Activism and reproducibility

Posters, pamphlets, billboards and stickers, among others, have proved effective means for spreading messages linked to alternative social models. Immediacy, and the possibility of affecting a far wider public than the usual one for this sphere of art, have made those supports attractive and indispensable. The semantic construction of these pieces is based on impact mechanisms appropriated from advertising, and they look for the tension between the visual resource and the text which emphasises or contradicts it, and play with ambiguity and provocation.

One interesting case in this respect is the German Klaus Staeck, whose topics include concerns such as antimilitarism, capitalist society, the destruction of the environment, nuclear weapons, fascism or censorship. In the case of the USA, it is interesting to note the enormous amount of material published during the period of conservative government under the presidency of Ronald Reagan (1980-1988), focusing on issues concerned with civil rights, AIDS, gender and exclusion politics, etc. Among the most active groups in the USA are Group Material –created in New York in 1979, and active until 1997–, the Guerrilla Girls –an anonymous group of women organised in 1985 and basically active in Manhattan–, and Act Up, an activist organisation created to denounce the government and society’s negligence towards AIDS and the social exclusion of the people affected.

Laura Baigorri web site: http://www.interzona.org/transmisor/activismo.htm
Rogelio López Cuenca: http://www.lopezcuenca.com
Klaus Staeck: http://www.staeck.com/
Act Up: http://www.actupny.org
Guerrilla Girls: http://www.guerrillagirls.com
Grup Material: http://www.franklinfurnace.org
http://www.artincontext.org
Gran Fury: The New York Public Library:http://www.nypl.org
Kissing doesn’t Kill: http://www.creativetime.org
La Fiambrera Obrera: http://www.sindominio.net/fiambrera
Independent media center (imc): http://www.indymedia.org
Rtmark: http://www.rtmark.com
Reclaim the streets: http://www.gn.apc.org/rts
http://www.reclaimthestreets.net
Peoples global action: http://www.agp.org
Noborder network: http://www.noborder.org
Deportation Alliance: http://www.deportation-alliance.com
Kein mensch ist illegal:http://www.contrast.org/borders/kein

Klaus Staeck,
Nor-Sur Gefälle, 1982

Guerrilla Girls, banner

Klaus Staeck, Vorsicht kunst!, 1982

ACT UP, logotipo