness against a system that has oppressed a particular group of people.  Above examples are the poster titled "So Long as Women Are Not Free the People Are Not Free" showing women shouting and punching the air; in a more celebratory mood are the men shown holding their guns in the air in celebration of their successful rebellion.  In "Victory of the Five Year Plan", a huge red fist representing the Soviets crushes a stone no.5 onto anti-communist enemies.  The colour red is widely used in conjunction with Soviet propaganda to represent the communists in visuals.

Fig 11 "And babies" by Ronald L. Haeberie

Fig 12 Que Fais-Tu Pour Empecher Cela? by the Ministerio de Propaganda, Spain

Fig 13 23.10.56 by Peter Pocs

War awareness and anti-war posters tended to be the hardest-hitting in terms of visuals, as deaths of civilians and soldiers alike is a matter that is always pressing.  One of the most famous, or infamous depending on how it is viewed, is the poster by war photographer "And babies"  The picture shows the corpses of children killed in the My Lai massacre of 1968, where over 500 civilians were killed by soldiers in Vietnam.  The quotes "Q: And babies? A: And babies." is from an interview where it was confirmed that children's lives were not spared in the killings.  The question "And babies?" is a rhetorical continuation of the common phrase of "men and women" being victims, adding an additional layer of horror to the shock value.  Similarly, the red star made out of bloody flesh in Peter Pocs' 23.10 '56 represents the national revolt against the Hungarian People's Republic.   The mouse trap in which the star is caught is intended to be a representation of the government, who violently cracked down on the rebellions. 

Fig 14 Protest by Red Woman's Workshop

"Protest" by Red Woman's Workshop encourages women to start "speaking out;" the figures spilling from the woman's mouth depict the "traditional" roles of women in Latina society - to get married, to be objectified.  The poster is urging women to go against these "rules" of society.

Fig 15 There's A Credit Crunch, Not A Creative Crunch by Aida Wild, 2011

 Some posters which took the approach of encouraging creativity in propaganda also caught my eye, as this was a little different to the protest-based nature of others.  The one above serves to remind artists and designers that lack of resources in money does not mean the same for production of art.  Another one which I have not been able to find online is a poster which read "Got something to say? Screenprint It!", which was from the seventies (I think).  This poster was particularly relevant as I recently took a screen printing workshop, after reading about the style's significance as a contemporary form of visual persuasion.

Overall the exhibition was useful for me to look at as a "refresher" of visuals.  Having spent the last 2 weeks mostly buried in research I am getting back into practical work and the work featured here was full of inspiring references for visuals and information.

-

References

Fig 1: From the Culturescoop website [online image] Available at: http://www.culturescoop.com/2014/09/

Fig 2: From the Culturescoop website [online image] Available at: http://www.culturescoop.com/2014/09/

Fig 3: Uhnfelt, Christian, date unknown.  Save The Arctic Stop Shell [online image] Available at:
http://fold7.com/blog/play/posters-protest-revolution

Fig 4: Hernandez, Esther, 1982.  Sun Maid.  Screenprint 26 x 20 [online image] Available at:
http://artinprint.org/index.php/articles/article/ester_hernandez_sun_mad

Fig 5: Peter Poch. 1990. Deutschland, Is It?  Screenprint [online image] Available at:
http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O185861/deutschland-is-it-pro-democracy-poster-mahlke/

Fig 6:  Tvischinskii, N.V, 1931. Victory of the Five Year Plan.  Lithographic Print [online image] Available at:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/about/press/sovietposters.html

Fig 7:  Kuligina, Valentina.  1929.  1905:  The Road to October.  Lithographic [online image] Available at: http://library.brown.edu/cds/Views_and_Reviews/item_views/medium_itemlevel_posters.php?id=86&view_type=medium_index

Fig 8:  Klein, Cesar. 1918.  Workers Citizens Farmers Soldiers.  Colour lithograph [online image] Available at:  http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O100784/workers-citizens-farmers-soldiers-all-poster-klein-cesar/

Fig 9:  Mederos, Rene, 1969.  The Tenth Anniversary of the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution [online image] Available at:  http://digitalpostercollection.com/propaganda/1945-1991-cold-war/cuba/1959-1969-tenth-anniversary-of-the-triumph-of-the-cuban-rebellion-by-rene-mederos/

Fig 10:  Red Woman's Workshop, date unknown.  So Long As The Women Are Not Free The People Are Not Free [online image] Available at:
http://seeredwomensworkshop.wordpress.com/#jp-carousel-15

Fig 11:  Haeberie, Ronald, 1969.  And Babies.  Colour photograph [online image] Available at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_babies#mediaviewer/File:And_Babies.jpg

Fig 12:  Ministerio de Propaganda, 1937.  Lithograph print [online image] Available at:
http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=159593

Fig 13:  Pocs, Pocs, 1981. 23.10.56.  [online image] Available at:

Fig 14: Red Woman's Workshop, date unknown.  Protest [online image] Available at:
http://seeredwomensworkshop.wordpress.com/#jp-carousel-17
[Accessed 24th November]

Fig 15: Wild, Aida. 2011.  There's A Credit Crunch, Not A Creative Crunch.  Screenprint [online image] Available at:  http://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/va-shop/credit-crunch