Category: Politics

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20 Nov. :: Celebrate People’s History Release Party/Exhibit

ONE DAY ONLY

Poster Exhibit – Book Release Party – Artist Panel

CELEBRATE PEOPLE’S HISTORY: the Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution

Edited by Josh MacPhee

Foreword by Rebecca Solnit

Published by the Feminist Press

7pm – Saturday Nov. 20

The Center for Political Education

522 Valencia St, SF

http://www.politicaleducation.org

Since 1998, Celebrate People’s History posters have documented feminist organizers, indigenous uprisings, civil rights leaders, union struggles, LGBT activism and much more. Bay Area history stands out with posters on Los Siete de la Raza, the 1969 Alcatraz occupation, the International Hotel and the 1966 transgender riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. The Feminist Press has just released over 100 posters in hardback, and the book’s West Coast premiere includes a poster exhibit, book signing and artist panel.

Featured Speakers:

Lincoln Cushing, historian, http://www.docspopuli.org

Favianna Rodríguez, artist, http://www.favianna.com

FREE admission. Donations go to MacPhee’s partner, Dara Greenwald, who is battling cancer.

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In New Book: Celebrate People’s History

When Josh MacPhee sent a call for art e-mail out about four years ago, he wanted a fresh pile of posters to put in his book project for “Celebrate People’s History” (just released from the Feminist Press). While Josh and I collaborated and crossed over on our stencil projects, he was always making, printing, selling, and giving away CPH posters. Josh always talked about how this project was a labor of love as well as a way to “teach” history that tended to fall through the cracks. Sometimes the posters ended up on public walls. Other times, they would end up framed on private walls. But they always educated and entertained.

With this in mind, I reached out to long-time friend and collaborator Mark Cort with an idea of sharing some of South Carolina’s lost People’s History. Being our home state, the obvious choice was a poorly documented event known as the Stono Rebellion. I found one slim history book that had all the contemporary accounts and I found very little valuable sources online, but nonetheless I wrote a paragraph of text and then had Mark draw a simple illustration for the poster.

The mock-up of the CPH Stono Rebellion poster. Text and stencil by Russell Howze; artwork by Mark Cort; edited by Josh MacPhee
The mock-up of the CPH Stono Rebellion poster. Text and stencil by Russell Howze; artwork by Mark Cort; edited by Josh MacPhee

Continue reading “In New Book: Celebrate People’s History”

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Defiant Proclamations in SFWeekly

Original post can be found here.

“Defiant Proclamations”

Thu., March 11, 7:00pm
CELLspace
Price: free

Not Everything Is on the Internet

By Hiya Swanhuyser

Kevin Keating was once known far and wide as the Mission Yuppie Eradication Project; he was accused of keying SUVs in the late 1990s to protest gentrification. Most people thought he was making a complicated point in a humorously dramatic manner, but, of course, opinions varied. In a 1999 San Francisco Chronicle article detailing his arrest and the police ransacking of his home, he was portrayed as a poo-smearing criminal, but even Commander Greg Suhr of the Mission Police Station freely admitted that Keating was “well-read and cerebral.” Don’t you want to see this guy’s art collection? At “Defiant Proclamations,” Keating and other interesting, energetic activists such as muralist Mona Caron and painter Hugh D’Andrade display their political posters. “Radical Posters from the 1960s to the Present” is the show’s subtitle, and other contributors include Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes of Dignidad Rebelde, who have deep roots in the Bay Area’s graphic-arts poster tradition. And word on the cyberstreet is that Vince Dugar has a poster made by 1960s food-freedom group the Diggers.

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Defiant Proclamations Radical Poster Exhibit

HappyFeet presents
Defiant Proclamations
Radical Posters from the 1960s to the Present

For decades, Bay Area walls have been pasted with bold art and pertinent messages about the politics, practices, and abuses of contemporary mainstream culture and its co-opted voices. Also speaking outside the frameworks of organized labor and left movements, individual artists and collectives have shouted defiant proclamations with ink and paper. Today, political graphics have reached a broad audience via many media sources, hopefully creating a new wave of radical art as well as a redefinition of visual art and it’s usual commodified structures. With a strong history in the Bay Area, this one night only exhibit will feature works old and new, giving a glimpse of the broad range of opinions and styles that have papered walls across the area.

Thursday, March 11
(one night only!)
7 pm to midnight
FREE!

CELLspace Gallery
2050 Bryant St.
San Francisco, CA 94110
http://www.cellspace.org

Posters, Handbills, and Artifacts From

  • the private collection of Vince Dugar
  • the Interference Archive (Josh MacPhee and Dara Greenwald)
  • the SF Print Collective
  • Jesus Barazza
  • Mona Caron
  • Melanie Cervantes
  • Hugh D’Andrade
  • Kevin Keating
  • Claude Moller
  • Soft Zulah
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Fascism in SF

(thanks to Laura for this pic from Dachau, Germany)

A month or so ago, I photographed a new stencil in Clarion Alley, the funky painted street by Community Thrift on Valencia St. I wasn’t sure at first if I was going to post the image to Stencil Archive, because for the first time in San Francisco, I had captured a White Supremest logo as negative space. Huh? The “New Right”? Why the hell are they tagging a right wing stencil in Clarion Alley? [I posted the stencil, because people need to know what their icons are and deface them whenever they can.]

Before the Clarion Alley block party, a friend buffed the stencils. I don’t blame him, especially since Clarion Alley is a lefty, Anarcho-Radical zone, with murals that make hate-free political statements as well as critique capitalist society. Before the Block Party, I got word that the SFPD were going to crack down on open alcohol containers during the event. I stopped by the alley early to look for stencils and double check that rumor. Sure enough, a volunteer was making a sign telling people to behave that day. (The SFPD harassed participants by riding motorcycles through the party and did issue open container citations.)

Continue reading “Fascism in SF”