Title

Got the Message? 50 years of political posters.

Venues

Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. (2013 – 2013)

Date

(2013)

Summary

Multi-artist exhibition. Located: Australia (VIC). Prints

Curator

Wallis, Geoff.

Country of context

Australia

Abstract

Got the Message? surveys the field of social and political posters over the last 50 years, from 1960s protest posters through to contemporary works when the printed word and image is being strongly challenged by new social media.

The exhibition includes work by internationally renowned artists and designers including Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand, Tomi Ungerer, Klaus Staeck, Moichi Umemura, Yossi Lemel, Maciej Urbanic, Lex Drewinski, and Henryk Tomaszewski. There will also be important posters by John Lennon/Yoko Ono, Keith Haring, Robbie Conal, Shepard Fairey and feminist warriors the Guerrilla Girls.

While the exhibition focuses on the 1970s and 80s when Australian poster collectives were tackling the pressing issues of that era, it will also include significant posters from the new generation of Australian graphic designers and artists employing digital technology and other media in their quest to reach more hearts and minds. It will include a strong contingent of highly-charged international posters, few of which have been seen in Australia before. There will be large and representative groups of posters relating to the Vietnam War (USA), May 1968 (France), 'Solidarity' (Poland), Chinese Cultural Revolution, and Amnesty International, as well as to more recent outbreaks of dissent such as the Occupy movement.

Photographic documentation of selected posters in situ and a range of other protest media will provide an essential backdrop to the exhibition. [Gallery publicity].