Rebellion, Reform, and Revolution: American Graphic Design for Social Change Author(s): Victor Margolin Source: Design

Issues, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Autumn, 1988), pp. 59-70 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1511561 . Accessed: 23/10/2013 20:37
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Victor

Margolin

Rebellion, Reform, and Revolution: American Graphic Design for Social Change
Since the foundingof the Americancolonies, visualimageshave playeda role in the nation'spoliticalprocess,particularly by their of for Whether these impulses representation impulses change. havecome from establishedgroupsor from radicals,their visual articulationhas reliedfor its political effectivenessupon codes, conventions,and rhetoricalforms of the day. By looking at the in America andthe waythey haveused historyof politicalgraphics how such imagesare these elements,we can begin to understand createdand gain socialpower. Franklin's the first Benjamin "Joinor Die" (Fig.1), supposedly The American politicalcartoon,was publishedin his newspaper, in 1754. the for To need unity PennsylvaniaGazette, convey amongthe colonists in resistingthe British,Franklin employeda metaphorcommon for cartoonists at the time. The disunited colonieswereportrayed as a fragmented snakewhichneededto be for its survival. joinedtogether By reducingan involvedpolitical madeanemphatic situationto a singleimage,Franklin point to his readers.Paul Revere used a different technique, the documenof the BostonMassacre evoked tation of atrocities.His engraving the colonists'will to resistby depictingthe Britisharmy'swanton wassold separately, murder of Bostoncitizens.Revere'sengraving in TheRoyalAmerican but otherof his printsappeared Magazine, one of the first colonial publicationsto include monthly illustrations.

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Fig. 1) Ben Franklin,"Joinor Die," cartoon,1754.

anddocumentation Similar techniqueswerecontinmetaphors ued by artists who producedpolitical prints in the nineteenth century. Lithographywas preferredby many, after becoming availableas a mediumaround 1820, becauseit allowed a looser drawingstyle, although some artists continued to use woodcut andwood engraving techniquesaswell.Besidesthe variousscenes of daily life that artists depicted,they also represented political events such as AndrewJackson'srefusalto renewthe charterof the Bankof the United States:a lithograph on this subjectshowed monsterthat personified Jacksonstrugglingwith a hydra-headed the bank.Otherprintsdepictedatrocities: the woodcut,"Oppression of the Exiled Sons of Africa,"portrayeda slavemaster with
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59

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; ~ , ?4,
ins'," Fig. 2) Thomas Nast, "The 'Brai
cartoon, nineteenth century.

cribed 1) Many of these publications aredesc in Joseph R. Conlin, ed., The Amo Radical Press, 1880-1960, Vol. 2 ('etcan port, CT: Greenwood Press, 1974). 2) The artists who drew for The Massesand their work are discussed in the exhilbition catalog by Rebecca Zurier, Art f or the Malses (1911-1917): A Radical Maj gazine and its Graphics (New Haven: Yal eUniversity Art Gallery, 1985). See also Richard Fitzgerald, "Masses, Liberato,r,"in Conlin, The American Radical Pressvol. 2, 532-38.
as 3) John Diggins views The Masses example of the Lyrical Left, a freer expression of libertarian and lefti stimpulses that preceded the doctr organization of the American Co mmunist Party in the 1920s and the Ne, wLeft of the 1960s. See his TheAmerican I the Twentieth Century (New York . fr-105. court BraceJovanovich, 1973), 73-

to separatea blackcouple who had been whip in handpreparing sold to differentowners. of mass-circulation illustrated With the introduction magazines after the middle of the nineteenth century, political images printed from engraved wood blocks helped boost sales by journalistic exposes of corruption.A coverfor Frank illustrating Leslie's Illustrated Weeklyfor example,documentedNew York's "swillmilk"scandal wherecows fed on distillerymashto produce moremilkoften diedfromthat practice.Harper's Weekly engaged cartoonistThomasNast, best knownfor his attackon New York City's crooked governmentheadedby Boss Tweed in the 1860s in stereotypingrapacious and 1870s.Nast was instrumental bigcity politicians as corpulent men, personifyingpower by their sheermass. He also developedpictorialdevicesto portraytheir greed;to makethis point Nast replaceda politician'sheadwith a moneybag (Fig. 2). Similar stereotypes were used by other cartoonists.JosephKeppler,the founderof Puck,a competitorof Harper'sWeekly,attackedthe United States senatorswho were backedby largetrustsby showingthem as huge,almostimmobile theircolleaguesin for bodies,dominating figureswith moneybags the Senate with their exaggeratedscale. However, such stereotypes becameworn out conventionsthrough overexposureand eventuallyturnedinto politicalclichesas they wereused repeatedly well into the 1930s. The popularillustratedmagazinesof the nineteenth century were politically effective in their exposure of scandaland corwhose enterprises ruption,but they werenonethelesscommercial of the contributorsexpressedthemselveswithin the framework electoralsystem.Towardthe endof the century,however,various leftist movements- anarchist, socialist,andMarxist- beganto with suchpolemicaltitles asLiberty, spawntheirownpublications New and Social Crusader.1But none of themfully Alarm, Nation,
exploited the editorial power of visual images. An exception was The Masses, a monthly magazine which began

publicationin 1911 and continued until 1917.2It was run as a

cooperative, and its graphic artists had a strong say in editorial policy. The Masses did not express a doctrinaire view but attempted to maintain a balance among socialist issues, broad

international reportage, and independent artistic expression.

Distinct in its inclusion of politics within a larger cultural framework, its loose editorial policy provided some relief for an

writersandartistswho wereotherwiseoverlyconstrained by the radicaljournalsof the time.3 Cover artists like John Sloan, a
member of the group of American realist painters known as the

Ashcan School, depicted political events, while others simply

conveyed images that pleased them. Among the cartoonists, Art Young sometimes dealt with serious themes in a lighthearted way,

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Fig. 3) Robert Minor, "Pittsburgh," cartoon, 1916.

4) See RichardDrinnon, "MotherEarth inConlin,TheAmerican RadiBulletin," cal Press Vol. 2, 392-99. is described in Richard 5) The publication in The "Masses, Liberator," Fitzgerald, American Radical Press2, 532-38.

Fig. 4) JacobBurck,"WhadayaNeed Them Things For?,"Daily Worker cartoon,c. 1927.

6) See Richard Fitzgerald, "New Masses," in Conlin, The American Radical Press Vol. 2, 539-45.

Fig. 5) RockwellKent, New Masses, cover, 1937.

asin his well-knowncartoon"HavingTheirFling"whichshowed establishment recognizable typesthrowingmoneyin the airwhile the nation was at war. Sloan publishedmany lively drawingsof contemporarylife but was also not adverseto using a strong stereotypeto portraythe National Associationof Manufacturers as an obese giant. BoardmanRobinson advocated peace by ironically showing Christ as a deserter, while Robert Minor of the army opposed United States warpolicy with a caricature brass.Minor,perhapsthe most powerfulof TheMasses cartoonallinessentials in his depictionof political ists, wantedto eliminate we cansee this in his 1916drawing, which injustice; "Pittsburgh," shows a workerbeing brutallystabbedwith a bayonet (Fig. 3). Minoralso workedfor other left-wingmagazines such as Mother Earth,an anarchist publicationfoundedby EmmaGoldman,who used it as a rallyingpoint to speakout for a multitudeof causes. MotherEarth adopted a sternertone than The Massesand was visuallymuch more conservative.4 After the war ended and The Massesfolded, its editor Max Eastman founded a new magazine, The Liberator.5 Though Eastman intendedit to combineradical and opinion,humor, artas The Massesdid, The Liberatorended up in a middle ground between independentpolitics and the hardline adoption of the Soviet directives that began to crystallize after the Russian Revolution. For the cover of the first issue, Hugo Gellert, who had formerlyworked for The Masses,chose a Russian peasant sowingseeds as a metaphorto illustrateJohn Reed's coverageof the Revolutionin that first issue.In 1924,the American Communist PartystartedTheDaily Worker whichcontinuedthe prewar stereotypesof fat capitalists,corrupt politicians, and warmongering officers (Fig. 4). The editors subordinatedthe artists to the useof anyvisualmaterial not politicaldirectivesandprevented intendedto makea politicalpoint. When TheNew Masses wasfoundedin 1926,it wasintendedto revive the cultural liveliness of its predecessorbut ended up reflectingthe hard-line policies of the CommunistParty.6After the Comintern directed Communist parties in Europe and Americato set up a PopularFront, the magazine'scartoonists droppedtheir stereotypesof exploitedworkersandbusinessmen withbig cigarsandbeganattacking fascistsandracists.Amongthe artistswho workedfor TheNew Masses wasRockwellKentwhose cover for a 1937issue on the SpanishCivil War(Fig. 5) reflected this policy. The magazine's leading cartoonist was William of politicalleadersrecallthe Gropper,whose scathingcaricatures work of Daumieralmosta centurybefore. The severeeconomicsuffering causedby the GreatDepression movedmanyartists,particularly those of the Left, to drawon that experience for their art. In depicting the overexploited and 61

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unemployed,artistsoften fell backon visualconventionssuchas the stooped shouldersof cotton pickers,or the ironic juxtaposition of a breadline and an optimistic billboardthat Margaret in a well-known Bourke-White Whilethese captured photograph. conventions were not self-conscious stereotypes as were the cartoons,theywereeasilyinflatedinto figuresin the Daily Worker cliches from overuse.An attempt to sidestepthis pitfall can be seenin the modernistpublicservicepostersthat graphicdesigner Lester Beall did in the 1930s for the Rural Electrification Administration, although even after the war the modernist was little employedby leftists and liberals. approach Clenchedfists andotherdramatic polemicaldevicesusedby the Left were easilyadaptedfor World War II propaganda. Bernard Perlin'sposter, "Remember December7," showeda sailorwith a hugefist that seemedto pushbeyondthe pictureplane,whileBen Shahn'sposter protesting the German massacreof Czechs at Lidice showed a man with a bag over his head about to be 7) The Office of War Information quickl y executed.7This starkimageof sufferingwas an extension of the withdrew the Lidice poster because the felt it was too strong. outragethat Shahndepictedin a series of paintingsa few years earlierafter Sacco and Vanzetti were sentencedto death. Followingthe war,Shahnandother artistsanddesignerslike Milton Ackoff continuedto use a vocabulary of politicalimagesthat had been refinedin the 1930sandin wartime.In theirposters for the large labor federation,the CIO, Shahn and Ackoff employed conventionalmilitant symbolssuch as the fist and an aggressive handwipinggraffitioff a wallto signifythe powerto securebasic rightsor end discrimination (Fig.6). Duringthe 1950s,whenmanyon the Left weremorecautiousin their statements because of Senator McCarthy's Communist newapproaches andmagazine to advertising witchhunt,aggressive in Bob were New York. design beingdeveloped Gageandothersat CIO says'WIPE OUT DISCRIMINATION and Bernbach Doyle, Dane, pioneered brash, conceptual ad campaigns;while Alexei Brodovich, who was creating strong Fig. 6) Milton Ackoff,CIO poster, layouts with unusual combinationsof typographyand photo1949. graphsat Harper'sBazaar,trained a new generationof photographersand art directors,both at the magazineand in special workshops.In the 1960s,these developmentswere to result in a much more conceptual and less stereotypicalway of making political statementswhichwas a majorbreakwith the past. Such an approachalso corresponded to a more independentpolitical attitude, particularlyafter the widespreaddisillusion with the Soviet Union afterthe Stalinistpurgesof the 1930s. Afterthe sluggisheightyearpresidency of Dwight Eisenhower, in hopes for a new era F. in election 1960 ushered John Kennedy's of social change.But within three years,Kennedywas dead and LyndonJohnson was leadingthe Americanpeople into the tiger traps of Vietnam. The political and social changesof the 1960s
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Fig. 7) GeorgeLois (art director), cover 1965. Esquire,

8) Douglas Kahn has asserted the contemporary relevance of Heartfield by stating that he was the first political artist to use both the conventions and distribution of the mass media. See his bookJohn Heartfield: Art and Mass Media (New York: Tanam Press, 1985).

were chronicled by George Lois on more than 90 covers he art directed for Esquire, often working with photographer Carl Fisher. Unlike Thomas Nast, Robert Minor, William Gropper, or Ben Shahn, Lois, who had studied with Alexei Brodovich, did not continue the conventional visual rhetoric of social change which, in the final analysis, was an artist's rhetoric that derived much of its power from drawing technique. Out were the raised fists, fat politicians, and downtrodden masses; in were shocking, irreverent, and sometimes offensive conceptual images such as a hand wiping a tear from JFK's eye to illustrate Tom Wicker's attempt to write an objective memoir about the late president only seven months after his death. Likewise an Esquirearticle on the masculinization of women was illustrated by a cover photograph of a beautiful woman shaving, an impossible image but one that drove home a point like a sledgehammer (Fig. 7). Various factors contributed to the reception of such images. During the 1950s, the public was saturated with television stereotypes that turned into cliches. People were overloaded with visual stimuli and needed shocking images to gain their attention. American youth, the new market target for Esquire, were also beginning to carve out a distinct economic, political, and cultural identity, which necessitated a fresh style of communication to engage them. Lois portrayed increasing opposition to the Vietnam war in a series of covers that evoked strong emotions. The story of M Company was illustrated by a powerful typographic statement, "Oh my God - we hit a little girl," which was reversed out of a black ground, while a grinning Lieutenant Calley, who was involved in the massacre of 109 unarmed Vietnamese civilians at My Lai, was posed with a group of Vietnamese children. Similar to the German Communist designer John Heartfield in the 1920s and 1930s, Lois often juxtaposed improbable elements that provoked the viewer to question why they belonged together.8 As visually strong as Lois's covers were, Esquire was still a mainstream magazine that did not break the kind of stories, for example, that Ramparts did. Ramparts was founded in 1962 as an intellectual Catholic journal, but its ailing circulation led to the hiring of Warren Hinckle to revitalize it. Hinckle developed a style he called "radical slick" and aimed to compete with the mass-circulation magazines of the mainstream - Time, Life, and The Saturday Evening Post. Dugald Sturmer was the Ramparts art director whose covers were as shocking as Lois's and gained additional power from the controversy of the investigative reportage and political exposes they illustrated. Beginning with Robert Scheer's study of how the Vietnam Lobby maneuvered the United States government into its Southeast Asian involvement, Ramparts went on to break the story of how professors working on the Vietnam Project at Michigan State University used CIA

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Fig. 8) Dugald Sturmer(art cover 1967. director),Ramparts,

9) Theexhibition catalog byDavid prepared ThePosters of Kunzle,Posters of Protest: Political Satire in the U.S. 1966-1970 UniThe Art Galleries, (SantaBarbara: versity of California, Santa Barbara, 1971), has a large selection of posters with a background essay and extensive annotations.Gary Yankercompiledan international selectionof politicalposall points of view, in ters, representing Prop Art (New York: Darien House, 1972).

funds to train Ngo Din Diem's police, preparehis budget, and even drafthis constitution.To capturethe ironyof the situation, illustratorPaulDavis depictedDiem's sister-in-law MadamNgu as a MichiganState cheerleader. On anothercover,Sturmer put a all of the editors Ramparts holdingup burningdraft photograph cards (Fig. 8). Here was the militant hand again, but used fromits conventionalrepresentation asa clenchedfist. differently The magazine's politicalviewswerefurtherstatedthrougha series of wall posters that markedevents such as the confrontation between demonstratorsand police in Chicago during the 1968 DemocraticPartyConvention. that did Stronggraphic imagescouldalsobe foundin magazines not purport to represent the Left as Rampartsdid. A good Ralph exampleis Avant-Garde,publishedandeditedby maverick Ginzburg with Herb Lubalin as art director. Avant-Garde's unholy combinationof social concern and erotica made Ginzburg's eclectic agenda difficult to grasp. However, Lubalin contributeda new awareness of how typography could enhancea More other statement. generalgraphicsby well-recogpolitical nizeddesigners like SeymourChwastandMiltonGlazeraddedto to a specificsituation a climate of changewithoutdirectlyreferring or policy. The popularity of posters by Chwast, Glazer, and other designerstestified to the growingpower of imagesin American society. Such posters, by untrainedas well as traineddesigners, in the 1960sasa protestagainst the Vietnamwaranda proliferated to a number of other causes. someof theseposters While response were intendedfor outdoor display,particularly on college campuses,manywerecommercially producedandwerehungin private dwellings.9 A particularlyeffective propagandatechnique, which John Heartfield pioneered in Europe, was to invert the meaningof in traditional involvement symbols.In 1942,to supportAmerica's World War II, Charles Coiner designed a poster with the Americanflag. However, the flag was ineffectiveas a patriotic symbol when such involvement could not be justified; it was altered,for example,by ChristosGianakosin a 1966poster that substituteda solid blacksurface for the blue field andwhite stars. Other variationson the flag includedGeorge Maciunas's poster a linearchronicle that replaced the starswith skullsandexchanged of atrocities for the red stripes. A poster done to promote the ecology movement had an Americanflag in different shadesof greeninsteadof red, white, andblue. The imagesof fat capitalists,filibusteringCongressmen,and whichhadbeenthe standard fareof leftist warmongering generals, visual rhetoricin the 1920s and 1930s, no longer held the same powerfor a youngergenerationwhosepolitics wereshapedmore

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by an intuitive sense of justice than by all- encompassing ideological constructs. They preferredto subvert what they perceived to be linguisticsymbolsof domination.Followingthe L thinking of philosopher Herbert Marcuse, they altered the Fig. 9) Anon., "Stop Policing the to "Amerika" and personifiedthe police World," poster, 1970. spellingof "America" use of andthe military the subversive discussed aspigs (Fig.9).10 10) Marcuse Graphics workshopswereset up language in An Essay on Liberatic nat universitiesand in communitiesto get posters out quickly, 56. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 34-3 he citedwereHip- primarily by the inexpensive silkscreen method. Sometimes Amongthe examples wordslike "trip pies takingharmless " posterswereeven printedon cheapcomputerpaper. "grass,""acid,"and "pot" out of co In the early1960s,the foremostdomesticissuewasthe struggle nd tabooedactivities; ar text to designate ed of blackAmericans the blacks'"desublimation" of reveri for equalrights.A posterthat showsMalcolm conceptssuchas the "soul"whichth X toweringover Abraham Lincolnaddeda new interpretation to relocatedfrom the classicexamplesle to theirowncultu western highculture Ire the nineteenthcenturysculpturewhichdepicteda blackkneeling in suchformsas "soulmusic"and"so in gratitudebeforeLincoln(Fig. 10). The MalcolmX poster was food." As part of what Marcuse call d the useof only one exampleof the risingminorityvoices in the 1960s and the GreatRefusal, he justified termssuchas"pig"to repla derogatory ,ce signaled a new plurality of special groups - blacks, women, officialtitles like governor,policema andecologists- that claimed or president. Hispanics,gays,Native Americans, their own politicalagendas. This growingconcertof voicesmeantthat politicalissuescould no longer be representedin overarchingideological terms and suggestedthat appropriate graphicstatementswould haveto be found for each audienceinvolved in a particularcause. In the white male 1960s,Americangraphicdesignwas a predominantly enterprise,and the new diversity of causes and groups posed a distinct challengeto the profession.This is not to saythat white couldnot represent maledesigners minoritycausesfruitfully.For Paul Davis's to example, poster promotea benefitconcertfor the strikinggrapepickersin California (Fig. 11) was effective,but as the driveby variousminoritygroupsto developdistinct cultural ; identities increased,artists from those groupsbeganto develop their own formsof representation. Fig. 10) David Mobley, Humor continued to be an effectivepersuasive devicefor the "Emancipation," poster, 1969. Left in the 1960sbecauseits aim was to subvertthe policies and rhetoric of the Establishment which the Right could only reproduceas given. One poster parodied a movie placardby describingthe Vietnam war as an entertainmentspectaclewith LyndonJohnson as its producer.Another ironicallyjuxtaposed ~ . $! 3, '~ ....... j , ,,? .,_. ,? ~~ the nameJohnson's BabyPowder,printedas it appeared on the with a a of burned Vietnamese company's packaging, photograph child. This was one way to underminethe tendency of war photographs,seen in abundanceduring the Vietnam years, to becomecliches.An additional wasthe 1968 exampleof subversion a of black woman a button with Richard poster pregnant wearing Nixon's presidentialcampaignslogan "Nixon's the One" (Fig. 12). to enhance in a the powerof photographs Designersalsolearned Fig. 11) Paul Davis, "Viva Chavez, more For a to the murder of straightforward way. poster protest Viva La Causa,"poster, 1968.
... . . _ .ummrrw r:xroP.~Al#CL
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four student demonstrators at Kent State University, the photograph of a slain student served as the backdrop for the text whose dripping paint conveyed the need for an urgent response. One of the most powerful posters that opposed the war was collectively produced by the Art Workers' Coalition in New York (Fig. 13). On a photograph of victims massacred at My Lai a succinct question and answer "And babies?And babies." was printed. Like the Kent State poster, this text added a human response to the image.l As strong as these posters were, however, other print media such as newspapers were able to reach more people at a time, although newspaper ads with political messages tended to represent a liberal, rather than radical,view because they were expensive to publish and the Left has never been adequately financed for such promotion. Newspapers could also exclude anything that was too extreme. Beginning in the late 1960s, George Lois produced a powerful series of ads to protest the rule of the Greek military junta; unlike most political graphics of the period, these ads made their point most forcefully with bold copy lines rather than images. Other issue-oriented ads were produced by John Zeigler, a New York advertising executive whose firm specialized in public-interest work. As founder of a workshop entitled "Social Change through Issue Advertising" at the New School for Social Research around 1970, Zeigler and his students created a number of ads for anti-war organizations and other groups promoting social change. Zeigler sometimes took advantage of the newspaper format by writing the copy line in a way that made a polemical point while also asking people to mail protest statements to Richard Nixon, for instance, and contributions to an organization that was trying to repeal the draft. New York agency art directors like Len Sirowitz and Bert Steinhauser brought brash combinations of image and copy to similar projects. As one example, to urge defeat of a bill to design an anti-ballistic missile system, Sirowitz featured Ed Sorel's ironic illustration of American military brass playing with a missile like a toy. Steinhauser used the terror of a dead rat in a child's bed to protest the defeat of a rat extermination bill in Congress. Illustrator Robert Grossman, to advertise a political rally, ridiculed Nixon and his cabinet by drawing them in their underpants. In Chicago, Derek Norman, an advertising executive for J. Walter Thompson, was the art director for a public-service campaign to aid the Committee for the Study of Handgun Misuse (Fig. 14). In San Francisco, Dugald Sturmer, who gave Ramparts its visual form, founded a group called Public Interest Communications (PIC) which advised organizations like Neighbors of Delancy Street. In the case of the Delancy Street project and others undertaken by PIC with support from foundations, the push was to help small organi-

Fig. 12) Anon., "Nixon's the One," 1968. of ModemArt hadprom11) The Museum the posterbut the isedto helpdistribute the agreement, trusteeswithdrew going againstthe wishesof the staff.Members Coalitionpicketed of the Art Workers' the museum in protest and stamped some of the 50,000 copies they distributed with the message,"This poster wasoriginally by the Muco-sponsored seumof ModemArt. On December 18, 1969, trustee WilliamS. Paleyforbade the museumto associateits namewith it." See Kunzle,Posters of Protest,135. on this commented CriticLucyLippard of polidiscussion posterwithina larger tical posters by artists. See "(I) Some and"(II)SomeQuesPoliticalPosters" tions They Raise About Art and PoliGet theMessage: tics," in LucyLippard, A Decade (New of Artfor SocialChange York:Dutton, 1984),26-35.

Fig. 13) Art Workers' Coalition, "And Babies? And Babies." poster,

1970.

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Fig. 14) Derek Norman (art director),poster to aid the Committeefor the Study of Handgun Misuse,copyright 1976.
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Fig. 15) BeaFeitler (art director), Ms.,cover 1973.

Fig. 16) Women'sGraphic Collective,"Frustration," poster, 1970s.

12) Sheila de Bretteville, "Feminist Design: At the Intersection of the Private and Public Spheres," in Design and Society, eds. Richard Langdon and Nigel Cross (London: The Design Council, 1984), 86. 13) de Bretteville, "Feminist Design," 87.

zations take their messageto the publicratherthanrallysupport for causesalready widelyknown. The rise of the women'smovementduringthe late 1960sand the 1970sgenerateda new visualrhetoricthat was initiallybased on militant symbols appropriatedfrom other struggles but eventuallymoved towardthe expressionof a more subtle sensibility. Ms.magazine, co-foundedandartdirectedby the late originally Bea Feitler, a Brazilianwho previously worked for Harper's Bazaar,was an importantvehicle in the early 1970sfor defining this sensibility.Feitler'scoverswerevisuallystrong and synthesized a conceptual and decorativeapproachthat incorporated popular culture, display typography,tropical color, and many other influences(Fig.15). She also hiredyoungfemaleillustrators like MiriamWosk whose work had an expressivesurrealquality. Ms. layouts could be decorativebut emotionallyexpressiveas well. In a two page spreadfor an articleon maleviolence,Feitler was not above addinga strong orangeoverlayto a photographic men. Until her untimelydeath of cancer, montageof barbarous she showedhow politicalstatementscould be madein an elegant visualformwithout losingthe forceof the statementor recycling worn out visualconventions. Ms. gatheredmuch of its supportfrom women alreadyin the mainstream,although it became a vehicle for bringing radical feminist ideology to a wideraudience.But there were also small groups of feminist designers, such as the Women's Graphic Collectivein Chicagowho createdposters to promote solidarity among women and to express strident views of women's issues (Fig. 16). Such groups portrayedthe radicalviews within the women's movementwithout any need to tone them down for a massaudience. Sheila de Bretteville,a graphicdesignerin Los Angeles, put forthanotherapproach to feministdesignin 1982:Feministdesign is an open set of intentionsactedupon with concern,caring,and the private sphereof women's expercourage.It acknowledges ience andmakesit publicandvisible. It encouragesthe strength, grace, and warmthderivedfrom women's culture and provides visualmaterial basedon women'sexperience to whichwe canturn for reliefand instruction.12 As founderof the Women'sGraphic in Los Angeles,de Bretteville Centerat the Women'sBuilding has workedwith manywomenwho lackprofessional training.Having stated a commitmentto bridgethe gap between the privateand publicspheres,she helpswomento expresstheirown feelingsin a to discussionand change."'3 publicform that is "accessible There is a connectionbetweenSheilade Bretteville'scommitment to represent feministvaluesin graphicdesignandthe desire of Chicanoposter artists who emergedin Californiaduringthe 67

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14) Art historian Shifra Goldman in Los Angeles has written a good deal about Chicano poster artists on the West Coast and their work. See her article "A Public Voice: Fifteen Years of Chicano Posters," The Art Journal Vol. 44, no. 1: 50-57.

morethan600exam15) The showincluded fromover45 countries. ples of agitprop Lucy Lippard's VillageVoicereviewof the New Yorkincarnation is titled"The Collective Conscience" andcanbefound in the compilationof her reviewsand 253-55. essays,Get theMessage, "The CollectiveConscience," 16) Lippard, 254.

Ad

[;

Fig. 17) Pepe Moreno,"Vote,"

poster, 1980.

17) BradLapin,"Fifteen Theses," in Street Art; The Punk Posterin San Francisco 1977-1981,ed. PeterBelsito (SanFrancisco:LastGasp,1981),8.

late 1960s to reflect their own political struggles. Both were concerned with a sense of identity. Like the Chicano murals that artists began to paint around the same time, Chicano posters expressed a strong ethnic presence as well as the political aims of the Chicano and other Latino movements. They share some similarities with other posters and fine art of the period but are firmly rooted in the values of the bilingual bicultural Chicano community. Linda Lucero's "Lolita Lebron," a silkscreen poster done at San Francisco's La Raza Graphic Center in 1975, espouses Puerto Rican separatism, while Rupert Garcia incorporated an image of Angela Davis in his call to "Free All Political Prisoners."'14 Artists in the San Francisco Bay area have been particularly active in developing a visual rhetoric for political causes. Groups beside the Chicanos include the San Francisco Poster Brigade, which Rachel Romero and Leon Klayman started in the mid 1970s. The Brigade's posters are strong and simple with less emphasis on design esthetics than on releasing the power of the images. In 1980, they organized the ANTI-WW3 show for which they gathered art work from around the world.15 Critic Lucy Lippard described the Brigade's style as one that "modernizes without diluting the fundamental spirit of the revolutionary poster tradition."16 The work of the Brigade was more tightly designed than the posters from the San Francisco punk culture, whose designers pulled their images from every possible source and pasted them up quickly for cheap xerox reproduction. These posters were characterized by a slapdash technique that recalled the underlying anarchism of Berlin Dada in the early 1920s. Some related to specific political events while others expressed an opposition to the dominant values of American culture in general (Fig. 17). One author stated that "punk has brought its visual, aural, and conceptual disavowal of society to a high level of public awareness through the conscious and skillful manipulation of the very media which exist as the culture's most potent instruments of control and repression."'7 The resistance to mainstream media imagery continued a process begun in the 1960s of inverting icons and stereotypes as well as making new connections between images through recycling or collage. But even though the punk style continued the anarchistic strain found in the 1960s counterculture, political activists on the Left have also made a great deal of organizational progress in the last 20 years by understanding the value of research and the cogent presentation of information. This is exemplified in the charts produced by Social Graphics, a Baltimore research and design group, which Steve Rose and Dennis Livingston founded in 1980. The aim of Social Graphics is to make information on demographic, economic, and other social patterns accessible and comprehensible to people who are not statistically sophisticated.

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18) Dennis Livingston is in charge of producing the posters; Stephen J. Rose, an economist, does the research and writes the books that accompany them. See David Gold and Stephen Rose, A Primer on the Nuclear Arms Race (Baltimore: Social Graphics, 1983); Stephen J. Rose, The American Profile Poster (New York: Pantheon, 1986); and Stephen J. Rose, The American Economy Poster and Fact Book (New York: Pantheon, 1987). In the latter two publications, the posters are folded into the softbound books.

19) John Berger was perhaps the first to note how advertising translates revolution into its own terms. See his Ways of Seeing (Harmondsworth: BBC and Penguin, 1972), 151.

20) Contemporary artists who have seen how easily their intended political images can be translated by others into icons of fashion and promotion are well aware of this problem and continually wrestle with strategies to defend the meanings of their work against appropriation by critics, museums, and patrons.

The chartsthey produceenablethe factsto speakfor themselves. One of them, entitled "The AmericanProfile Poster,"conveys the wide disparityof incomebetweenthe wealthiest graphically andpoorestAmericans; armsrace, another,a posteron the nuclear helps the viewer to visualize the amount of money spent on weapons.8 Sucheconomicandsocialpatternsareobscuredin mainstream like Timewhosechartsdrawon the samerawdatabut publications it to The readership of Time package supportdifferent arguments. is too broadto be politicallydoctrinaire so the magazine followsa in the 1960scalled"repressive strategyof what HerbertMarcuse tolerance."A democracy must allowdissentin orderto maintain its credibility, but every publication has its limits. Time is committed to the free marketsystem and maintainsa cautious adverserial posture toward Communistand socialist countries. Eventhoughunsympathetic hints canbe seen in imagesfor Time such as Austrian illustrator GottfriedHelnwein'sportrait covers, of Oliver North, Time maintains its conservative ideology whichinclude throughits choiceof articlesandlayouttechniques, the selection,scale,andplacement of photographs. The polemical use of photographyis exemplifiedby an article about North Korea's failing economy that featured a picture of a heroic worker'smonument,which the editors used to emphasizethe betweenthe country'saspirations andits reality.In this disparity instance, the choice, cropping, scale, and positioning of that particularphotographwas just as polemicalas a clenchedfist, though its ideologywas less transparent. Time also carriesoccasionaladvertisements that appropriate revolutionarypolitical language.The emotional cachet of the term "liberation" was alludedto in "Liberatea Cuba Libre,"a line for a of Puerto Rico ad; and Pioneer, a Rums copy manufacturer of audioandvideoequipment, usedthe slogan"Not Evolutionary,Revolutionary"over an image of two figures in colonialdressstandingbesidea televisionwhosescreenwasfilled with an American flag.19 Commercial advertisers havebeen able to appropriate revoluin rhetoric a similar to the Left's tionary way inverting of establishmentlanguagein the 1960s. This process of appropriationis now a fact of life andforcesthose who createpolitical to producestrongerimagesthat arenot easilyprocessed graphics into channelsof commercial communication.20 this is a not centralissue for manyactivistson the However, Left who still hold the traditionalbelief that the word is more importantthan the imagefor makingpoliticalstatements.Until TheMasses most Leftist editorspaidlittle attentionto appeared, art. And afterit folded,few subsequentradical publicationsgave any emphasisto their visualformat.The Studentsfor a Demo69

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cratic Society journal Radical America began in 1967 with a cheaply reproduced offset format, and in its later incarnation it has not changed very much even though the editors have recently {: added color and occasional drawings to the covers. The Progressive, which had a plain typographic cover for many years, has now added color and drawn images to the cover and uses illustrations with its articles. A better example of a low budget Left publication is In These Times, an independent socialist weekly newspaper. Its art director, Miles DeCoster, also a designer of artists' books, maintains strong cover images, either with drawings or photographs, and sustains visual interest in his layouts with typographic variety as well as the use of drawings and photographs (Fig. 18). Drawings are often quick sketches which convey a visual idea that Miles de Coster (art Fig. 18) strengthens the impact of an article. But graphics are used within director),In These Times,front pal ge, conventional boundaries by In These Times, which still fairly 1987. adheres to the traditional view of most Left publications that words are the primary means of making political statements. Thus, there is a need to pay greater attention to the potential power of images in Left political publications. The German designer and photomontagist John Heartfield recognized this more than 60 years ago when he began to produce an extensive series of memorable covers and layouts for the Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung (AIZ) and photographic jackets for the radical novels and other books published by the Malik Verlag. Heartfield's work is still a significant model for designers on the Left because he was aware of how images could be used to unlock conventional mindsets and help his audience understand an event or a situation in a new way. Heartfield worked intuitively, but since his time extensive critical work has been done on the subjects of representation and the field of culturalstudies the conventions of popular and mass media images.21 This 21) In England, has been a stimulusfor such resea trsh research ought to stimulate a more sophisticated use of images in JudithWilliamson's DecodingAdver and Meaning ments:Ideology in Adver- political publications. Those who control the mass media of tising (London: Marion Boyars, 1' 978) and newspapers understand the power of and selected essays in her subseqiient advertising, magazines, Passions: mics the image very well and exploit it heavily. It is time others did too. bookConsuming TheDyna?
rion of Popular Culture (London: Mai as is Boyars, 1986) are good examples, a Kathy Myers's Understains: The Sense and Seduction of Advertising (Loneion: Comoedia, 1986). Further material can be found in the British journal Block, published at Middlesex Polytechnic. See, for example, Barry Curtis, "Poster'S as Visual Propaganda in the Great W ar, Block 2 (1980): 45-57; Jon Bird, "Relpresenting the Great War," Block 3 (19'80): 41-56; Kathy Myers, "Tu: a Cosmletic Case Study," Block 7 (1982): 48-58; and Jessica Evans, "The Imagined Referent: Photographic Constructions of Haindicap and the Imperfect Body within the Institutions of Charity," Block 12 (1986/7): 71-82.

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