5

1980–2000
The AIDS Crisis and Other Global Tensions

Protests staged by Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) continued throughout the 1960s, but were slowly overtaken by more violent protests against US intervention in the Vietnam War. Despite the ‘special relationship’, Britain refused to join the USA in active fighting in Vietnam. In the 1970s the British public increasingly felt that Britain’s location between two global superpowers, locked in an arms race, made it a potential middle-stage for nuclear attack. When NATO decided to deploy US Cruise missiles in British Army bases in 1979, CND and the peace movement sprang to life with renewed energy, driven by a new, young generation of activists. Artist Peter Kennard produced extremely popular photomontages and graphics for CND and the Greater London Council, often satirizing the British government’s civil defence plan and information booklet, as both were considered useless.

In 1981 a group named ‘Women for Life on Earth’ marched from Cardiff in Wales to the Greenham Common military base, which was due to house US Cruise missiles, and established the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common. The camp became known for its use of arts and crafts, including banner-making, to produce protest statements that were hung or draped on the base’s perimeter fence or scattered throughout the camp. The women engaged in daring actions such as attempts to cut through, or climb over, the perimeter fence. They also received brutal treatment by the press and government of the time. Nevertheless, the camp achieved international renown, and lasted ten years, closing in 1991 when the missiles had left.¹

Britain’s satire boom of the 1960s had led the way in mocking politicians; by the 1980s (and 1990s) such public humiliation had reached new heights. Visual satire was perfected by the latex puppets of ‘Spitting Image’ (weekly television programme) and the political cartoons of Steve Bell and others, often aimed at Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher or John Major. At the same time, US guerrilla artist Robbie Conal gave rough treatment to Presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush and many others.

You and Your Kind Are Not Wanted Here… But that Never Stopped Us Before (ACLU Lesbian and Gay Rights Project Poster) 1994, Marlene McCarty and Donald Moffet at Bureau

The 1980s was also marked by the internal struggles of particular countries, each giving rise to graphic statements that carried news of those struggles around the world, often resulting in the creation of solidarity movements. ‘The Troubles’ was an expression used to describe the British government’s war with the Irish Republican Army or IRA, and a consequent 30-year military presence in Northern Ireland. News of the conflict, for example the hunger-strikes of republican political prisoners such as Bobby Sands, was mainly conveyed via news reports or postcards and posters from solidarity groups. But a much closer to home visualization took place in the imposing political wall murals, both loyalist and republican, created in Belfast and other locations in Northern Ireland, depicting memorials, military emblems, heroes and more. Another struggle within Britain was the Miner’s Strike of 1984–85. It took place when Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative government attempted to break the power of the trade union movement, and close down ‘the pits’ or coal mines. At least 165,000 miners went on strike. The strike became famous for the number of riot police employed to break the picket lines, and the brutality meted out to the miners and their supporters. Such incidents were recorded through angry imagery, spread through the public by photographs, posters and postcards. The strike eventually broke and the pits closed, but the damning images remained.²

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had a long historical past; its most recent chapter started in 1948 with the creation of the state of Israel, and decades of turmoil have continued ever since. International solidarity with the Palestinian resistance was at its height during the 1980s. However, a strong peace movement was also present within Israel at that time, with Israeli organizations such as Peace Now working to bring about peaceful co-existence. Two superb designers have worked particularly hard to promote a peaceful future for both sides, while despairing at the violence occurring along the way. The prolific designer, David Tartakover, has been relentless in his calls for peace. His poster imagery has often been based in a brutal reality (using real occurrences, such as injured children). Yossi Lemel, of a more recent design generation than Tartakover, often deals in symbolic imagery, using just one or a few objects or people that have been instilled with a greater political meaning. In the difficult climate of 21st-century Israel, both designers have continued to use their art to communicate messages of humanity.³

A new climate of resistance (against apartheid) was also spreading across South Africa, resulting from the on-going imprisonment of ANC leader Nelson Mandela; the Soweto Uprising (June 1976) when 10–20,000 students marched peacefully and were met with gunfire; the murder of Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko in 1977; and many other tragedies. Also, due to improved global communications, the world was now watching. The growing strength of the international anti-apartheid movement produced solidarity posters, publications and events all over the world. The popular movement within South Africa peaked with the Defiance Campaign of 1989, and the apartheid system began to collapse. Nelson Mandela was released in 1990, and in 1994 he was elected president in the first democratic elections in South Africa, marking the beginning of ‘the new South Africa’.⁴

The 1980s marked a move towards conservative politics, with the election of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1979, and Ronald Reagan as US president in 1980, followed by George Bush in 1988. The decade therefore produced a groundswell of activism from feminists, both young and old, in what has been labelled ‘Third Wave Feminism’. The art activists, ‘Guerrilla Girls’, founded in 1985, produced street posters (illegally posted at night) that exposed racism and sexual discrimination in the New York art world, particularly in well-known museums and galleries. The pro-life/pro-choice debate (a woman’s right to choose whether she has an abortion or not) surfaced forcefully in the USA, epitomized by Barbara Kruger’s outstanding poster for the Pro-Choice March on Washington in 1989. Issues such as abortion rights, violence against women, and sexism in society were all targeted by feminist activist groups such as the Women’s Action Coalition, SisterSerpents, and Helaine Victoria Press (dedicated to women’s history) in the USA. While in Britain publishing thrived in many forms, such as See Red Women’s Workshop (posters), The Women’s Press (books) and do-it-yourself fanzines such as Shocking Pink and Bad Attitude.⁵

Despite a reported start-date of 1981, conservative governments attempted to ignore the fast-developing AIDS crisis throughout the 1980s. The US activist group known as ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) was founded in 1987 to combat government inaction. Through their visual campaigns and memorable direct actions, the coalition attacked the lack of government funding for research, the drug approval process, poor access to treatment and care, and the lack of safe-sex education. Within five years they had become a large network of city chapters with an international reach. Their powerful graphic identity, a pink triangle on a stark, black background supported by the words ‘Silence = Death’, provided a call to action that has resonated ever since. By the early 1990s, the global spread of the disease was slowly being acknowledged. Safe-sex education was produced worldwide, often taking the form of print or poster campaigns. These showed great variety in style and approach, as well as in attitudes to the disease, according to their country of origin.⁶

Throughout the 1980s gay and lesbian communities consolidated their strength against a common enemy (AIDS); in the early 1990s new directions in activism were formed. In 1991 artist and designer Carrie Moyer and photographer Sue Schaffner teamed up to form Dyke Action Machine! (DAM!). Their work together as DAM! defined a decade of lesbian assertiveness and visibility. They critiqued prejudiced attitudes and heterosexual conceit by skillfully inserting lesbian imagery into both traditional (family) and contemporary (fashion) advertising campaigns, as well as using a film poster parody to critique lesbian representation. Most importantly, their powerful work gave lesbianism a sense of community, politics and respect.⁷

With new visibility and energy brought by AIDS activism, the initials LGB (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual) slowly began to replace the word ‘gay’. The 1990s, however, brought the desire for more exposure, more community and more radical action. The term LGBT was introduced (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) and the old term ‘queer’ was adopted as a new umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities, but with an outspoken, in-your-face attitude and an appetite for radical activism, such as civil disobedience and direct action, as practised by the UK queer rights group Outrage! (1990–2011).

The early 1990s also saw the unravelling of the Cold War vision of the world. It began in May 1989, when a series of pro-democracy demonstrations was held by students, workers and intellectuals in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, generating immense global solidarity through media coverage and the art they produced, including banners and a makeshift statue of ‘the Goddess of Democracy’ (similar to New York’s Statue of Liberty). On 4 June the world’s media watched in horror as the protesters were massacred by their own army. But their spirit lived on, and is said to have ignited the following popular revolutions that travelled across Europe.⁸

The slow struggle throughout the 1980s for free elections in Poland, led by Lech Walesa, head of Poland’s free trade union Solidarity, finally achieved its goal in 1989. The Iron Curtain (staunch symbol of the Eastern bloc) collapsed and a wave of popular revolutions swept through Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. An area of Europe known for its long-running poster tradition, artists produced large numbers of posters criticising the Communist Party, documenting elections or other events taking place, expressing uncertainty about the future, or showing solidarity with revolutions in other countries. Almost as if providing a grand finale, on 11 November 1989 the Berlin Wall was pulled down by the people it had divided for years.⁹

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 initiated the First Gulf War in January 1991, waged against Iraq by a UN-backed coalition of 36 countries led by the US military. Dubbed ‘the information war’, it was known for its highly censored portrayal of bloodless warfare, its gung-ho emphasis on air-strike techno-wizardry and the mythic capabilities of ‘smart bombs’ and precision-guided weapons. It also introduced non-messy terminology such as ‘surgical strikes’ and ‘collateral damage’. Protest imagery of the time brought issues of oil ownership into the discussion, and a mistrust of mainstream media due to the sanitizing of information (producing a ‘bloodless’ war).¹⁰

Promotional poster for The Women’s Press, London 1980s
Illustration: Donna Muir, Art Direction: Suzanne Perkins

Sticker from the US feminist art activist group Guerrilla Girls c. 1990

To much of the world, the Balkan Wars presented one of the great confusions of the 1990s. A simplified explanation can be found by following the footsteps of the land-grabbing President Slobodan Miloševic of Serbia (known as Yugoslavia at that time) and his desire for constructing a Greater Serbia (as well as his talent for fanning the flames of nationalism and setting ethnic groups warring against each other). In short: he launched an offensive against Slovenia (1991), which fought him off. Then he attacked Croatia, creating a cycle of battles and purging of ethnic groups. This set off the powder keg known as Bosnia, with Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Catholic Croats warring against each other and exercising ‘ethnic cleansing’ (the purging of ‘unwanted’ ethnic groups from areas they wanted to control). Also a part of this Bosnian War was the siege of Sarajevo (April 1992–Feb 1996) when Miloševic’s Yugoslav People’s Army and local militias blockaded, shelled and demolished the city. The Bosnian War was brought to an end in 1995, and a shaky peace was enforced by NATO (Sarajevo’s nightmare continued into 1996). But in 1998 Miloševic laid claim to Kosovo, and waged war on the resident ethnic Albanians. Despite the confusions and chaos, the creative communities in the countries affected kept design studios in operation (for example, Trio in Sarajevo), created art activism projects against violence or produced graphic documentation of the crimes.¹¹

Admirably, there was resistance to Miloševic within Serbia itself. Belgrade students and citizens demonstrated for change between November 1996 and March 1997. They marched through the streets, pelted the offices of the state newspaper Politika with eggs, and other actions, but to no avail. A new spirit of revolt appeared in 1998 in the form of the movement Otpor! (Resistance!), founded by Belgrade University students (average age, 20–21). It set its sights on the democratic overthrow of Miloševic in the upcoming September 2000 elections, and ran an energetic, sophisticated campaign with brilliant graphics; by July 2000 it claimed 40,000 members. Its symbol, a clenched fist, appeared all over Serbia. Otpor!’s final move, the ‘He’s Finished!’ campaign in the run-up to the presidential elections of 24 September 2000, brought victory. Miloševic didn’t go easily, but a revolt on 5 October finally ousted him, and he was on his way to The International Court in the Hague.¹²

Throughout the 1980s solidarity campaigns existed in support of countries in Central and South America attempting to deal with US interference or with the machinations of military dictators (or possibly both together). The Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua (1979) overthrew the corrupt Somoza dictatorship, formed a government and set about addressing the country’s struggle for literacy, health care and land distribution. Posters were used by the new government to address these issues and to strengthen cultural identity. They also encouraged people to defend themselves against the US-backed Contras aiming to destabilize the country, and called to Central American countries to resist American intervention (as experienced in El Salvador in 1982 and the West Indian island of Grenada in 1985). In Chile in 1973, the democratically elected (Marxist) President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup d’état, resulting in the country being ruled by a military junta led by the dictator General Augusto Pinochet. A purge of dissidents followed, thousands were murdered or ‘disappeared’ and an estimated 200,000 Chileans were driven into exile. Politically-minded poster collectives and design studios in the US, UK, Holland and other countries continued to produce posters for international organizations providing support and solidarity for liberation and other struggles throughout the Americas and Africa.¹³

Leading up to the new century, an important global resistance movement took hold incorporating anti-globalization and environmentalism, and engaging with new developments in digital technology. ‘Anti-globalization’ was, in essence, people power vs. corporate power. It had anti-corporatism and anti-capitalism at its core, and a deep suspicion of the power that multinational corporations wielded over world economies and people’s lives, particularly by highly visible names such as McDonald’s and Nike. It also targeted the debt-handling activities of Western institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the World Bank, for stifling the progress and livelihood of the developing world. Anti-globalization joined forces with environmentalism, which employed militant, uncompromising methods of direct action, initially seen in the UK roadbuilding protests aiming to protect trees and areas of natural beauty.¹⁴

Mass anti-globalization protests took place at the turn of the century. They included J18 (18 June 1999), the International Carnival Against Capitalism taking place in 27 countries; and the Battle of Seattle protest in November 1999 against the IMF and WTO, with an estimate of 50–100,000 protesters involved. There was no turning back for graphic artists and designers wishing to add their voices to the mix. Posters and maps were produced to announce time and place; signs, banners and flags were carried at protests and other events. The graphic statements (posters, billboards, websites) aligned to anti-corporate protest – anti-tobacco, anti-fast food, anti-advertising and so on – all turned nasty, and the more extreme, the better. The anti-corporate backlash included ‘brand subversion’, and the multinationals controlling health, food, environment, energy and economies, and their symbols of power (logos, symbols and mascots), have been a target for satire and graphic opposition ever since. Adbusters, a movement/magazine out to subvert the media and corporates, developed a global craze for ‘subvertising’ (corporate ad spoofs). Fast-food giant McDonald’s found itself embroiled in the longest running civil libel case in British history (1994–97) against two activists: a postman and a gardener. Plus the Marlboro Man lost his ‘tough guy’ image, having confessed to another cowboy that he’s got emphysema.¹⁵

Despite widespread support for Nelson Mandela and the anti-apartheid movement, Britain still had problems with race at home in the 1980s. Sparked off by issues such as the heavy targeting of black youths by police using stop-and-search tactics, in 1981 the anger of the black community exploded into the Brixton Riots of south London and spread throughout the country. Against this backdrop, new, more forceful comments emerged about life in Black Britain from a young generation of British artists, including Tam Joseph. The black community’s mistrust of and difficult relationship with the police would continue.

With the end of the guerrilla war for independence in 1980, Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) embarked on the building of a new socialist state, under the elected leadership of Robert Mugabe. By the late 1990s, and with the aid of his ruling party Zanu-PF, Mugabe’s stranglehold on power and the economy had brought the country to near ruin. As the year 2000 elections approached, Zimbabwean designer Chaz Maviyane-Davies (then living in London) embarked on ‘30 days of graphic activism’ to encourage a vote for change, emailing daily ‘Graphic Commentaries’ – including poster images, written texts, links to websites – to individuals and civic rights groups around the world. It was a brilliantly informative solidarity project, spinning out daily events and issues, and chronicling the power abuses taking place.

When Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, after 27 years of imprisonment, he began the negotiations that would lead to the dismantling of the apartheid system. The first all-race democratic elections took place in 1994, and Mandela’s victory marked the beginning of the new South Africa, followed by a period of euphoria. But, of course, the shadows of apartheid (and the resentment felt by parts of the population) didn’t disappear overnight. Bitterkomix was started in 1992 by Anton Kannemeyer (aka Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes while still in university, and grew with regard to the number of artists involved as well as the provocative content. It satirized (mainly) white South Africans, their fears and obsessions, and gradually cast its satirical eye on South African society as a whole. Similar to US underground comics, sex and violence were ever present, boldly (and often brashly) lifting the lid on underlying taboos and prejudices bubbling beneath the surface.¹⁶

Jonathan Shapiro (aka Zapiro) has been scratching beneath the surface of South Africa’s psyche in a very different way. A committed anti-apartheid activist, his regular professional cartooning started around 1994. His first annual collection of cartoons produced for newspapers covered the ‘Madiba years’ (Nelson Mandela years, 1994–96). After that, collections of cartoons appeared annually showing Zapiro’s role as expert social commentator, exposing the flaws and difficult social adjustments to be overcome in the early stages of the new South Africa, while producing hilarious depictions of the politicians involved. He also courted controversy: Jacob Zuma (president of South Africa, 2009–18) twice sued him for millions of rand on a charge of defamation of character, but then (years) later dropped the charges.¹⁷

Fired by the spirit of change that was circling the globe in the 1960s and 1970s, Australia saw the rise of a poster and community art tradition involving politically and socially-committed graphic arts workshops which excelled at low-cost screen printing. In the 1980s, the next generation of poster artists and printmakers (including Redback Graphix, Red Planet Workshop and others) carried on this tradition of activism, imbibed with the new graphic spirit of Punk. They placed a special focus on the oppression of the Aboriginal people, exacerbated by the 1988 Australian Bicentennial which had exposed sharp cultural divisions and produced a grassroots movement calling for historical reassessment. They also contributed heavily to the continuing campaign against nuclear testing in the Pacific, highlighting its effects on both indigenous people and their environment.¹⁸

Two postcards produced during the Bosnian War 1993–94
Trio design group, based in Sarajevo

The International Peace Movement

Protest and Survive 1979

LIVE in a nuclear-free zone c. 1981
Peter Kennard
Poster (offset)

The mounting tension between the two global superpowers (the USA and the Soviet Union), locked in an arms race, brought back the rising spectre of nuclear war. Consequently, NATO’s decision to deploy US Cruise missiles on British soil in 1979 brought the subdued Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) roaring back to life. This time it was energized by a new generation of young activists committed to applying their creative talents to work for the peace movement. Peter Kennard’s photomontages for the CND and the Greater London Council led the way, and would define the new movement in Britain. The poster, on the left, aimed to revitalize CND’s symbol and image for use on the first march of the revived CND; over the next five years Kennard’s photomontages and other imagery provided a forceful image for the British peace movement, appearing on posters, postcards, banners and badges.

Hyde Park, October 1981 1981
Photograph: Ed Barber
Postcard

Photographer Ed Barber documented the activities and emotions of the British peace movement in the 1980s, including CND marches and the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common. In this photograph he captures a peace march gathered in Hyde Park; the demonstrators are carrying posters and banners with images by Peter Kennard. He also captures the spirit and diversity of the moment. Some of the protesters are dressed in the street style of Punk, while at the same time their expression shows their clarity of purpose.

‘Gone with the Wind’ 1984
Bob Light and John Houston
Poster

This poster provided one of the great satirical moments of 1980s Britain. It shows US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a pose intended to mimic Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara in the 1930s film Gone With the Wind. It is a sarcastic statement relating to the ‘special relationship’ between the USA and Great Britain, depicting both leaders as war-mongers in cahoots as global nuclear destruction occurs behind them.

Hiroshima Appeals 1983
Yusaku Kamekura
Poster

Burning butterflies signify the horrors of the atomic blast of 6 August 1945 that incinerated the Japanese city of Hiroshima and its people. This poster launched the Hiroshima Appeals poster series. From 1983 to 1990, an annual appeal was made to the world on behalf of the people of Hiroshima to work for the cause of peace. Each year a poster was created by one of Japan’s top designers to be distributed worldwide and exhibited in Hiroshima on the anniversary of the bombing. Both the poster series, and an annual peace poster exhibition, were organized by the well-known and extremely active Japan Graphic Designers Association (JAGDA).

Attention! 1981
Christer Themptander
Poster and postcard (offset)

The lunacy of the military (and other controlling figures of authority, such as banks and politicians) has always featured strongly in Themptander’s work. But his photomontages remain beautifully and meticulously constructed, qualities which only seem to enhance their comedy and ongoing attempts to point out humanity’s foibles.

Impending Image 1984
Christer Themptander
Poster and postcard (offset)

The Swedish photomontagist Christer Themptander has produced a large body of anti-militarist work, executed with razor-sharp wit and satire. His placement of weaponry (guns, missiles and so on) can be humorous, but also thought provoking. One of his most effective works is entitled ‘Impending Image’. It is a beautifully rendered image of a frightening situation. Two men in suits, with guns as an extension of their heads, shout at each other. Each man stands on one side of a dividing line, which could be real or imagined. Although this image was created in the 1980s, it remains just as relevant today, and just as disturbing.

It will be a great day… 1979
Designer unknown
Poster (offset)

Ten memorable lines of text (wishful thinking that becomes a blatant protest when it finishes), and a basic black image, make for a powerful poster regardless of the size or quality of its reproduction, or the variety of stock it is printed on. It was produced by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in the USA, dedicated to working for peace by non-violent means. Founded in 1915, it is now a well-known NGO (non-governmental organization) with sections on every continent, offices in Geneva and New York and thousands of members worldwide.

The Greenham Factor 1983–84

A4 pamphlet cover and inside spread

The Greenham Factor was a newsheet, produced to document the aspirations and activities of those involved in the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common in Britain. It was also used as a solidarity tool and to raise funds for the camp.

Banner for the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common 1983
Thalia and Jan Campbell and Jan Higgs
Photograph (also postcard)

The Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common was established in 1981 when women (of all ages) camped outside the gates of a US military base in Britain in an attempt to stop its receiving and housing of US Cruise missiles, as agreed with the British government. The camp’s numbers grew and shrank periodically, but it thrived on performance and demonstrations of solidarity and strength, and decorated the environment and perimeter fence with drawings, paintings, banners, baby clothes and other mementos of humanity, as well as weaving webs out of anything to hand. (Plus bannermaking enjoyed renewed popularity.) The women performed daring actions – such as climbing over or cutting through the perimeter fence – and held extraordinary demonstrations, such as ‘Embrace the Base’ in 1982 when over 30,000 women travelled to Greenham to link hands around the base. Plus there were injuries, usually when women blocked entrances to the base and the police arrested them, dragging them away. The camp became internationally renowned, as a potent symbol of women’s ability to stand up to the male military machine, and lasted ten years, ending when the missiles left.

Dear Margaret c. 1983
Photographer: Brenda
Prince Postcard

A banner at the Women’s Peace Camp makes a smug comment to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher about not buying presents (bombs) for her ‘children’ (her politicians). Thatcher was no friend to the women in the Peace Camp; they stole her media headlines and interfered with her and Ronald Reagan’s shared vision of global (armed) diplomacy.

Political Satire: A Rogues’ Gallery

It Can’t Happen Here 1988
Artist of poster and original artwork: Robbie Conal
Poster

Guerrilla street artist Robbie Conal is well known for his portrait posters of ‘bad guys’ – including politicians and public icons – that are then wheatpasted on the streets, walls and billboards of Los Angeles (and a few other American cities). This poster shows George Bush, US president, 1989–93. Newly elected at the time this poster was made, the statement ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ is Conal’s expression of incredulity at the election of someone so boring – a ‘suit’ or organisation man, who had former connections with the CIA – as well as the insinuation of a certain lack of brainpower.

Contra Diction 1987
Artist of poster and original artwork: Robbie Conal
Poster

Robbie Conal strikes again; this time the ‘bad guy’ is US president Ronald Reagan, targeted here for looking confused and ‘failing to remember’ his administration’s/CIA dealings with the Contras (terrorizing Nicaragua) and their possible drug smuggling, as well as arms deals with Iran.

The Best Future for Britain 1993
Artist: Steve Bell
Cartoon

Political cartoonist Steve Bell often drew Prime Minister John Major, Margaret Thatcher’s successor, wearing his underpants over his suit in a parody of Superman. It was also meant to signify John Major’s uselessness.

What Hillary Problem? 1993
Artist unknown
Spy magazine: front cover

Artists, cartoonists and magazines dealing in political satire were spoilt for choice in the 1980s, with conservative politicians in charge on both sides of the ocean. In the 1990s, misbehaviour ruled. Soon after Bill Clinton won the presidential election in autumn 1992, New York’s satirical magazine, Spy, published this photomontaged cover. Hillary Clinton had just become First Lady and questions were already being raised about her influence in the White House. However, by the end of the decade it was Bill who would occupy the headlines with his affair with intern Monica Lewinsky in 1998–99 and subsequent impeachment trial.

Internal Struggles, Divided Countries

Time for Peace, Time to Go c. 1994
Reproduction of a ‘Cormac’ cartoon Political mural, Northern Ireland

The British government’s war with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), otherwise known as ‘the Troubles’, resulted in a 30-year military presence in Northern Ireland (1968–98). Simply stated: within Northern Ireland, the largely Protestant and loyalist majority wanted to remain part of the UK; the mainly Catholic and republican minority wished to become part of the Republic of Ireland (the South). Having said that, loyalties on both sides were far more complicated, and the violence was brutal and wide-ranging, including terrorism that spread to the British mainland. News of events and protest statements developed in mainland Britain in the form of documentaries, newspapers and ephemera – badges, pamphlets and postcards – calling for a stop to the violence, protesting the use of plastic bullets by British armed forces and, as time went on, carrying the inevitable call for ‘Troops Out Now’. Northern Ireland visualized its experiences, loyalties, anger and pain in the form of political wall murals, both loyalist and republican, created in Belfast and other locations, depicting memorials, military emblems, and more. By 1994, the desire for peace meant that the slogan ‘Time to Go’ began to appear on republican murals. The mural shown here carries a reproduction of a cartoon by ‘Cormac’ (Brian Moore, political cartoonist for An Phoblact) in which the peace dove is carrying the British soldier back home to the mainland.

Mural commemorating Bobby Sands 1990
Artist unknown
Mural

This mural memorialises Bobby Sands, the first prisoner to go on hunger strike in 1981 and the first to die. It is located in Belfast and contains a quotation from his writings. Also depicted is ‘the Spirit of Freedom’, shown as a lark trapped within a ribbon (and in other murals, trapped within barbed wire), an image also taken from Sands’ prison writings. The logo of the republican newspaper An Phoblacht/Republican News appears above him.

A Plastic Bullet – It Smashes Heads early 1980s
Design: Stephen Dorley-Brown
Postcard

The Campaign Against Plastic Bullets (based in London) produced this postcard with the aim of banning the use of plastic (rubber) bullets by police and armed forces in Britain and Northern Ireland. However, the postcard had additional value in combatting misinformation, as it was often thought by the British mainland public that plastic bullets weren’t as bad as real bullets – but they could still kill and maim both adults and children.

Bobby Sands: The Final Salute 1981
Photographer unknown
Front and back pages: An Phoblacht

These front and back pages of An Phoblacht, the republican newspaper, carried a photograph of a memorial and final salute (by the IRA) to Bobby Sands, who led a group of ten hunger-strikers in Maze Prison demanding ‘political prisoner status’ for republican prisoners instead of treatment as criminals. Sands was leader of the IRA prisoners in the Maze; during the strike he was also elected a member of the British Parliament by a Northern Ireland constituency. The strike began on 1 March 1981; Sands died on 5 May, 66 days after refusing food. Nine other prisoners died before the strike was called off on 3 October 1981. The British government (under Margaret Thatcher) made no concessions, ‘the Troubles’ worsened, and Bobby Sands became a hero to the republican cause.

National Union of Mineworkers Banner 1984
Photographer: Andrew Barr
Photograph

In 1984 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative government embarked on a mission to destroy the power of the trade union movement – especially the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) – and close down the pits or coal mines. The result was the Miners’ Strike of 1984–85, beginning with the closure of Cortonwood pit in South Yorkshire, the heartland of Britain, in March 1984. The miners went on strike; more strikes spread to coalfields throughout Britain due to the efforts of ‘flying pickets’ (strikers who moved around from one strike to another, adding strength where needed). In the end, at least 165,000 miners went out on strike. The government ordered thousands of highly trained, well-armed police to fight the strikers; the confrontations were bloody and brutal. Women activists and trade unionists delivered support (food kitchens, fund-raising and so on); the British public provided funds and heartfelt solidarity with the miners. By March 1985 it was all over; the strike was weakened. But the physical brutality remained in the public mind, as well as Margaret Thatcher’s shocking reference to the miners as ‘the enemy within’. Banners have traditionally acted as emblems of identity for trade unions, to be carried in marches or displayed at events. The NUM trade union banner shown here depicts one of many bloody incidents during the Miners’ Strike. It was photographed at the Durham Miners’ Gala, a key annual ritual where miners carried this banner (as well as other miners’ banners) with members of the community, on a long march through the city of Durham, ending at Durham Cathedral where many of the banners were blessed.

The Battle of Orgreave 1984

Photograph: John Harris Postcard (top) and poster (bottom)

Miners from all of the striking coalfields formed a mass picket at Orgreave on 18 June 1984. ‘The Battle of Orgreave’ proved to be one of the most violent confrontations between miners and police. Photographs showed miners facing police baton charges, and mounted police wielding riot sticks. This photograph, taken at Orgreave, caught a member of Sheffield Women’s Support Group under attack from a mounted policeman. (She was calling for an ambulance for a nearby injured miner.) It became an iconic protest image throughout the dispute and appeared on postcards, posters and in radical journals.

‘Daddy, What Are You Doing In the Occupied Territories?’ 1989
David Tartakover
Poster

David Tartakover’s use of a child’s drawing of a flower, backed by the photograph of an injured child, presents the ultimate horror: the suffering of children caught in the conflict. This poster was published by Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit), founded in 1982, a movement of combat veterans who originally refused to serve in the Lebanon War, and as time went on, also refused to serve in the Occupied Territories. Also known as ‘refuseniks’, the movement still exists today.

‘Mother’ 1988
David Tartakover
Poster

The most recent phase of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be said to have had its roots in the creation of the independent state of Israel in 1948 and its consequent treatment of the resident Palestinians ever since (as well as their resolute retaliations). This eventually led to the containment of Palestinians in the ‘Occupied Territories’ – the West Bank and Gaza Strip – and conflict between the two sides over at least 50 years. A strong peace moment has been present throughout, shown by groups such as Peace Now, Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc), Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit) and others, but the politics of the situation, and lack of diplomacy, have made real progress impossible. The prominent Israeli designer, David Tartakover, created the 1978 logo for Peace Now and many posters along the way, protesting the violence of the conflict and isolating moments of truth. This ‘truth’ is evident in the poster ‘Mother’, showing a news photograph of an Israeli soldier passing by and returning the gaze of a Palestinian woman. It is a defining moment relating to mothers and sons of both sides, and the possible pain and loss inflicted on both.

Seam Line: Israeli Palestinian Border 2001
Yossi Lemel
Poster

Yossi Lemel is also a central figure in both Israeli and international political poster design. Using distinctive, high-quality photography, his posters derive their force from the manipulation of modern signs and symbols, allowing for multiple readings. In this poster, meat becomes the bloody meat and muscle of humanity (both Israeli and Palestinian) tied together forcefully by string, rather than lying together peacefully. The punctured holes in the meat (on both sides) can be seen as the historical injuries suffered and tensions incurred over the years by the process of being forced together.

Bloodbath 2002
Yossi Lemel
Poster

Yossi Lemel pictorializes the term ‘bloodbath’ (meaning ‘a massacre’) literally, using a household bath to comment on a long period of intense violence enveloping both Israelis and Palestinians in the early 2000s. Various interpretations can be suggested here: the notion of suicide or the cutting of one’s wrists as if both sides are committing suicide together; or if viewing the tub, roughly, as the shape of Israel, both sides are bleeding into Israel together. Or the bathtub can be reminiscent of a morgue, with cold, hard surroundings and dripping drains, which is where all will end up. It remains a harsh (and unfortunately timeless) statement about a country that, even now, must continue searching for a lasting peace.

The Anti-Apartheid Movement

Federation of South African Women (Western Cape Region) 1987
Designer unknown
Poster (offset litho)

The introduction in 1948 of apartheid (a system of enforced racial segregation) in South Africa was soon followed by the first Defiance campaign in 1952: the beginning of a struggle that would last until 1990. During that period the black majority would endure Pass Laws, work restrictions, punishments and imprisonment for resistance, the murder (or injury) of their leaders and loved ones and countless other abuses. Throughout those years, women always played an important role in the struggle. Furthermore, grassroots organizations produced posters, particularly in the 1980s, that supported the determination of the people. The posters were also considered, by the state and by the security police, to be subversive (and therefore dangerous). The poster shown here honours heroines of the South African struggle, including Albertina Sisulu (above), one of 16 United Democratic Front leaders charged with treason in 1985.

Release Mandela 1989
Designer unknown Poster (offset litho)

This poster portrait of Nelson Mandela, made while he was still in prison, was painted from the verbal descriptions of people who had visited him. (It was illegal to publish the photograph of a prisoner.) The poster would have given strength and encouragement to many, and was produced by COSATU, the Congress of South African Trade Unions in Johannesburg.

How to Commit Suicide in South Africa 1983
Illustrations: Sue Coe
A4 booklet: cover and inside spread

Artist Sue Coe and journalist Holly Metz created this handbook after reading about people who died or ‘committed suicide’ in detention in South Africa, including the Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko who died in detention in 1977. It contained researched information concerning racism in South Africa – historical timelines, statistics on foreign investment and so on – and was illustrated by Sue Coe’s dark, nightmarish imagery. It became an important consciousness-raising document in both Britain and the USA, and was used as an organizing tool on US campuses when ‘divestment’ (the withdrawal of public funds from companies investing in South Africa) was being hotly debated as a potential tool for challenging apartheid.

Women Against Apartheid 1984
Wild Plakken (Frank Beekers, Lies Ros, Rob Schröder)
Poster

The full text on the poster reads: ‘Women Against Apartheid. Support the struggle of the women of the liberation movements ANC and Swapo.’ The poster was made by Wild Plakken design group in Amsterdam, who created many anti-apartheid statements in photo-collage form for the energetic AABN, the Dutch anti-apartheid movement. For years the Dutch government subsidized the AABN, which also received heavy support from the public due to the past Dutch connection with South Africa.

Mother Apartheid 1987–88
Paul Peter Piech (The Taurus Press)
Poster (lino-cut)

The international anti-apartheid movement escalated in the 1960s, the 1970s and particularly the 1980s when pressure against the South African state was at its height. In Britain, solidarity posters, postcards and badges were highly visible. Industrial embargoes were held by trade unions, sporting associations and the entertainment industry. Boycotts were organized against South African goods and British companies based in South Africa. The possibility of punitive sanctions or divestment was hotly debated. Lastly, criticism was hurled at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for her dealings with the South African government, as shown in this poster by printmaker Paul Peter Piech, one of a number of posters he produced in support of the anti-apartheid movement.

Release Nelson Mandela 1988
Surinder Singh
Poster (silkscreen and offset)

In 1988 the imprisoned Nelson Mandela reached the age of 70. The British Anti-Apartheid Movement, along with other organizations and groups, decided to stage birthday celebrations and send support and best wishes for his release. This poster was produced by the Anti-Apartheid Movement as part of their ‘Nelson Mandela Freedom at 70’ campaign.

Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Concert, London 1988
Photographer: John Cole
Photograph

The 70th Birthday Tribute Concert staged for the imprisoned Nelson Mandela was held at Wembley Stadium, North London on 11 June 1988. It was organized by Artists Against Apartheid as part of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement’s ‘Nelson Mandela Freedom at 70’ campaign. The concert was performed before a backdrop of work by artists Keith Haring and Jenny Holzer (USA), John Muafangejo (Namibia) and others. Attended by a capacity audience of 72,000, the ten-hour concert was also watched on television by up to a billion people in over 60 countries around the world.

Untitled 1988
Keith Haring
Poster

Renowned US artist Keith Haring produced images of great directness, simplicity and impact, which not only sent a strong message against apartheid in South Africa but also of the hope of breaking free from other forms of oppression regardless of country. This poster was part of the stage backdrop used in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Concert in London.

Feminism: The Third Wave

Do Women Have to be Naked … 1989
Guerrilla Girls
Poster

The US feminist art activist group known as Guerrilla Girls began exposing sexual and racial discrimination in the New York art world in 1985. Their chosen weapons tended to be spontaneous street posters (often posted illegally at night). This particular poster, one of their most popular, was denied billboard space and so became a bus and street poster instead. Renowned for their sharp ironic humour, they have also lectured and made appearances but always dressed in gorilla masks or gorilla suits. Their anonymity is important in order to keep focus on the issues (rather than on personalities) and to avoid reprisals, for it has always been rumoured that they may be top female artists, curators or critics within the art establishment they criticize. Over the years they have produced books, travelled to other countries, and who knows if the members of the group have stayed the same. But they are still going strong, and their most recent posters and exhibitions have proved, via their statistics, that there hasn’t been a great deal of improvement with regard to the status of art by women (or women of colour) in the collections of museums or the galleries of the art world.

Guerrilla Girls Street Posters c. 1990

Guerrilla Girls
Street posters

A few examples of the early street posters produced by the Guerrilla Girls are shown here; they would have been posted in the street at night. They attacked the New York galleries and museums by means of facts, statistics and the ‘naming of names’ (probably another reason that anonymity was crucial).

Keep Your Rosaries Out of Our Ovaries 1991–92
Marlene McCarty and Bethany Johns
Poster

The New York-based activist group, Women’s Action Coalition or WAC (1992–94), committed itself to direct action on a variety of issues, particularly abortion rights and violence against women. This poster was carried outside of St Patrick’s Cathedral to protest against Cardinal John O’Connor’s public ‘anti-choice’ statements on behalf of the Catholic Church. The poster was also carried by the Women’s Action Coalition at the 1992 ‘March for Women’s Lives’, a national rally for reproductive rights, and was used continuously for (pro-choice) clinic defence throughout the summer and autumn of 1992.

Your Body is a Battleground 1989
Barbara Kruger
Poster (offset)

After the build-up of pro-life and pro-choice forces throughout the conservative 1980s in the USA, a visual language of resistance emerged that would tackle further threats to abortion rights in the 1990s. This graphic resistance was encapsulated in Barbara Kruger’s magnificent poster ‘Your Body is a Battleground’, a call to arms on behalf of the 1989 march on Washington for birth control and basic abortion rights for women. The image was also later used to promote women’s rights issues in other countries.

Helaine Victoria Press 1973–90

Jocelyn Cohen and Nancy Poore Postcards

Defiance towards the exclusion of women’s achievements throughout history brought about the cultural search for ‘hidden heroines’, as practised by the well-loved Helaine Victoria Press, which published mini-histories of both ordinary and extraordinary women within the ingenious format of the postcard (as well as the occasional poster). Co-founded by Jocelyn Cohen and Nancy Poore, the press researched and combined archival photographs and potted-history captions of its subjects into a uniquely intimate educational experience, including both individuals and movements. Poore left in 1982, but Cohen carried on for almost a further decade producing the distinctively designed postcards that spanned the globe (by mail). The postcards shown here depict Lucy E. Parsons (1852–1942), US free speech and labour leader, and joyful ladies from the Woolworth Workers’ Sit Down Strike of 1937.

Shocking Pink, Issue 10 c. 1990
Magazine/fanzine: front cover

The 1980s introduced a new generation of women with a tough, self-defined attitude and a powerful form of delivery. Both girls and women pitted themselves against the commercial media and cultural institutions that dominated and fashioned their lives. By challenging the powerlines of the media and its stereotyped roles, women found their own power: girlpower, womanpower and so on. A prime example of girlpower was the highly irreverent London-based feminist girls’ magazine Shocking Pink. It combined Punk’s fanzine tradition of do-it-yourself publishing with social critique and a feminist stance. Aimed at girls aged 10 upwards, it was produced by a collective aged 16 to 25, and was particularly keen to give space to young lesbians. They launched scathing attacks on the media and particularly on what they called the ‘propaganda’ of popular girls’ magazines such as Jackie, which they accused of telling 12-year-old Jackie readers to ‘buy more make-up’ twenty-two times in each issue. Sharp-tongued and anti-authoritarian, Shocking Pink offered discussion and information on subjects ranging from contraception to politics.

A Collection of Photo-collaged Posters by SisterSerpents 1994–95
SisterSerpents and Mary Ellen Croteau Posters (offset and photocopy)

The Chicago-based, anonymous art activist group known as SisterSerpents (and its spokeswoman Mary Ellen Croteau) directed their venom at the many levels of sexism in society. They targeted society’s varied symbols of sexism – including little boys’ games, army pin-ups, and more – and their weaponry included stickers, rubber stamps, photocopies, posters and exhibitions that aimed to shock. With the battle cry ‘GET ANGRY – Piss on Patriarchy’, they produced some of the most provocative (and effectively uncomfortable) statements of the time. (One of them was a poster-collage of renowned cook Julia Child, holding up a kitchen knife which had a penis stuck on its point, titled ‘Julia’s simple method for stopping a rapist – Go for the Groin, Gals!’) All created as part of a strategy they called ‘idea warfare’, their shocking imagery spat and railed against a system that allows the brutalization of women.

The AIDS Crisis

AIDSGATE 1987
Silence = Death Project
Poster (offset lithography)

This poster was produced for use at the National AIDS Demonstration in front of the White House, aligned with the start of the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington, D.C. on 1 June 1987. Both proved to be a massive gathering of AIDS activist groups aiming to protest government inaction on AIDS. When Ronald Reagan addressed the conference the night before, he made (shameful) history by saying the word ‘AIDS’ publicly for the first time – six years into the epidemic. By that time, ACT UP’s factsheets were reporting 19,000 deaths. Thus the poster’s title, AIDSGATE, refers to the scandals attributed to government inaction and Reagan’s silence on the subject.

Kissing Doesn’t Kill 1989
Gran Fury art collective
Bus advertisement

Gran Fury was the art collective most heavily associated with ‘exploiting the power of art to end the AIDS crisis’, and produced a variety of graphics that contributed to ACT UP’s distinctive style. ‘Kissing Doesn’t Kill’ is a bus ad that ran in San Francisco and New York City, in which they made clever use of the sophisticated visual techniques of advertising.

Silence = Death 1986
Silence = Death Project
Poster (offset lithography) and badges

This powerful graphic emblem was originally created by the Silence = Death Project: six gay men who produced posters of the design for display on the streets of New York City in 1986. They subsequently lent their design to ACT UP, and from thereon it became the main identifier not only for ACT UP but for AIDS activism in the United States. The use of the pink was symbolic. A pink triangle, pointing down, was the identifier worn by gay men in Nazi concentration camps in the Second World War; its inversion, pointing up, was a sign of resistance against new forces of oppression.

Safe-sex posters (from a series of six) for the Terrence Higgins Trust, designed by Big-Active, Britain, 1992.

Safe-sex Education 1987–92
Artists: various Posters (silkscreen and offset)

The fast-developing AIDS crisis was largely ignored by governments, globally, throughout the 1980s. This dreadful situation emphasizes the importance of the actions of the US activist group ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and their attacks on lack of government funding for research, treatment and care, and safe-sex education. Due to their initial efforts, by the early 1990s safe-sex poster campaigns existed internationally, and varied with regard to cultural traditions and audiences. Government campaigns normally addressed a broad general audience, and often used bland imagery, worried about offending the status quo. Campaigns produced by the community sector targeted specific audiences and tended to be much bolder in approach, as they were more directly involved with their audience. They addressed lesbians and gay men, the young, the sexually active – all those people most at risk – and rose to the challenge with imagination and energy. They realized the need to change attitudes and behaviour as well as combat misinformation and prejudice. They also had the courage to supply a sense of fun and humour, despite the dire circumstances. A selection of campaigns from community and activist organizations is shown here.

Poster from the ‘Take Care, Be Safe’ campaign for the Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights (RFSL), design by Ola Johansson, photography by Robert Nettarp, Sweden, 1992.

‘Take Care, Be Safe’, from a series of posters produced by the Swedish Federation for Gay and Lesbian Rights (RFSL) that were targeted for use in specific settings: this poster was meant for nurses’ offices and surgeries in schools and similar contexts. The entire series was also used in gay bars and restaurants around the country as part of a large campaign, 1992.

Comic book heroes: Clark Kent (alias Superman) smooches Dick Tracy, on a t-shirt produced by the Golden Gate chapter of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, USA, 1992.

‘Condoman’, poster by Redback Graphix for NACAIDS, Canberra, Australia, 1987.

‘Live Positively’, supportive poster series on gay values and living by Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe; design: Detlev Pusch, photo: Jörg Reichard, Germany, 1992.

Lesbian and Gay Activism

The Dyke Manifesto and Lesbian Avengers logo 1993 and 1992
Designer: Carrie Moyer
Poster (silkscreen and offset)

A new era of lesbian power and visibility surfaced in New York City in the early 1990s, with the founding of Dyke Action Machine (DAM!), the lesbian graphics project established in 1991 by painter and graphic designer Carrie Moyer and photographer Sue Schaffner, and the Lesbian Avengers, founded in 1992. The Lesbian Avengers focussed on strategies vital to lesbian visibility and survival. They became known for their direct actions: they marched with flaming torches, pestered politicians, stormed editorial offices and more. All were crucial to their mission of demanding respect for lesbians, as well as attempting to teach lesbians how to organize and think politically. Their manifesto and logo, both designed by Carrie Moyer, encapsulated their explosive energy and ‘ready-to-blow-up’ anger that made them a legend, and known around the world. Dyke Action Machine (DAM!) produced poster campaigns that criticized the prejudiced attitudes of mainstream advertising by inserting lesbian images into current, recognizable advertising campaigns, and then displayed the results around the city. This not only subverted the postures normally reserved for heterosexual fantasy in magazines, but also began to subvert the visual profile of society as a whole. A new view of lesbian reality was beginning to emerge. Within a couple of years they had expanded into other forums such as new technology: their website eventually became one of the most entertaining spots in cyberspace. DAM! were instrumental in creating a sense of lesbian community and pride, while at the same time placing that community loudly and soundly within society as a whole and here to stay.

Do You Love the Dyke in Your Life? 1993
Dyke Action Machine (DAM!): Carrie Moyer and Sue Schaffner
Poster (offset)

This direct appropriation of a Calvin Klein campaign, by Dyke Action Machine, was one of a number of advertising parodies intended to raise lesbian visibility in the early 1990s.

Straight to Hell 1994
Dyke Action Machine (DAM!): Carrie Moyer and Sue Schaffner
Poster (silkscreen and offset)

This poster for a fantasy film became an investigation of new approaches to lesbian representation, showing the main character’s internal conflict, heavy anger and desire for ‘dyke revenge’, within a traditional cinema format (the action movie) as well as a political format (military propaganda).

Outrage! 1990s
Designer unknown
T-shirt

This t-shirt hails from Outrage!, the radical queer rights direct action group, which operated from 1990 to 2011. It used a highly irreverent style of non-violent civil disobedience (‘protest as performance’) including famous stunts such as Kiss-in, Queer Wedding, Exorcism of Homophobia and others.

Citizen’s Arrest of Robert Mugabe 1999
Photographer: Neville Elder
Photograph

Peter Tatchell is a well-known British human rights campaigner and was co-founder of the radical queer rights group, Outrage! Tatchell and three other members of Outrage! attempted a citizen’s arrest of then-President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe during his visit to London in October 1999. The activists accused Mugabe’s regime of condoning ‘murder, torture, detention without trial and the abuse of gay human rights’.

The Shopping Trolley Project 1997
Mother City Queer Projects Design: Manik Design South
Poster (offset)

Mother City Queer Projects (MCQP) was born when, in 1994, the newly-elected President Nelson Mandela brought a new spirit of freedom and a new constitution to South Africa, which included a ‘freedom of sexual orientation’ clause. MCQP devised an annual themed costume party in Cape Town as a celebration of the richness of queer culture in South Africa (the first event’s theme was ‘The Locker Room Project’). The costume party has grown to become an annual event on the international map of queer culture and attracts thousands of visitors. The poster shown here is from one of the earlier events – 15 December 1997 – which was dedicated to the memory of Princess Diana, a queer hero.

Happy 80th Birthday Madiba! 1998
Mother City Queer Projects Badge

MCQP produced this badge for Nelson Mandela’s birthday, 18 July, which they celebrated every year: another hero!

Pro-Democracy Movements

High Noon 1989
Tomasz Sarnecki
Poster

The year 1989 proved to be a watershed for the pro-democracy movements in Central and Eastern Europe. A decade of struggle, starting with workers’ strikes in Gdansk shipyard led by Lech Walesa, head of Solidarity (Poland’s free trade union), finally achieved its goal. Free elections were about to take place on 4 June 1989. On voting night this poster was hanging on polling booths throughout Poland. Taken from the classic American western High Noon (1952), it shows resolute sheriff Gary Cooper striding down the street, making his way to a confrontation, holding a paper ballot instead of a gun – representing Solidarity’s own resolute march to the ballot for a showdown with the Communist Party, which they won. The Communists consequently lost their grip on Europe and throughout 1989 a wave of popular revolutions swept through Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Spontaneous graphics (posters, signs, flags) played an important role, accompanying many of the demonstrations and chronicling events. Poster artists also travelled to help revolutions in other countries, offering solidarity and helping to document events taking place. It all climaxed on 11 November 1989 when the Berlin Wall, symbol of the ideological division between East and West, was breached and pulled down.

Solidarity (SOLIDARNOSŚĆ) 1980
Jerzy Janiszewski Logo/sticker

The logo for Solidarity, Poland’s independent trade union, appeared during the workers’ strikes led by Lech Walesa and staged in Gdansk shipyard in 1980. It became the emblem of the national workers’ movement and was soon published worldwide, hailed as the symbol for collective strength and the spirited resistance of the Polish people. It was also the first persistent symbol of the growing desire for democratic reform in Europe.

Comrades, Goodbye! 1989
I Am Back Again 1995
István Orosz
Posters

István Orosz’s ‘Comrades, Goodbye!’ poster reflects the happiness he felt in seeing the withdrawal of Soviet troops from their occupation of Hungary in 1989. Apparently, Russian soldiers queued to buy a copy of it when the Red Army finally left in 1991. However, in 1995 when the Communists were voted back into power in Hungary, Orosz produced a less-happy sequel entitled ‘I Am Back Again’.

Homage to Romania 1989
Péter Pócs
Poster

Hungarian artist Péter Pócs created this poster as a memorial to the victims slaughtered during Romania’s popular revolution of 1989; Romania’s colours are tied to the arm of the Christ-figure. Romania’s uprising was particularly bloody, ending with the execution of the despot Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife.

‘Students 69–89 1989
Dusan Zdímal
Poster

A striking yet haunting image of political violence, this poster was produced in memory of students injured by armed police during the demonstrations of 1968 against the Soviet invasion of Prague, as well as students injured in the so-called ‘bloodless’ Velvet Revolution of 1989. The Velvet Revolution involved mass unrest which led to the resignation of the Communist politburo and president, and the foundation of a new government with writer Václav Havel as president. Reminders of past struggles and sacrifices were important, particularly in light of Soviet attempts to erase, forbid discussion of or rewrite the histories of occupied countries.

Hero City 1990
Feliks Büttner
Poster

Applauding its role as a pain in the posterior of what was then known as (Soviet-occupied) East Germany, Feliks Büttner commemorates the demonstrations of 1989 in the city of Leipzig, which were instrumental in the downfall of the East German state.

Anti-War Protests

No Blood for Oil 1990 and 2003
Steven Lyons
Poster

Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 lit the spark that started the Gulf War of January 1991. It was waged against Iraq by a UN-backed coalition of 36 countries, led by the US military with heavy support from Britain and France. It became known as ‘the information war’ for its censored portrayal of bloodless warfare. Mainstream media (television, newspapers, magazines) carried gloating coverage of air-strike techno-wizardry and the mythic capabilities of ‘smart bombs’ and precision-guided weapons, while also showing endless charts of dazzling arrays of hardware and weapons. Non-messy technological-sounding words such as ‘collateral damage’ and ‘surgical strikes’ crept into popular vocabulary. The protest imagery of the time – posters, booklets, comics – questioned the motives behind the war (suspecting the desire for possession of oil), argued the failings of the US administration, and brought blood and death back into the discussion. It also fanned a mistrust of mainstream media, and its sanitizing of information to create a bloodless war. Steven Lyons’ poster addresses the issue of motives behind the war. He therefore visualized a general as a fuel pump. The poster was published in 1990 in the USA by the Emergency Campaign to Stop the War in the Middle East. It was then reprinted in 2003 to confront the second Gulf War – the Iraq War.

Uncle George Wants You to Have a Good War 1991
Stephen Kroninger
Poster

Although US President George Bush was considered by some to have provided strong leadership with regard to his handling of the Gulf War, it was his administration’s handling of the US economy (and other ills, listed on the poster) that was said to have denied him a second term as President. This poster was self-published and distributed first by the Village Voice in Manhattan, then by Progressive magazine in Madison, Wisconsin. It was also emblazoned on t-shirts in New York City.

Yahoo No. 5 c. 1991
Artist: Joe Sacco
Front cover

Comics journalist/artist Joe Sacco makes (deadly serious) fun of General Norman Schwartzkopf – aka ‘Stormin’ Norman’ – Commander-in-Chief of the coalition forces in the Gulf. Sacco’s front cover portrait, carrying lips by Claudia Basrawi, uses a wild, acidic yellow for the lettering of ‘How I Loved the War’ as well as for the insane eyeballs of the general.

S.O.S. Croatia 1991
Ranko Novak
Poster

The Balkan Wars of the 1990s were, to a great extent, instigated by the land-grabbing activities of the Serbian leader, Slobodan Miloševic and his desire to create a ‘Greater Serbia’. Miloševic and his forces attacked Slovenia, which fought them off, then wreaked havoc in Croatia, Bosnia (including the siege of Sarajevo) and Kosovo. In every case, he set ethnic groups warring against each other, inciting ‘ethnic cleansing’ (gaining control of an area by purging ‘unwanted’ ethnic groups) and bloodshed. Through the wars and sieges that took place in the 1990s, artists and creative studios kept working, producing projects protesting against the crimes being committed. Croatia suffered terrible massacres of both resident Serbs and Croats. The country also has a proud tradition of graphic design. Consequently, extraordinary posters were produced symbolizing the bloodshed taking place or documenting the devastation of Croatia’s cultural heritage. This poster by Ranko Novak makes use of the pattern of the ‘sahovnica’, the red-and-white checked medieval shield that is Croatia’s heraldic emblem.

Perfect! 1992
Asim Ðelilovic
Poster

This poster is one of a series of twenty-seven, created by Ðelilovic, telling the story of the Bosnian War. (They were conceived during the war, but not produced until after it.) The spectacled sniper taking aim symbolized the role of Serb intellectuals in starting the Bosnian War. The poster was also inspired by the death of Suada Dilberovic, shot on a bridge by a sniper during a peace demonstration in 1992: the first violent death in Sarajevo.

Enjoy Sara-jevo 1993–94

Trio design group
Postcards

With the start of the Bosnian War, the city of Sarajevo came under siege in April 1992. The siege lasted three and a half years, until February 1996. Trio design group (husband and wife Bojan and Dalida Hadzihalilovic, and others) stayed in Sarajevo and ran a commercial office throughout the war, despite shortages of paper, ink, electricity and water. The project that brought them international attention was a series of postcards, imbibed with a strong sense of irony and black humour. Sarajevo’s fate became a satirical theme, expressed through reworked cultural and pop icons, such as the Coca-Cola logo. The postcard format was chosen as the postcards could be transported out of the city, allowing communication with the outside world, and also because of shortages of paper and ink.

Strong resistance to Slobodan Milosevic’s power-hold and war-mongering came from within Serbia itself. In 1998 the student movement Otpor! (Resistance!) began to work towards the democratic overthrow of Milosevic in the upcoming presidential elections. Its members (aged 20–21) targeted young people to vote for change and the movement grew quickly. It operated a highly sophisticated marketing campaign with well-designed graphics similar to an advertising agency; its ‘clenched fist’ symbol was treated like a corporate logo, and appeared all over Serbia. Confidence and humour gave Otpor! huge popularity and political edge: crucial in giving people the courage to act. By July 2000, Otpor!’s membership had reached 40,000. Their most important move came with the ‘He’s Finished! campaign, aimed at the presidential elections of 24 September 2000. Although the opposition (supported by Otpor!) won the election, Milosevic didn’t budge and a popular revolt finally removed him on 5 October and sent him on his way to a ‘holiday in The Hague’ (the International Court in The Hague, where he was imprisoned for the rest of his life). The strength and energy of the Otpor! movement can even be felt in the small selection of graphics shown here.

Translations, all material c. 2000:

(Image A) Defend Yourself – Resist!, leaflet

Graphics from Otpor! (Resistance!) c. 2000
Artists: Otpor! Poster, leaflets, sticker

(Image B) Think – Resist!, leaflet

(Image C) Resistance! To Him! – Our Target, leaflet (showing the head of Slobodan Milosevic)

(Image D) 2000 – This is the Year, poster

(Image E) He’s Finished!, sticker

If Not Elections, Then What? 2000
Miljenko Dereta, Ivan Valencak and Saki Marinovic
Photograph: V. Miloradovic
Poster (offset)

Otpor! was not the only group campaigning for change in Serbia’s September 2000 elections. This pre-election poster, carrying a quotation from the Declaration of Human Rights, was designed by Miljenko Dereta (Executive Director), Ivan Valencak and Saki Marinovic: all members of Gradanske Inicijative (Civic Initiatives), dedicated to the democratization of Yugoslavia (Serbia). Civic Initiatives, an NGO or non-governmental organization, worked to help young people become aware of the importance of citizens’ participation in the democratic process. It also conducted educational programmes on human rights and citizenship. This poster captures the now-or-never call for change which would eventually vote Milosevic out of office on 24 September, as well as spur on the popular revolt that would finally remove him from power in early October.

International Solidarity: Global Struggles

Second Continental Congress for Study and Plenary Assembly… 1982
Artist unknown
Poster

The full title of this Nicaraguan poster announces its mission: ‘Second Continental Congress for Study and Plenary Assembly, Against the Arms Race and Imperialist Domination in Central America and the Caribbean’. The poster’s design – the peace dove stopping a wall of bullets – is a dramatic depiction of determination and strong resolve. The poster was produced by the Christian Conference for Peace in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Christian Movement for Peace, Independence and Progress for the People.

Women in Chile 1987
Greenwich Mural Workshop, London
Poster (silkscreen)

After the overthrow of their democratically-elected (Marxist) president in a CIA-backed coup d’état, Chile was ruled by a brutal military junta led by General Augusto Pinochet from 1973 to 1990. Thousands of so-called dissidents were murdered or ‘disappeared’ and an estimated 200,000 Chileans were exiled. This poster was produced for the British-based support group ‘Chilean Women in Exile’, which was determined to oppose the dictatorship. The poster declares International Women’s Day as a day of National Protest against Pinochet’s regime, and depicts various demonstrations taking place, including women banging on saucepans, a form of protest through noise.

No Intervention in Central America c. 1985
Design: A. Ruiz and I. Bustos for CEPA
Poster

Throughout the 1980s solidarity and educational campaigns existed in support of Central and South American countries attempting to deal with US interference or military dictators. In Nicaragua, after the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the victorious Sandinista Revolution and its government employed the production of posters to address self-determination and the country’s need for infrastructure and literacy programmes. The posters also encouraged people to mobilize and defend themselves against the US-backed Contras aiming to destabilize the country; and in a broader sense, often warned other Central American countries to resist US intervention, as seen in El Salvador (1982) and the West Indian island of Grenada (1985). The full translation of the poster shown here is ‘No intervention in Central America; victorious Nicaragua will neither sell out, nor surrender’. It was produced by CEPA, the Agrarian Education and Promotion Centre in Nicaragua, which encouraged peasant organizations to engage in political action.

Anti-Globalization

Adbusters No. 31 2000
Artist: Evie Katevatis, painting entitled ‘Unidentified (Activist, Seattle)’
Magazine: front cover

In the decade approaching the 21st century, ‘anti-globalization’ became a global resistance movement that had its roots in anti-corporatism and anti-capitalism, thereby rejecting the power that multinational corporations wielded over world economies and ordinary people’s lives. An important ignition point was the 1994 rebellion staged in the Chiapas region of Mexico by the Zapatistas, a collective taking their name from early 1900s rebel icon and land reformer Emiliano Zapata. The Zapatistas fought for land rights, resources and the rights of the indigenous people, for the Chiapas region was rich in resources and ripe for development by multinationals. News of their uprising circled the world electronically, generating global solidarity. The Zapatistas projected an inspirational image of the guerrilla fighter, wearing ski-masks to ensure that their ideas and words emanated from a collective voice. ‘The mask’ (ski-mask, bandana, scarf) soon became the international hallmark of the anti-globalization protester. Mass anti-globalization protests took place (London, Seattle) aimed at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and ‘the mask’ became more useful for hiding identity or protecting against tear gas or pepper-spray. The anti-corporate backlash included ‘brand subversion’ and Adbusters (shown here), a magazine based in Vancouver as well as a movement, expanded the concept, developing a global craze for ‘subvertising’ (corporate ad spoofs).

Masked Zapatista 2001
Artist: Ricardo Peláez
Electronic poster

This electronic image shows a masked member of the Zapatista Liberation Army (EZLN), or Zapatistas, smoking a peace pipe. Mexican designers and activists produced images to show solidarity with the Zapatistas and to support the development of a peace process in the Chiapas region.

Women with Rebellious Dignity 2001
Margarita Sada
Sticker

In 2001 two groups of designers and agitators in Mexico City – Fuera de Registro (Off the Register) and La Corriente Eléctrica (Electric Current) brought together 15 artists and designers to produce a series of stickers entitled ‘Zapata Vive’ in support of the peace process in the Chiapas. Margarita Sada’s sticker makes the crucial point that women participated at the forefront of the armed resistance; approximately one-third of the Zapatista combatants were women.

Schnews Annual 1998
Cover design: Peter Pavement
Book: front and back cover

One of the leading lights of media activism in Britain was Schnews. Shown here is a compilation of Issues 101–150 of the renowned free weekly alternative news-sheet, carrying ‘the news the mainstream media ignores’ as well as information on demonstrations, parties and other events (such as the ‘crap arrest of the week’) throughout the UK and beyond. It was available in both online and hard-copy form, and was published by the Brighton group ‘Justice?’. As their punchy weekly header appropriately barked: ‘Wake Up! Wake Up!’

Anti-Corporate Campaigns

Barfboro 1991
Artist: Doug Minkler
Poster

Throughout the 1990s anti-corporate attitudes were directed against the power of the brands; the frontline of health activism was the tobacco industry. The pioneering US group Doctors Ought to Care (DOC), founded as early as 1977, produced some of the most inventive campaigns against the marketing of tobacco and alcohol to adolescents. Its founder, Dr. Alan Blum, created the Barfboro theme in the 1980s (to barf = to vomit) and collaborated with artist Doug Minkler to create the outlandish campaign that included the Barfboro Barfing Team (1993), Barf Bags and Minkler’s sensational posters.

Bob, I’ve Got Emphysema 2000
Asher and Partners (art director Nancy Steinman, photographer Myron Beck, writer Jeff Bossin) Advertising campaign

As the 1990s progressed, so did the belief that ‘smoking kills’. By the end of the decade, the tobacco industry was being forced to pay compensation to health victims and ‘reparation payments’ by financing anti-tobacco ad campaigns. Ad parodies began to appear that challenged the power and influence of big tobacco, often attacking their brand icons or mascots. In this anti-smoking campaign, created for the California Department of Health Services, Marlboro Man – for so long symbolizing a ‘tough guy’ image – is forced to contemplate emphysema or cancer.

‘The McLibel Two’: David Morris and Helen Steel 1997
Photographer: Nick Cobbing
Photograph

Morris and Steel were the UK activists who went to court to face fast-food corporation giant McDonald’s in what became known as the McLibel Trial. This was the photograph shown in the mainstream press at the end of the historic trial (1994–97).

What’s Wrong with McDonald’s? 1986–90
London Greenpeace (no relation to Greenpeace International)
Pamphlet: front page

The distribution of this leaflet by London Greenpeace (1986–90), eventually led to the McLibel Trial (1994–97) which remains one of the anti-globalization movement’s biggest statements. UK activists David Morris (postman) and Helen Steel (gardener) were taken to court by McDonald’s (international fast-food corporation) for distributing ‘libellous’ information in a pamphlet, resulting in the longest running civil libel case in British history. Morris and Steel were eventually found guilty of libel on a number of counts but the trial was viewed as a public relations disaster for McDonald’s and a victory for Morris and Steel. The McLibel Support Campaign co-ordinated the substantial anti-McDonald’s publicity, supportive donations and sale of merchandise to help finance legal costs, and a number of well-known protest groups (such as PETA: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) ensured that anti-McDonald’s campaigning continued for years after.

Animal Rights

It takes up to 40 dumb animals to make a fur coat. But only one to wear it. 1985
Yellowhammer (art direction Jeremy Pemberton, photographer David Bailey)
Billboard poster

The issue of animal rights became highly popular in the 1980s atmosphere of activism and personal politics, encouraged by the Lynx anti-fur campaign’s landmark ‘40 dumb animals’ cinema ad and billboard poster, showing a fashion model dragging a bloody fur coat behind her. It struck a chord, and within months people were wearing fashion designer Katharine Hamnett’s t-shirts and badges saying ‘Yuck! Your disgusting fur coat’. Shops selling fur were boycotted and fur sales plummeted, creating real damage to the fur industry. Lynx transformed into the Respect for Animals campaign in the 1990s and continued its aggressive visual campaigns. At the same time, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), a large, international US-based organization produced high-profile media campaigns about animal abuse (often involving models or celebrities) and was renowned for its catwalk protests: an attempt to ward off fur-toting designers or models. Together, all of the campaigns mentioned created a stigma against wearing fur that still persists. They also marked a change in attitude, from the caring notion of ‘animal welfare’ to the forceful call for direct action that demanded animal rights as well as human rights.

Here’s the rest of your fur coat 2002
Photograph: Mary McCartney
Poster

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) created this anti-fur campaign showing British pop singer Sophie Ellis Bextor holding up the carcass of a skinned fox. PETA UK and its affiliates excelled at involving high-profile models, celebrities and designers in its campaigns in the early 2000s, as well as producing satirical websites such as http://www.kentuckyfriedcruelty.com and https://www.seaworldofhurt.com.

Yuck! Your Disgusting Fur Coat 1985
Katharine Hamnett
T-shirt

Fashion designer Katharine Hamnett was known for her influential ‘slogan t-shirts’ that caught the vibe of youth movements in the 1980s and 1990s, and were still effective with the 21st century anti-war movement. Her slogan for Lynx, whether on t-shirt or badge, substantially helped to create a stigma against wearing fur.

Yuck! Your Disgusting Fur Coat 1985
Lynx
Badge

This badge bears a slogan by fashion designer Katharine Hamnett, created for Lynx, the anti-fur campaign.

Environmental Concerns

IQ: Radioactive Contamination of the Environment 1986
Uwe Loesch
Poster

In the same way that animal rights activism produced innovative, aggressive visual campaigns throughout the 1980s, environmental statements also produced extreme imagery. Old graphic clichés lost their attraction: no more smiling suns or happy flowers. The destructive forces of pollution, nuclear accidents and massive oil spills demanded shocking images and people willing to engage in direct action. On 26 April 1986, one of four nuclear reactors at the Chernobyl power station in the Soviet Union exploded, producing the world’s worst nuclear accident. Due to wind direction, the radioactive ‘plume’ reached as far as, and badly affected, Scandinavia. In this poster – created at the time of the accident – the spotted irregular pattern of the cow’s hide begins to merge with a background of what might be perceived as enlarged, radioactive fallout, or some other poison polluting the air. The lurid yellow simply adds to the horror. Look closely: the cow is chewing a radiation symbol, not clover.

Dying Waters 1990

Artist: Judy Blame
Photographer: Jean Baptiste Mondino
Front cover and style essay: i-D No. 80, May 1990

By the late 1980s, nuclear accidents, oil spills and reports on the ‘greenhouse effect’ (soon to be seen as causing ‘global warming’), had all made environmental issues an urgent matter of survival. On 24 March 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil spill occurred in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The tanker struck a reef and spilled out 11 million gallons of crude oil into the water, which soon also covered the Alaskan coastline. Maverick fashion stylist Judy Blame (1960–2018), horrified and inspired by the Exxon Valdez oil spill, produced this controversial ‘pollution style’ essay for youth style magazine i-D. Human models were used to symbolize oil-slicked birds, and shocking, informative statements about pollution appeared throughout the sequence of pages, threaded through the murky background. Fashion and style mixed with politics in an unusual way. (Judy’s ‘Fuck Exxon’ necklace, a braided chain bearing a fake ‘dead’ bird covered in oil, is shown on the first double-page spread.) Three out of seven double-page spreads are shown here. The Valdez spill was the second largest to take place in US waters; it was only surpassed by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill.

Road Raging: Top Tips for Wrecking Roadbuilding 1997
Road Alert
Handbook

The 1990s saw environmentalism join forces with the new anti-globalization movement, dedicated to people power vs. corporate power. The British roadbuilding protests, held throughout the 1990s, involved militant action against the building of motorways or bypasses through areas of natural beauty (particularly forests), or commuter link roads into London which would add to traffic congestion and pollution. People of all ages and political views joined in, and soon protesters were living in treehouses, tunnelling or devising other ways of stopping the bulldozers sent by developers and big business interests. Such actions pitted the manmade vs. the organic, as well as police vs. protesters. Thus bruised and broken limbs were commonplace, which fuelled the cause of media activism involving video activists, internet hackers and others determined to present an alternative viewpoint to mainstream news, which never showed the brutality of the police or security guards. An excellent example of illustrated information of the time was Road Raging: Top Tips for Wrecking Roadbuilding, a resource manual on how to stage an environmental protest campaign, filled with diagrams, instructions and advice, from how to survive a (tree) eviction attempt by security guards in a hydraulic cherrypicker, to what diseases or infections you might suffer in a protest camp.

Mexico City Air 2001
Alejandro Magallanes
Poster

Pollution began to be recognized as a global disaster and evoked strong messages from designers around the world. This poster draws attention to the lack of clean air in Mexico City – and possibly other major cities – and asks citizens to interact or deal with the issue and not be passive.

The Alliance Against an M11 Link Motorway 1993–94
Artist unknown
Logo

This logo belonged to a north London protest campaign against a link road that caused protesters to engage in the erection and habitation of a treehouse in a now-famous chestnut tree which was to be destroyed.

Children with Gas Masks 1988
Egon Kramer
Postcard

German photomontagist Egon Kramer has produced a nightmarish image showing a future where children are forced to go everywhere in gas masks.

Human Rights, Anti-Racism

Graphic Commentaries: 30 Days of Activism 2000
Chaz Maviyane-Davies
Emails, electronic posters, texts

By the late 1990s, human rights – in particular, the right to a fair election – were being destroyed in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe, with the help of his ruling party Zanu-PF, was driving the country and its economy to ruin. He maintained a stranglehold on elections through the violence and intimidation of voters, a flawed election process and, by all accounts, a terrorized opposition. In the countdown to the June 2000 general elections, Zimbabwean-born designer Chaz Maviyane-Davies brought Zimbabwe’s civil rights abuses and violence to the attention of the world via the internet. He embarked on ‘30 days of activism’ to encourage a vote for change. Creating one or more images per day, he produced 50 Graphic Commentaries (electronic poster images) which were emailed daily to individuals and civic rights groups around the world. They were accompanied by Maviyane-Davies’ written texts, African proverbs and quotations, links to additional sites (including the Save Zimbabwe site containing a petition to the UN to mediate elections) and a comic strip entitled ‘Shango’, intended to help get people to vote for change despite the risks. A request was also made to graphic designers around the world to send designs and join in the creation of an agitprop exhibition/website. Despite all efforts Mugabe still won the election, and tragically Zimbabweans would have to wait until 2018 for a change in leadership.

Two Faces of the Law 1984
Artist: Tam Joseph
Photographer: Edward Woodman Painting and postcard

Tam Joseph presents a stark image of the police: comicly simple, or nasty and hard-edged (although both become hypnotically sinister with prolonged viewing). The black community’s mistrust of and difficult relationship with the police would continue, coming into sharp focus with the proceedings that followed the tragic death of teenager Stephen Lawrence, murdered in an unprovoked racist attack in 1993. After a bungled murder investigation by police, a public inquiry set up in 1997 resulted in the publication of the Macpherson Report in 1999, which denounced the Metropolitan Police in London for ‘institutional racism’.

UK School Report 1980
Artist: Tam Joseph
Painting, postcard, billboard

Despite Britain’s strong involvement in the international anti-apartheid movement, it nevertheless had problems with race at home. The extremist National Front was still attempting to march publicly in the late 1970s, only to be met (often in skirmishes in the street) by the opposing Anti-Nazi League. The police presented yet another problem with their targeting of black youths by using heavy-handed ‘stop and search’ tactics. The anger of the black community finally exploded in 1981 with the Brixton Riots of south London, which then spread throughout the country. Artist Tam Joseph captured the underlying stereotyping and prejudice, by both police and society at large, that developed into assigning the label of ‘suspect’ to young black men.

Madibaman 1996
Get Down, Whiteboy! 1998
Conrad Botes
Postcards

Nelson Mandela’s victory in the 1994 presidential elections marked the beginning of ‘the new South Africa’. It was followed by a period of euphoria, but the shadows of apartheid didn’t vanish overnight and old resentments didn’t magically disappear. Bitterkomix, founded in 1992 by Anton Kannemeyer (aka Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes, provided a satirical (underground) view of the new South Africa, particularly the fears and obsessions of white South Africans. The image ‘Madibaman’ comments on the political euphoria that followed the 1994 elections, when Mandela was viewed as Superman, able to save the world and solve all problems. However, ‘Get Down, Whiteboy!’ depicts a reversal of race and gender roles, as well as power positions, that demand respect, but might really desire revenge, suggesting very different possibilities for the new South Africa.

(Image A) Zapiro: ‘The Madiba Years’ 1996

(Image B) Zapiro: ‘The Hole Truth’ 1997

(Image C) Zapiro cartoon 1999

(Image D) Zapiro cartoon 2003

Zapiro
Jonathan Shapiro
Book covers and cartoons

Jonathan Shapiro (aka Zapiro) has been chronicling the social and political developments of South Africa – in cartoons – since 1994. He has worked for a number of newspapers, national and otherwise, while also producing annual collections of his cartoons as books. His collected works amount to a history and commentary of ‘the new South Africa’, charting the joys, trials and tribulations of the early years, exposing more recent political mess-ups, and uncovering some of the uncomfortable truths and foibles that exist within the national psyche. Great affection and respect is shown for ‘the Madiba Years’ (1994–96), when Mandela was president and he and Archbishop Desmond Tutu were uniting the nation and building a new era of reconciliation (for apartheid) that was admired by the world. But many of the politicians that followed didn’t measure up and have received sharp treatment from Zapiro, as only a cartoonist can deliver – we laugh, but also cry. His commentary, however, amounts to an astounding story, depicted by hilarious cartoons, and his critiques of politicians can truly sting: Jacob Zuma (president 2009–18) twice sued him for defamation, but years later dropped the charges.

Pregnancy 1988
Redback Graphix
Design: Marie McMahon
Printer: Alison Alder
Poster (silkscreen)

Carrying on Australia’s community art tradition of the 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of 1980s activists and graphic arts workshops (including a strong contingent of female artists) continued to produce politically and socially committed work. This included Redback Graphix, Red Planet Arts Workshop, Redletter Community Workshop and individuals such as Pam Debenham and Julia Church. Energized by the graphic style of Punk and advertising, as well as the symbolism and signs of Aboriginal culture, they were dedicated to the politics of the Left. But more specifically they campaigned against nuclear testing in the Pacific Islands (and its effect on Islanders and their environment) and focussed on the needs of the Aboriginal community. Redback Graphix in particular produced a broad range of educational and informational graphics on safe sex, nutrition and health, the dangers of smoking, drinking and drugs and other subjects, often in consultation or collaboration with Aboriginal communities. ‘Pregnancy’ (1988), shown here, was produced by Redback Graphix but is also credited as being produced by ‘Aboriginal and Islander People of Australia as part of the drug offensive’, for the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse in Canberra, Australia.

Citizenship 1987
Sally Morgan
Poster

Aboriginal artist and writer Sally Morgan produced this poster, one of many ‘unofficial’ art projects created for the Australian Bicentennial of 1988 which placed a sharp focus on Australia’s contemporary cultural divisions, resulting in calls for historical reassessment (rather than celebration) with regard to the mistreatment of Aboriginal people. The caption on the poster stating that Aborigines had to ‘apply’ for citizenship papers from 1944 onwards only tells part of the story: it wasn’t until the referendum of 1967 (23 years later) that Aborigines were conferred full citizenship rights. Demanding an end to the oppression of the Aboriginal people continued to be a major theme for the Australian graphic arts workshops of the 1980s, throughout their existence.

History 1987
Pam Debenham
Poster (silkscreen)

Pam Debenham’s poster presents a flowing, fabric-like collage of past and present. But its central focus is two policemen or guards marching an Aboriginal out of the picture or towards containment of some sort. And on closer inspection, guns and images of incarceration (fencing, chains, an aerial view of a prison or containment area) weave menacingly through the collage. The past and its cruelties are never far away. The central Aboriginal figure seems ready to emerge from behind bars. But the police or guards grip him tightly. Will he ever escape from white containment?