On the Denver forced stopover - we went to the DAM to see, in a skeptical frame of mind, the big show of posters from the sixties. Well, mostly posters but also other related items like tickets and fliers. Mostly hand drawn or composed as collages, extending DADA and earlier modernist strategies, and printed in basic, well-crafted techniques like lithography and silkscreen, they were, far out even if now from 'way back.
Of interest are a couple of questions; one raised by the author of a history of this era of posters - whether they are "fine art" and one of my own on the creative process and techniques used in relation to our now ubiquitous digital processes of image making and composing/designing. Two much earlier poster periods were clearly invoked by the 60's (and later) artists: Art Nouveau (think Toulouse Lautrec, Aubrey Beardsley) and 19th Century western "wanted" and circus/vaudeville posters. Juxtaposition is the major strategy. One picks and chooses images and text from diverse sources, times and places and puts them all together in the instant mindspace of the poster. For one thing there were far more hand drawn images and components in the 60's posters than one finds in current digital art, poster or not.
The visual strategy that links them is the way in which images are collaged. A major 'advantage' of digital process is the ease with which
transparency can be employed and the high degree of photographic enhancement, distortion and other manipulation which can be used to create very seductive, complex illusions which merge, meld and modify the time and space effects of the work. Lacking this, the 60's posters are direct, simpler (although often far more detailed than many digital works!), more graphic, i.e., flat areas of color and strong, contrasty shapes. And the color is a major means to the intended communication. And that intent almost always included an optical challenge to the senses that referenced the stoned state celebrated by the personalities and the music it was all about. The classic figure-against-ground clarity of 'normal' art is confounded by making background spaces as strongly colored as image or letter shape parts, and by high frequency patterns rendered in high intensity color, often using 'conflicting' hues which set up optical vibrations.... hence 'psychedelic'.
Both the 60's works and much contemporary work in digital media (prints paintings and video/film) use time and space disassociation for psychological/narrative effect. This is not really new; it was a trait of medieval and later periods of art, notably surrealism. In summary, the 60's versions are often complex but direct, gutty, even crude (on purpose). The digital present offers much slicker (elegant?) fare in which the message is often romantic mystery or sci-fi fiction; but I'm not talking digital posters just typical digital art works...
Copyright laws prevent a
show to go with this
tell.
