Poster of the Week

El Futuro es la Paz/
The Future is Peace
Asela Pérez
Comisión Permanente
Offset, 1978
Havana, Cuba
XI Festival Mundial De La Juventud Y Los Estudiantes
33422

El Futuro Es La Paz/The Future is Peace

Many Cuban posters are multilingual, especially those intended for export. Spanish, English, Arabic and French are used the most frequently. This stunning poster contains six languages (Spanish, English, Russian, Arabic, French), and was designed by Asela Pérez Bolado (1931-2001). She received a degree in journalism from the University of Havana, won first prize in major Cuban exhibitions, including the National Poster Salon in 1978. She also served as staff graphic artist for Editora Politica, a department of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, which is responsible for disseminating the policy of the Cuban government. 

The poster was produced for the 11th World Festival of Youth and Students, an international event organized jointly since 1947 by the World Federation of Democratic Youth and the International Union of Students. The event is held in different countries, generally every two, three or four years, and in 1978 it was held in Havana, Cuba. The primary themes are anti-imperialism and peace.

Sources:
http://www.cubaencuentro.com/directorios/casas-editoriales/editora-politica
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_Mundial_de_la_Juventud_y_los_Estudiantes
Lincoln Cushing: Revolucion! Cuban Poster Art, Chronicle Books, 2003

Poster of the Week

Obama...Give Me Five!
Jorge Martell, design
Gonzalo Canetti, photo
Digital Print, 2012
Oakland, CA

CSPG's Poster of the Week celebrates the release of the Cuban 5 and Obama's move towards normalizing relations with Cuba.

The Cuban 5, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, were arrested by the FBI in 1998. All were convicted in 2001 of conspiracy to commit espionage against the United States. The trial was held in Miami, Florida, a center of Cuban exile hostility to the Cuban revolution, where no fair trial was possible.

The Cuban 5 neither committed nor intended to commit espionage against the U.S. They were sent to the U.S. to monitor anti-Cuban terrorist organizations in Miami responsible for bombings and deaths in Cuba.  Since the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959, Cuba had been the victim of more terrorist attacks than any other country in the world, killing 3,478 and injuring 2,099. The vastly majority of those attacks originated in southern Florida, by groups tolerated and partly financed by the US government.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review their case in 2009. Fernando González has been on parole since October, 2011 after serving every single day of his 13 year term. René González was released from prison earlier this year, but remained on parole.  To avoid being forced to remain IN MIAMI ON PAROLE, Rene, a natural-born US citizen, had to give up his US citizenship. As of December 17, 2014, after more than 16 years, the 3 remaining members of the Cuban 5 were finally freed and all are now home in Cuba.

Next wish for the New Year:  End the Blockade!

For more information on the Cuban 5:
http://www.thecuban5.org/the-case/

Poster of the Week

E. Galeano Has Seen This Before--
The Hooded Prisoners Recognize Each Other by their Coughs
Dara Greenwald (1972-2012)
Stencil 2005
New York, New York

CSPG’s Poster of the Week is by Dara Greenwald, who died this week at age 40 after a long battle with cancer. Dara was an artist, activist, curator, and a member of the Just Seeds’ Artists Cooperative founded by her partner, Josh MacPhee. Dara and Josh were co-curators of Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures, 1960s to Now, a traveling political poster exhibition and co-editors of the accompanying book. Dara was also a PhD Candidate in the Electronic Art Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Dara and Josh visited the Center for the Study of Political Graphics while they were researching Paper Politics: An International Exhibition of Socially-Engaged Printmaking that traveled from New York to Oregon from 2008 to 2010. In reviewing Paper Politics, the Pittsburgh City Paper called Dara’s stencil “one of the exhibit's best works …with just a few dozen block letters, Greenwald summons the complex horror of such injustices [as extrajudicial detention].”

Eduardo Galeano is an Uruguayan journalist, author and novelist, who experienced the brutal military regimes in Uruguay and Argentina, was imprisoned and lived in exiled for many years. The title of Dara’s poster, “The hooded prisoners recognize one another by their coughs” comes from Galeano’s second novel, Dı́as y noches de amor y de guerra /Days and Nights of Love and War (1978). She used it in this poster to evoke many incidents of torture in prisons, but specifically refers to the U.S. military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

As this week marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. military detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Dara’s striking poster is even more poignant. The Cuban camp has held 779 foreign captives, and 171 remain. The prison was set up to hold and interrogate detainees suspected of links to al Qaeda, the Taliban and other groups classified by the United States as terrorist organizations.

To mark the 10th anniversary, human rights protesters dressed in orange prison-style jumpsuits and covering their heads with black bags marched past the White House on Wednesday, January 11. Protests were also planned for Miami, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, Toronto, Madrid, Berlin, London, Brussels and other cities. The same day, detainees at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay also launched a hunger strike, inspired in part by U.S. activists who have called for a national day of action.

Protesters voiced anger with Obama’s failure to close the prison—which he promised to do during his 2008 presidential campaign—and with his approval last month of the National Defense Authorization Act, which codified the U.S. government's authority to detain prisoners, including U.S. citizens, indefinitely without trial.

¡Dara Greenwald PRESENTE!

For more about Dara Greenwald:
http://www.daragreenwald.com/
http://badatsports.com/2012/dara-greenwald-1972-2012/
http://never-the-same.org/interviews/dara-greenwald/

Sources for Guantanamo:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/11/us-usa-guantanamo-prison-idUSTRE80A1CN20120111
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guantanamo-protests-20120112,0,400199.story
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/10/guantnamo_prisoners_launch_hunger_strike