Daily Heller by Steven Heller

After complaints to the city's Buildings Department and concern from the Ukrainian community in New York City's East Village, Cooper Union removed a large banner from its façade showing Pablo Picasso's 1953 portrait of Josef Stalin (above). The work (below) was part of a solo installation by Lene Berg, a Norwegian artist, who included it as part of her exhibit, "Stalin by Picasso or Portrait of Woman with Mustache," featuring projects that reflects on the artistic and cultural works produced during the Cold War–era. "Berg's exhibition provokes discussion on the relationships between art and politics, in recent history and in the contemporary moment," states the press release.

According to Ms. Berg, who lives in Berlin, the removal occurred without her knowledge or any warning. Community leaders complained that this year was the 75th anniversary of a famine imposed by Stalin that killed millions of Ukrainians. Ironically, when this portrait was drawn, it was frowned upon by the Communists as being an unsympathetic depiction of the Russian dictator, which prompted this response from Picasso:

"Can you imagine if I had done the real Stalin, such as he has become, with his wrinkles, his pockets under the eyes, his warts. A portrait in the style of Cranach! Can you hear them scream? 'He has disfigured Stalin! He has aged Stalin!'"

On November 14, the New York Civil Liberties Union issued a press release with a letter to the Bloomberg administration asking them to explain the removal of the banners from Cooper Union's façade (click here). And for more information read here and here (photo below by Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times).

Politics | Propaganda | Signage

11/19/2008 7:27:13 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00) Comments [1]

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Pardon Who?
Posted by steve

Here's a weekend guessing game to take your minds off the current economic woes: With George W. Bush's presidency coming to an end, he's entitled to give out a few get-out-of-jail-free cards (i.e. presidential pardons) to a lucky few. Can you guess who they might be? The folks at Pure Products U.S.A. offer a few possibilities pictured here. I wonder who'll be the first?

Election | Photography | Propaganda

10/23/2008 8:12:05 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [7]

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I Want My 3rd Reich TV!
Posted by Steve

Television was introduced by RCA in the United States at the 1939 New York World's Fair (bottom), but actually premiered in Nazi Germany in 1935, beating out the competition here and in Great Britain. Reich Broadcast Director Eugen Hadamovsky (who was also a deputy of propaganda--and who I quote in Iron Fists) launched "Greater German Television," which broadcast entertainment and political programming into the homes of a mere few thousand Berliners who owned sets. The hope was that everyone would eventually be a proud recipient. The extraordinary Spiegel TV documentary, Television Under The Swastika, by Michael Kloft is now available in the United States as a DVD but also on the web in its entirety here and here. It's well worth a look to see the birth of TV and never-before-seen programs (including variety, exercise, and dance shows, featuring a Nazi cowgirl hopping through a lariat and a tennis player balancing tennis balls, as well as rare footage of Adolf Hitler himself) direct from Nazi Germany. The film certainly underscores how visual media played a major role in the banality of evil.

Documentary | Propaganda | Television | Videos

10/21/2008 7:53:58 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Monday, October 13, 2008

As the Campaign Heats Up
Posted by steve

As the campaign veers towards the finish line, various new initiatives, exhibitions, and personal projects are surfacing. Here are a few worth noting:

On October 15, Parsons The New School for Design, in collaboration with The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, presents an international and interdisciplinary exhibition investigating democracy as a global brand. Ours: Democracy in the Age of Branding (above), curated by Carin Kuoni, features an international roster of more than forty emerging and established contemporary artists and an extensive array of performances, workshops, and new commissions. The exhibit is described as "[examining] the desires generated and promoted by democracy as a brand and investigates aesthetic and political systems of representation developed in response to these desires." Given my latest book on branding totalitarian states, I am particularly interested in how branding is acomplished in U.S. politics.

Also on October 15, the Philoctetes Center presents Voters and Friends: Group Influence in Individual Political Belief and on October 22, The Design of Influence: How Images and Words Sway Minds (with me as moderator).

Designers have also produced graphics expressing feelings and anxieties about the current election: NotAnotherCstudent.com by Julia Ames focuses on the lack of intellectual rigor among the nation's highest office holder and seekers (quotes by Sarah Palin, John McCain, and George Bush, below), a site that could easily be described as "Everything you say may and will be used against you"; Spelling for Change, "a political activation kit developed by a group of creative professionals to spread awareness and passion about the Obama campaign"; Seymour Chwast's lapel pin statement about the uncanny relationship of old and new; and 30 Reasons, which offers 30 posters in 30 days about the election--from a particular perspective, of course.

Branding | Conferences | Politics | Posters | Propaganda

10/13/2008 10:33:20 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [5]

Monday, October 06, 2008

Comrade Stalin, Art Director
Posted by steve

Boris Yefimov, comrade Stalin's favorite--and Herr Hilter's least favorite (see below)--Soviet political cartoonist, died last week at 108. His 1947 cartoon titled "Eisenhower to the Defense" (above) was the first salvo in the Cold War. Stalin ordered Yefimov (born Boris Friland in Kiev, the second son of a Jewish shoemaker) to draw General Dwight D. Eisenhower leading the U.S. Army to the North Pole, looking for a war. A civilian asks him why the U.S. should fight in such a peaceful spot and the General answers: "Can’t you see that the Russians are threatening us?" (Shades of current Alaskan foreign policy, perhaps.)

Yefimov worked all night, drawing a family of peaceful Eskimos around an igloo. "The next afternoon, Stalin rang and demanded the picture by six in the evening," Roger Boyes reported recently in the London Times. "Two days later, Yefimov was called in. He was quaking in his shoes. The likelihood of displeasing Stalin was high: He had been friends with the archenemy Leon Trotsky, his father was Jewish, and his brother, [a journalist and] the editor of Ogonyok magazine, had been killed after falling foul of Stalin. But the cartoon was approved. Stalin scrawled the title in red crayon, 'Eisenhower to the Defense.' He even failed to spot that Yefimov, in the rush to meet the deadline, had mistakenly put penguins at the North Pole."

For a fascinating obituary, read Douglas Martin's article from yesterday's New York Times. And don't miss this Guardian obituary.

Illustration | Obit | Propaganda

10/6/2008 12:20:17 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Hot Air Balloons
Posted by steve

Fumettis (from the Italian word for comics) a.k.a. photo comics, especially the romance genre, have long been a popular in Mexico and South America where they are known as fotonovelas. During this presidential election year they are popping up in North America, particularly the non-romance genre. In yesterday's New York Post Governor Sarah Palin was the protagonist in "The Adventures of Sarah Palin" or "Here's what a hockey mom MIGHT have said if she hadn't been properly briefed by handlers..." But she's not alone: On the non-partisan political satire blog "Pillage Idiot" the classic fumetti form has made a dramatic comeback. See Messers Bush and Putin here; John McCain here; and Big Bill Clinton here. If you want to make your own, first find your own photos and then get adhesive stock hot air balloons here. And don't forget to make it funny.

Advertising | Comics | Propaganda

9/25/2008 11:27:43 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [0]

Friday, September 19, 2008

When I Was a Kid . . .
Posted by steve

One of the most heartbreaking, memorable images from my childhood was the photograph (above) of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg on their way to prison, convicted of atomic spying for the USSR and sentenced to death in the electric chair. Their guilt or innocence was always a matter of fierce debate, and many artists, like Picasso, saw them as scapegoats and created art in response (below). The French political cartoonist Louis Mittelberg, also known as TIM, drew a barb at President Eisenhower--pictured with electric chairs for teeth (bottom)--for allowing them to be executed.
Last week Morton Sobell, a co-defendant who served 30 years in prison, and whose son I befriended when we were teenagers, confessed that he and Julius did indeed spy for the Russians. I was reminded of the emotional impact this case had on many of us in New York. On Tuesday, the Rosenberg's two sons, who had adamantly fought to vindicate their parents, finally admitted to The New York Times that they now accept their father had spied, but their mother had not and was used as a tragic pawn in the case.
I was also reminded how as a teenager, I protested for Sobell's release by carrying handmade signs at the courthouse in Foley Square, perhaps my first use of graphic design.

Politics | Propaganda

9/19/2008 12:03:11 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00) Comments [2]