graphic communication #1

Guerrilla Girls

This is one of thirty posters published in a portfolio entitled Guerrilla Girls Talk Back by the group of anonymous American female artists who call themselves the Guerrilla Girls. Tate’s copy is number twelve in the edition of fifty.

Since their inception in 1984 the Guerrilla Girls have been working to expose sexual and racial discrimination in the art world, particularly in New York, and in the wider cultural arena. The group’s members protect their identities by wearing gorilla masks in public and by assuming pseudonyms taken from such deceased famous female figures as the writer Gertrude Stein and the artist Frida Kahlo.

The Guerrilla Girls appropriated the visual language of advertising, specifically fly-posting, to convey their messages in a quick and accessible manner. They pasted up their first posters on SoHo streets in the middle of the night. Combining bold block text with lists and statistics that were compiled by the Girls themselves or reinterpreted from existing sources such as art magazines and museum reports.

This print is based on the 1989 poster that asks ‘Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?’ above a reclining naked woman who wears a gorilla mask. The image is based on the famous painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres entitled La Grande Odalisque 1814 and accompanied by the facts: ‘less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art Sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female’. The poster was originally designed to be a billboard commissioned by the Public Art Fund in New York, but it was rejected on grounds of not being clear enough.

The bold nature of the main text and placing of the graphic modified image are what initially drew me to this poster. I think it holds the same elements that we were taught during our GD workshop, to make an implied statement and hold the viewers attention long enough for them to then read the further facts. This poster is also playful and bold with its colours which is something that I aspire to be able to do with fluidity as well. The Guerrilla Girls use facts, humour and visuals to expose gender and racial discrimination in politics, art, film, and popular culture, but the final outcome always has an ease to it, helping in calming the audience when reading about such heavy topics.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-do-women-have-to-be-naked-to-get-into-the-met-museum-p78793

Jenny Holzer

Vigil, a project involving textual art by Jenny Holzer – was an exploration into the effects of gun violence. For three nights in October of 2019, Holzer light-projected text excerpts of survivor experiences onto two buildings in the Rockefeller Center. First-person accounts, testimonies, responses, and poems by people confronting the everyday reality of gun violence, were shown to passerbys this way, addressing the unspoken effects that gun violence can have on the living survivors.

Justine Ludwig, Exective Director, Creative Time, said about the project, "the text encroaches on the facades and windows of these buildings, surrounding the viewer and enveloping the city in messages of light. through the project, the city itself is transformed."

This work shows the true weight that words hold in graphic communication as well. In Vigil, Jenny's projection remains simple so as to not take away from the importance of the words. I think I tend to get caught on how I want to visually present something, that I forget the importance of the words that I am trying to represent. This work reminded me to take a step back and listen to what Im trying to preach again.

I also really found the fact that it can only be shown at night interesting as well. It added another layer of context to an already heavily narrative outcome. This made me think about how I wanted to present my work and who I wanted viewing it.

http://officemagazine.net/rock-center-holds-vigil

"We're Here, We're Queer"

"We're here, we're queer and we'd like to say hello!"

A variation of the above was used by Queer Nation during the 1992 opening of the "Queer Shopping Network". Designed by six people, including Avram Finkelstein, this slogan was used by ACT UP to draw attention to the AIDS crisis in America. It has now formed into one of the most famously used Queer Slogans, with variations being plastered over merchandise and posters across the globe.

This coincides with "Just Do It" the Nike slogan. It is also a statement that would be easily recognised by a market of people and was popularised do to mass advertisement. As I was doing my research I realised that slogans don't necessarily have to be short (2-3 words) to gain popularity which influenced my slightly longer line.

https://academic.oup.com/nyu-press-scholarship-online/book/20985/chapter-abstract/180523003?redirectedFrom=fulltext

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