Art As Activist: Revolutionary Posters from Central and Eastern Europe - Softcover

Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0876636237 ISBN 13: 9780876636237

Publisher: Universe Pub, 1992

Synopsis

Book by Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Posters played a vital role in the recent Eastern and Central European revolutions against totalitarianism, according to Czech Sylvestrova and her American colleague Bartelt, curators of the Smithsonian traveling exhibition that this volume accompanies. Unlike the other highly censored media, hand-painted and privately printed posters could express the people's intense anger and longing for freedom. Some of the dynamic images in the posters represented here are visual barbs at despised leaders: Romanian ex-dictator Ceausescu portrayed as a vampire and Lenin as a devil. A hollowed-out loaf of bread in one poster and a Bible with its pages ripped out in another illustrate the lack of both physical and spiritual sustenance under Communism. The images are complemented by gripping prose and poems: a Polish poster labeling a Russian tank "car of the year" accompanies Ryszard Kapuscinski's description of the ideal modern coup d'etat, which captures the television station rather than the palace. This work is both a celebration of poster art and a testimony to the courage of those who tore down the Iron Curtain.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Published in connection with a traveling exhibition, this book includes over 100 political posters mostly from 1989 and 1990. As rigid totalitarian controls crumbled in Central and Eastern Europe, the poster became a powerful vehicle for expression of long-suppressed ideas and new aspirations. Mostly in color, these memorable posters chronicle the Solidarity movement in Poland, glasnost in the Soviet Union, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as the demise of communism in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and the Baltics. Whether they depict the oppressive past, the euphoria of the moment, or anxiety for the future, whether their tone is ironic, somber, joyous, or tragic, the posters elicit a strong emotional response that few other documents can achieve. Explanatory captions for each poster, short essays by local artists, and a chronology of the Soviet domination of the region enhance our understanding. This is for informed readers.
- Marie Bednar, Pennsylvania State Univ. Libs., University Park
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Universe Pub
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0876636237
• ISBN 13: 9780876636237
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160