Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age 2001–2012

 

“Now, instead of a mass audience consuming media from a single source, we have multiple sources, multiple channels and multiple audiences. Every participant is potentially a sender as well as a receiver of information, and the barrier to entry is no longer the fortune required to set up a TV station or a newspaper, but the price of a PC and an Internet connection. Much of contemporary political graphics in particular is designed with the internet in mind…with the steady growth of broadband connection, a full-color poster can be created as a digital file small enough either to send by email or to download from a website set up for the purpose, and printed by the recipient in as many copies as necessary or simply passed on digitally.”

—Colin Moore, Propaganda Prints: A History of Art in the Service of Social and Political Change, A+C Books, London, 2011

Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age 2001–2012 is the third exhibition in a trilogy focusing on socially conscious posters*, Graphic Advocacy features 122 works from 32 countries worldwide. As a medium for social change, posters record our struggles for peace, social justice, environmental defense, and liberation from oppression. From the confrontational and political, to the promotional, persuasive and educational, the poster in all its forms has persisted as a vehicle for the public dissemination of ideas, information, and opinion. Ready access to broadband and mobile communications and to digital production technologies has expanded the poster’s role beyond the printed surface, creating a contemporary tool for support and protest that is still a cornerstone of 21st century advocacy.

Exhibition organized and curated by Elizabeth Resnick, Professor, Chair, Graphic Design, Massachusetts College of Art ad Design, Boston, Massachusetts USA.

*Graphic Imperative: International Posters of Peace, Social Justice and The Environment 1965–2005 (www.thegraphicimperative.org);
Graphic Intervention: International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010 (www.graphicintervention.org)

Here we feature just a small collection of 30 posters consisting the Graphic Advocacy.

 

ABCNT Lioness | Free Political Prisoners

 

Frank Arbelo | Because this mouth is mine!

 

Rich Black | Direct Action

Antonio Castro | Migrant-Workers

 

Michelle Brook | Bleed Out Katrina

 

Paul Zwolak | Free Iran

 

Egor Zhgun | Catcher

 

Erin Wright | Death is not justice

 

Joe Wirtheim | Break New Ground

 

Gregoire Vion | Occupy

 

Michael Thompson | HAITI Earthquake Relief

 

Giulia Spanghero | Bleeding Haiti

 

Marlena Buczek Smith | Haitis dream of clean water

 

Medhi Saeedi | Child Labour

 

Viktor Barrera | No More Landmines

 

Methane Studios | Haiti

 

Belen Mena | Year of Forest

 

Belen Mena | Japon Afiche Marzo

 

Susana Machicao | Gender Education

 

Li Haiping | Victory

 

Yossi Lemel | Fukushima Mon Amour

 

Justin Kamerer | Weapons art

 

Götz Gramlich | Hope for Sichuan

 

Ivan Gazdov | Silhouette

 

John Foster | Hurricane Katrina

 

Carlo Paolo Espiritu | Piti Piti Haiti

 

Eric Drooker | Occupy the Streets

 

Marion Deuchars | Where is My Hope

 

Fang Chen | We Are One

 

Exhibition curated by Elizabeth Resnick, Professor, Chair, Graphic Design, Massachusetts College of Art ad Design.

* Graphic Imperative: International Posters of Peace, Social Justice and The Environment 1965–2005 (www.thegraphicimperative.org); Graphic Intervention: International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010 (www.graphicintervention.org)

Website for Graphic Advocacy will be on-line by the end of January 2013: www.graphicadvocacyposters.org

Posters for the Digital Age, by Elizabeth Resnick, will be published by Vivays Publishing Company, Ltd. London in Fall 2013. The book contains 150 poster images, 122 posters from the exhibition plus 28 more.
January 15–March 2, 2013

Opening Reception:
Tuesday, January 29, 6:00-8:00 p.m., light refreshments
Open and free to the public

Stephen D. Paine Gallery, South Hall
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Boston, Massachusetts 02115 USA

 

Elizabeth Resnick, professor and current Chair of Graphic Design at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, holds both a B.F.A. and M.F.A. in Graphic Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. She has served on the Board of Directors of the AIGA Boston chapter and has organized numerous graphic design lectures and events over the past 15 years including six large exhibitions: Russell Mills: Within/Without (1991) with Teresa Flavin; Dutch Graphic Design: 1918-1945 (1994) with Alston W. Purvis; Makoto Saito: Art of the Poster (1999) with Jan Kubasiewicz.; The Graphic Imperative: International Posters of Peace, Social Justice and The Environment (2005) with Chaz Maviyane-Davies and Frank Baseman; Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters 1985–2010 with Javier Cortés (2010); and Graphic Advocacy: International Posters for the Digital Age: 2001–2012 (2012). Her book publications include “Design for Communication: Conceptual Graphic Design Basics” for John Wiley & Sons Publishers (2003), and “Graphic Design: A Problem-Solving Approach to Visual Communication for Prentice-Hall Publications” (1984).