Posters raise social awareness

Posters, artistic media commonly reserved for bedroom walls and store windows, are now lining the walls of the Truman State Art Gallery with printed statements against a variety of social injustices and environmental concerns.

"Up Against the Wall: Posters of Social Protest" is a traveling exhibit that arrived at Truman on Monday and runs through Nov. 16. It features 74 works of poster art from 13 designers across the globe and originally was featured at the Stanley and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Rubin Center Director Kate Bonansinga said the exhibit was first on display April 15 to Aug. 7, 2010. At the time, she and the University of Texas at El Paso's graphic design faculty assembled the collection to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1910 Mexican Revolution.

The legacy of José Guadalupe Posada, who designed posters during the Mexican Revolution to raise awareness about its political injustices, inspired many of the artists' work in the exhibit, Bonansinga said.

"He communicated messages via visuals rather than verbal messaging, so many people who were unable to read could still learn from the posters of Posada about what it meant to become involved in the revolution and to support the revolution," she said.

Bonansinga said that while many of the artists were inspired by the political protest posters of the Mexican Revolution, the collection contains messages ranging from the delicacy of the environment to human trafficking in Russia. Given this variety, when the collection first was shown, she said, its impact extended beyond the graphic design students at the University of Texas at El Paso.

"It helped people to recognize the power of design, and it also helped designers and non-designers ... to recognize that they, as an individual, can make a difference," she said.

Truman art professor Jim Jereb's Intermediate Printmaking class experienced the power of design when he assigned them to create their own protest posters. During the week prior to the "Up Against the Wall," student posters from Jereb's class with written messages like "Stop Making Bad Art" and "No Schmutz" lined a lower-level display space in Ophelia Parrish as a preview for the exhibit, he said.

Aside from generating publicity for the show, Jereb said his intent in assigning the project was to make his students appreciate the poster design process. Being familiar with the collection, he said he knew it would have widespread appeal for students outside his printmaking class.

"I would hope that a lot of people on campus would come to look at it just because it's different voices crying out against different things," he said.

Aaron Fine, art professor and Art Gallery director, said he decided to bring the collection to Truman after viewing the exhibition at the Rubin Center in May 2010. He said the exhibit is meant to serve the University's art department and has the potential to widen the perspectives of those who look at graphic design as a corporate tool.

"Many of our students think of [graphic design] as primarily working for some company to produce advertising or something, but this is another element to graphic design and a very important part of political history," Fine said.

As graphic design continues to become a more common part of everyday life, Fine said, society will demand an increased understanding of its many applications. He said this is the main idea highlighted by the "Up Against the Wall" collection.

"We're in an extremely visual overload culture," he said. "So, [something to take away from the exhibit is] visual literacy and awareness of what's going on around us that connects to our disciplines, and realizing we're connected to that visual culture," he said.