By Ernesto Aguilar
Political Media Review
September 4, 2010
Visually delectable and politically pointed, Signal: 01 bills itself as “an ongoing book series to documenting and sharing political graphics, creative projects and the cultural production of international resistance and liberation struggles.” Lofty much?
In all seriousness, all you need to know is that Signal: 01
is a beautiful chronicle of political posters, fliers and rebel art,
along with incisive interviews with the artists who made them.
Edited by Alex Dunn and Josh MacPhee, Signal: 01
is anchored by a fabulous interview with Jesus Barraza, Melanie
Cervantes and Favianna Rodriguez, three artists creating the most
important works galvanizing the movements against Arizona’s SB 1070. No
doubt those familiar with other upsurges have seen their efforts,
though. From Palestine solidarity to urban farming, Barraza, Cervantes
and Rodriguez have created the most iconic pieces since Emory Douglas
took up the pen for the Black Panther Party. Though the interview was
conducted before the Southwest struggle came to full boil, the trio talk
about the process of art development, their diverse range of campaigns
for which they have created art, and, as Cervantes puts it, the role of
the artist as organizer.
An examination of Mexico City’s
visual art inspired by the political movements of 1968 is a potent
application about which Barraza, Cervantes and Rodriguez speak. National
Public Radio referred to the Tlatelolco massacre of that year as a
moment “cracking the system it was intended to preserve at all costs.”
Militant and artist Felipe Hernandez Moreno, a veteran of the
self-proclaimed ‘propaganda brigades,’ relates what those heady days
were like in Mexico, and how the art of this time — a year which also
featured the renowned Black Power salute by John Carlos of the Summer
Olympics held in Mexico City — came to walls, buses and street lights
everywhere. Peppered here are also tactical choices radicals made in
production, art placement, actual distribution and evasion of the
authorities. Although of a distinctly different time, Hernandez imparts
knowledge for those not only making the art, but the craft that composes
repression, inspiration and resistance.
Signal: 01
is dotted with stunning photography that will certainly reel in many
people who are into unusual art. Political graffiti gracing trains,
unique playground designs and the covers of the defunct Anarchy: A Journal of Anarchist Ideas
are among the features here. Clocking in at just under 140 glossy
pages, Dunn and MacPhee do an impressive job of conveying not only what
is new and relevant in political art, but also its history and its
presence in the everyday.
Back to Alec “Icky” Dunn’s Artist Page | Back to Josh MacPhee’s Author Page
