Page 24 - Studio International - December 1967

Posters!

Begin your exciting

art collection now!

Jasia Reichardt

'This unique program'—the leaflet con-
tinues—'now includes 52 posters, all original
limited editions, published for The Ameri-
can Federation of Arts, under the List Art
Poster Program; The Museum of Modern
Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of
Art, the Walker Art Center' . . . and so on.
The list of sponsors of the project is as
formidable as the list of artists which
includes Albers, Lindner, Lichtenstein,
Pollock, and Man Ray. The prices range
from $5 to $50, and this venture, described
variously as 'Exciting American Art Posters' Dylan poster by Martin Sharp. Indica Bookshop Amore by Tovaglia Ed 912, Milan
or 'Poster Originals Limited', announces
that 'in full color, each poster is a fine
example of the artist's work, produced neither from paintings nor prints, they are Fuller; they appeal to the senses with
under his supervision or with his approval'. often more interesting than the American stunning colour and an extravagance which
The American poster venture is not the Art Posters. Some of the Ed 912 posters are in another context could easily be con-
only project of this type. One can buy designed by poets, others by artists, both sidered ostentatious.
psychedelic, pop and personality posters at eminent and unknown. It isworth noting here On my wall hang eight silk-screened
Indica bookshop, and concrete poetry and that the prices nevertheless remain uniform. posters on metal. They come from Italy and
typographical posters published by Ed 912 The least self-conscious, and completely were designed by Eugenio Carmi for the
in Milan, at the Institute of Contemporary divorced from art as a deliberate process, Italian steel firm Italsider. The images con-
Arts. There are more than 500 posters of are the English and American psychedelic sist of a permutation of geometric forms in
different sorts available on the market at the posters, which make no claims to limited four colours, filling a 12-inch square. At the
moment, and most of them are already editions and which are not marketed as art bottom appear two or three lines of print.
collector's items, or will become so soon objects. Despite this, or because of it, the The posters are advertisements, but with a
enough. posters are originals in that they are not message that is never normally expressed
In terms of art, what do these posters re- copies or versions of any more valuable or in commercial publicity. The slogans
present, what do they share ? The American more deliberately creative items. Designed advertise QUALITY, not in relation to any
selections are quite simply posters of and painted by people whose names are particular product, but as an abstraction.
exhibitions, and these usually consist of conspicuously absent in many cases—they Each bit of copy consists of a number of
straightforward colour screen prints with a advertise nothing, and make no claims, not truisms like these:
certain amount of discreet text giving parti- even to the status of mass art, pop media, 'Impianti moderni
culars of the gallery whose show they mass media or any other made up catego- ▪ operatori responsabili
advertised. They are printed on quality ries—their role is clearly defined. They re- ▪ controlli costanti
paper, and in terms of names they represent present an attitude to life, an attitude to = qualita'
what is accepted quality art. The poster society, and inveigle their way into the These posters are used as decorative
poems published by Ed 912 are ventures into public view by being extremely attractive panels and they hang in the Italsider fac-
the realm of doubles entendres, cryptic com- to look at. On second thoughts, it is incor- tories. This scheme was quite exceptional
ments and visual puns. They are sometimes rect to say that these posters advertise in terms of industrial awareness of the
political, sometimes poetical, and generally nothing—many of them advertise LOVE, or possibilities of an aesthetic environment as
carry some urgent message even if it is the word 'love', in a number of different a background to work, and the Italsider
only one word and as difficult to decipher presentations. design programme of the past ten years has
as the composition of three-dimensional Whereas the Ed 912 posters are literate, many unusual and constructive ideas to its
letters spelling AMORE placed next to one intellectual, witty and sometimes program- credit.
another in profile and then photographed. matic, the psychedelic posters rely on Posters, more than any other vehicle of
The Ed 912 posters are limited in colour and totally non-verbal communication. No aesthetic expression, have the possibility of
are of uniform size and shape. Since the assumptions are made that the viewer vast circulation. Also, they represent a me-
ideas they express visually or semantically would be familiar with the work of John dium with which one can take risks because
exist in no other form and are derived Cage, Chinese ideograms or Buckminster it is cheap. If a confrontation with a poster