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New Exhibit Explores Posters Used as Activism Through the Decades

By Emily Frost | June 26, 2015 6:36pm | Updated on June 29, 2015 8:59am
 The exhibit shares a collection of protest posters and explores their changes through the decades. 
'Art as Activism' Exhibit
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UPPER WEST SIDE — Before social media, activists relied on posters as a way of protest.

"Art of Activism," an exhibit that opened at the New-York Historical Society on Friday, will highlight 71 posters and graphic prints showing how the medium has evolved through the decades, starting in the 1930s and moving through the upheaval of the '60s and '70s. 

One of the more prominent images in the show, called "Cross Out Slums," juxtaposes images of affluent neighborhoods with those of slums and shows a giant hand crossing the latter out. It was funded by the U.S. Housing Authority and created by graphic artist Lester Beall in 1941.

A large section of the exhibit focuses on the Black Panther movement, which relied heavily on posters to convey its message of resistance. 

The exhibit's chief curator, Stephen Edidin, pointed to one poster in particular that depicts photos of Black Panther co-founder Huey Newton seated on a wicker chair with a large rifle in one hand and a spear in another. It borrows heavily from Madison Avenue advertising conventions of the time, he said.

"This poster went viral," Edidin said. "It was an extraordinary image."

The poster also shows how strongly the Black Panthers were "personality-driven," he added. 

There are posters marking dark moments in the nation's past — the Kent State riots, for example — and uplifting ones, like a celebration that drew 50,000 people to Central Park to mark the end of the Vietnam War.

Kent State posters proliferated at the time because "people would have seen this on TV, but they couldn't record it and send it to someone," Edidin said. The poster was a way of keeping the events in everyone's minds, he noted. 

Other moments captured in the posters include the Native Americans' push for "Red Power" and protests against Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's action to stop demonstrators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

While there is some explanatory text throughout, the museum is treating it more as an art exhibit.

"If [visitors are] provoked, it makes them want to learn more," said Timothy Wroten, senior manager of communications at the museum. 

Edidin also added that he hopes the exhibit, which runs through Sept. 13, will appeal to families in the neighborhood.

"Traditionally, the Upper West Side was a very political area... and is a culturally sophisticated neighborhood," he said. "It would be a great hope of ours if people who lived through [these times] would bring their kids."