Poster of the Week

Unite to Fight!

Su Negrin

Offset

Times Change Press, New York, NY, 1973

Inkworks Press, Berkeley, CA, 1976

Unite to Fight! commemorates the Stonewall Riots that began on June 28, 1969.

The Stonewall Inn, on Christopher Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City, was a mafia-owned heterosexual nightclub. In 1966, the owners re-opened it as a gay bar. The age range of the clientèle was between the upper teens and early thirties, and the racial mix was evenly distributed among white, black, and Hispanic.

Despite weekly police payoffs, police raids were frequent. But the early morning raid of June 28, 1969 was different. People fought back. The Stonewall riots are generally credited with being the first instance in the U.S. that that gays and lesbians fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they became the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the U.S. and around the world.

Unite to Fight! was originally printed in New York, NY, at Time Change Press, circa 1973. Times Change Press was founded in 1970 by Tom Wodetzki and Su Negrin, and provided opportunities for artists representing various themes on the political spectrum, including anarchist, Marxist-Leninist, communitarian, socialist, feminist, lesbian and gay. Times Change Press closed in 1974, the same year that Inkworks Press was founded in Berkeley, California. Inkworks, a democratically run worker collective and a union shop, reprinted it in 1976.

Unite to Fight! is featured in CSPG’s newest exhibition, Out of the Closet & Into the Street—Posters on LGBTQ Struggles & Celebrations which opens in West Hollywood on July 3, 2010.We hope to see you there.

Out of the Closet and Into the Street:
Posters of LGBTQ Struggles & Celebrations

July 3 – September 26, 2010

Opening Reception: July 3, 5-8 pm

at the ONE Archives Gallery & Museum
626 N. Robertson Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
(entrance on El Tovar)

Gallery Hours:
Friday: 4:30-8:30
Saturday & Sunday: 1-5

Sources:
Wikipedia: The Stonewall Riots
Online Archive of California: Guide to the Times Change Press Political Posters (PDF)

Poster of the Week

Disappearing Promises
Kaytee Riek and Max Ray
ACT UP Philadelphia
Health GAP
Digital Print, 2009
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

CSPG’s poster of the week comes from the 2009 G20 that took place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The day before the G20 began, AIDS activists, dressed in black and marching behind coffins and funeral wreaths, held a funeral procession for the thousands of people with AIDS who have died and will continue to die as a result of the broken promises made by the wealthiest nations regarding global health funding. Activists said that the G-20 nations are using the financial crisis as an excuse to cut promised funding for global AIDS programs. In particular, activists called out President Barack Obama, who promised on the campaign trail to provide $50 billion over five years to global AIDS efforts.

The funeral procession was sponsored by ACT UP Philadelphia, Azania Heritage International, Black Radical Congress of Pittsburgh, Health GAP, Housing Works, New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice, NYC AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), Proyecto Sol Filadelphia and Roots of Promise (a Thomas Merton Center project).

The poster was selected as the 2010 G20 opens this week in Toronto, Canada. Demonstrations have already started, demanding rights for First Nations, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, migrants, immigrants, women, children, and other marginalized communities, and opposing mining tar sands and other acts that contribute to global warming. In preparation for the G20, Toronto has been transformed into a fortress with a three-meter high and six-kilometer long $5.5 million dollar concrete and metal security fence encompassing the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Within and around this armed camp are 20,000 law enforcement officials, 1,000 private security guards, closed circuit TV cameras, military-style checkpoints along with sound and water cannons. Behind these steel cages is a corporate-driven narrative of profiteering. *

History of G20

In 1975, leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and the US, the world's leading industrialized nations, met as a forum for economic and trade matters. Initially known as the G6, it became known as the G7 and G8 after the respective entries of Canada (1976) and Russia (1998). In 1999, the G20 formed.

The G8s and G20s positive stance on globalization has provoked a vigorous response from opponents. Since 2001, there has been a tendency for the summits to be held in more remote locations, with the aim of avoiding mass protests. The lengths to which security forces have gone to shield the politicians from demonstrators serves to reinforce the summits’ closed-door image.

Countless thousands advocating for global justice gather on the streets every year to protest the closed door meetings of both G8 and G20 summits. As global inequalities continues to rise protests have grown; never at these mass convergences has a single protester serious harmed anyone. In response to the protests, many law enforcement operations have been employed, some of whom use force to disperse protesters. In Genoa, Italy in 2001, police surrounding Carlo Giuliani, a young Italian anarchist, shot him in the face.

*For more information on Toronto’s preparation for the G20 see:

Rabble.ca: Challenging Toronto's corporate security walls
By Harsha Walia and Stefan Christoff

Other sources:

BBC: Profile: G8

Wikipedia: G-20 major economies

Poster of the Week

Justice for Oscar Grant

Youth Justice Coalition

Digital Print, 2010

Los Angeles, California

Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22-year-old black man, was shot and killed by Johannes Mehserle, a white BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police officer, at a station platform in Oakland on New Year's Day in 2009. Mehserle fired a single round as he stood over Grant, who was lying face-down on the subway platform. Grant was struck in the back and died hours later. The shooting was captured on cell phone cameras by several passengers on the crowded train. Some of the footage was broadcast on television and the Internet, stirring public outrage, including riots on the streets of Oakland on Jan. 7, 2009. The video of Mehserle shooting Grant can be seen on YouTube or linked through the Huffington Post.

Mehserle, 28 years old, had been on the force for less than two years, and resigned from the department days after the shooting. His trial began in Los Angeles this week. The trial was moved from the Bay Area, where the shooting occurred, to Los Angeles, due to the extensive media coverage in the Bay Area. More cynical interpretations see this as a scheme to bury the case under the outpouring of celebrity news endemic to Los Angeles. Murder charges are rarely filed against police officers in connection with an on-duty shooting, and legal experts say convictions of officers are difficult. The L.A. Times reported that the jury, which includes no blacks, is expected to hear testimony for two to four weeks.

The racially tinged case has evoked parallels with the 1992 trial of four Los Angeles police officers accused of beating Rodney G. King. All four were acquitted, sparking riots in Los Angeles.

This poster is simultaneously publicizing the case and promoting action by calling for people to monitor the trial.

Congratulations to Favianna Rodriguez, recipient of the ChangeMaker Award from Intersection for the Arts

Legalización Ahora!

Favianna Giannoni Rodriguez

tumis.com

Offset, 2006

Oakland, CA

Community Control of the Land

Favianna Giannoni Rodriguez

Self-Help Graphics and Art

Silkscreen, 2002

Los Angeles, CA

Not In Our Name

Favianna Giannoni Rodriguez

Ten12

Offset, 2001

Minneapolis, MN

Favianna Rodriguez is one of the first recipients of the ChangeMaker Award from Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. The award will be presented at Intersection's 45th Anniversary Gala on June 12.

Favianna was a Getty Intern at CSPG in 1998 and received our "Art is a Hammer" Award in 2005. She is a co-founder of the Taller Tupac Amaru, a founding member of the Oakland-based collective EastSide Arts Alliance (ESAA), a co-founder of mural and graffiti arts organization Visual Element and co-owner of Tumi's Design, a multi-service technology and design firm implementing advanced graphic and web technologies with a social consciousness.

Since 1998, Favianna's pieces have been posted on street corners, store windows, telephone poles, raised at mass rallies and community festivals, or may have found their way into your mailbox. Her work exemplifies a commitment to community empowerment and a dedication to youth finding their own voice through art.

Poster of the Week

We Are Opposed To Oil Drilling and Exploration Off Our Coast

Greenpeace

Offset, 1970

Los Angeles, California

Estimates on the ongoing British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico range widely. Some scientists say an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 gallons a day are spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, five to ten times more than BP officials originally admitted. Others estimate 600,000 to 1.2 million gallons are leaking per day, and still other scientists studying the flow say the actual daily rate may be between 798,000 gallons and 1.8 million. Daily! Prior to the current disaster, the worst oil spill in US history was the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in the Gulf of Alaska. The Exxon Valdez spilled nearly 11 million gallons and contaminated 1,300 miles of coastline. Over 20 years later, scientists are still finding persistent effects of the Exxon Valdez spill. Many species of birds and sea life have never recovered.

Every week, the BP spill now dumps more oil than the entire Exxon Valdez spill, and it has been going on for nearly 2 months. Our poster of the week is 40 years old. When will we ever learn?

Poster of the Week

No More Killing In My Name

Digital Print, 2010

Los Angeles, CA

CSPG’s poster of the week was initially designed as a sticker in response to Operation Cast Lead, (December 2008 – January 2009), when Israel broke the cease fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip and waged war on the civilian population. 1400 civilians including 700 children died. This week, the graphic was turned into a poster to protest the Israeli attack on the Peace Flotilla that was attempting to break the embargo that Israel has imposed against Gaza since 2007.

On May 31st, the Israeli Navy intercepted six ships bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Israeli commandos killed at least 9 activists and wounded many others. As of June 2, the identities of the dead and wounded have still not been released by the Israeli government. Organizers of the Gaza aid flotilla said they would be sending two more ships to challenge the blockade within the next few days. The 'MV Rachel Corrie,' is due to arrive in Gazan waters tomorrow (Thursday). The ship was named after the American peace activist crushed to death in 2003 by an Israeli military bulldozer while she was trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian doctor’s home.