New Poster Art

This book contains some of the best posters created world-wide in the past fifteen years, forming an enormously eclectic collection of political, commercial and purely artistic specimens. The introduction, co-written by Burger and Both, identify elements of the medium-typography, color, image-and locate the creative action in their manipulation, but also in the medium's repurposing; before the information age explosion, the poster was most commonly used for advertising or announcements. As Burger and Both note, there are ""so many possibilities that one can no longer speak of a clear trend."" One can, however, easily find the power and immediacy of these examples, like Alejandro Magallanes's straightforward political backhand Behind the American Dream (a view of Mickey Mouse's backside with a long rat's tail), and Fons Hickman's series of skewed, ghostly photographic portraits When Eyes Could Still Speak, playing with focus, lighting and negatives while advertising a silent film festival. Brief bios of each artist, including Americans Jennifer Morla and Michael Gericke, round out this colorful, compulsively browsable volume.