Center for the Study of Political Graphics celebrates 25 years of collecting and exhibiting the art of resistance on October 12, 2014 at the Professional Musician’s Union Local 47, 817 Vine Street, in Hollywood. Reception begins at 3 pm; Program 4:30-6:30 PM. For more information on the Benefit Party and CSPG: http://www.politicalgraphics.org/home.html.
Press Release:
Los Angeles—Whether shocking, mocking, irreverent or witty, political posters are intentionally provocative and in-your-face. CSPG celebrates its 25th Anniversary with a Party/Auction on October 12, 2014, at the Professional Musician’s Union Local 47, 817 Vine Street, in Hollywood. Reception begins at 3 PM; Program 4:30-6:30 PM. The event honors four people who have used art, culture, and organizing to make a difference in the world: Dolores Huerta, Samella S. Lewis, and Larry Gross and Scott Tucker.
For twenty-five years the Center for the Study of Political Graphics (CSPG) has been collecting and exhibiting graphics that challenge the status quo. With more than 85,000 posters from the 19th century to the present, CSPG is the largest collection of post-World War II posters in the U.S., and is one of the largest political poster archives in the world.
To mark this landmark anniversary, CSPG will also mount Art is a Hammer: 25 Years of Exhibitions from The Center for the Study of Political graphics, a virtual exhibition that tours the hot button issues and posters from around the world that have galvanized social action and continue roll off the presses today to motivate change. View the Exhibition Here.
“There is a world wide poster Renaissance going on right now, due to increasing resistance to oppression, increasing desperation in the world, and the ease of digital communications,” says Carol A. Wells, CSPG’s founder and Executive Director, “But paper posters are still being printed and carried in demonstrations and posted on walls everywhere in the world. Whether its human rights abuses in the Middle East or the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, artists are often the first responders and their posters ensure that Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown will not be forgotten.”
About the Honorees
Dolores Huerta
Co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union with Cesar Chavez, Dolores continues to be an activist and organizer for farm workers and women rights. She is also the founder of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. In 2012 President Obama bestowed Dolores with The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
Samella Lewis
Samella S. Lewis is a pioneer in the field of art and art history. An award-winning author, an exceptional visual artist, and an internationally known historian of African American and African art, Lewis founded the Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles in 1976, where she was senior curator until 1986.
Larry Gross & Scott Tucker
Larry Gross is a media scholar, author, and GLBT activist who helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies. He was the Director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication for 11 years, and is editor of International Journal of Communication. Scott Tucker is political journalist and health care activist who was a cofounder of ACT UP Philadelphia and Prevention Point, a needle exchange project. They are members of the Green and Socialist parties, have been together since 1975 and married since 2008.
CSPG’s powerful theme-based exhibitions cover diverse issues ranging from Anti-War, HIV/AIDS, Black Panther Party, United Farm Workers and Labor, Ecology, the Prison Industrial Complex, Racism, Sexism and Homophobia, Gentrification and Homelessness, Immigration, the Vietnam War era, and many more. CSPG produced exhibitions have been displayed in more than 300 venues.
In addition to its active traveling exhibition program, CSPG frequently loans posters to leading arts institutions, including the Smithsonian, Getty Institute, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), Museum of Modern Art (NY) the Centre Pompidou (Paris), Robben Island Museum (Capetown), and the Victoria & Albert Museum (London).
Center for the Study of Political Graphics
3916 Sepulveda Blvd. Suite 103
Culver City, California 90230
Tel: 310 397 3100
Fax: 310 397 9305
www.politicalgraphics.org
