Peace Signs

In May, I wrote about the opening of an exhibition at the Imperial War Museum called Peace Signs , by the photographer Edward Barber and I was pleased to have been invited to the opening. http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/peace-signs-by-edward-barber.html



This is the simple piece of literature which accompanies the exhibition.  It's a well designed, beautifully produced piece of print with high impact. The finished size is 152x108mm folding out to a flat size of 304x434mm.

The mono image is printed with a border of  'nuclear' yellow which reflects the colour used on the walls in the exhibition. There is one image on the front...

...on the reverse is an image of the graphic installation entitled the Mind Map of Anti-Nuclear Protest, created by Danielle Inga and Edward Barber specifically for this exhibition. It's folded as a map fold - concertina and then folded over.

Click on Images to enlarge

One thing which is almost impossible to convey is that it's been printed on our Offenbach Bible 60gsm. It is superbly light and has a great "rattle" which it's just not possible to convey in pictures. It folds and handles beautifully.

You probably won't be able to guess, or even believe, is that it's digitally printed! The job was printed and finished by a digital print company called Typecast Colour, based in Paddock Wood, Kent. It was printed on their Xerox digital press and the result is superb. Printing digitally printing the limited run viable - even on a material such as this, which many litho printers are scared of!...just look at the print result.

...and there is an interesting story as well. Fran De'Ath is the lady in the main photograph and she was interviewed for The Guardian last month for their series called "That's me in the picture"
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/aug/12/one-person-picket-fran-death-protests-greenham-common



If you want to see the exhibition, you'll have to hurry as it finishes tomorrow (4th September)

http://www.iwm.org.uk/exhibitions/iwm-london/iwm-contemporary-edward-barber
http://edwardbarber.net/
http://concreteed.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.typecast.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 03.09..2016

Peace Signs by Edward Barber

I was very pleased to be invited to the viewing of Edward Barber's exhibition 'Peace Signs' which opened at the Imperial War Museum contemporary space on Wednesday. Ed Barber is a photographic artist, specialising in images of people and their relationship to space and environment. He is best known for his portraiture, through major projects such as All Dressed Up, In the City and Resolve. He is one of the few photographers to have their work displayed and in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. He is also a designer, curator and teacher, and was formerly Subject Director for Fashion Photography at the London College of Fashion.

Ed recorded major protests staged at key sites such as RAF/USAF Greenham Common, Westminster, Trafalgar Square and the City of London. The body of work is a unique social document of mass popular protest in late twentieth century Britain which has rarely been seen in public since it was first published in 1984.

Peace Signs, Barber’s collected body of work, was originally taken to attract media attention to the anti-nuclear movement. The exhibition explores these protests as multi-generational and distinctly British forms of self-expression. Illuminating the activists’ humour and creativity, these images create a social record of both individual and collective responses to war. The photographs capture hand-rendered signs, banners, badges, clothing, make-up and costumes, and illustrate the often overlooked role of performance theatre, folk art and fashion at peace camps and demonstrations.

The display, with the background painted in 'nuclear' yellow, offers a fresh interpretation of the images, the photographs are contextualised by a graphic installation entitled Mind Map of Anti-Nuclear Protest, created by Danielle Inga and Edward Barber specifically for this exhibition. The Mind Map traces his contemporary re-evaluation of the events he captured in the 1980s - see below pic. Unfortunately my picture doesn't do justice - so you'll have to go and see it for yourself! The exhibition runs until 4th September.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/exhibitions/iwm-london/iwm-contemporary-edward-barber

http://edwardbarber.net/
http://concreteed.blogspot.co.uk/

Posted by Justin Hobson 27.05.2016

The power of the paper poster

Today, one of only three surviving 'BRITONS - Lord Kitchener Wants You' First World War recruitment posters has been sold. A London collector paid a record £27,540 in an online sale by Dorset-based auction house Onslows. The incredibly rare poster has become one of the most iconic images of the First World War, although apparently only 10,000 were actually produced which is far less than many other WW1 recruitment posters. Only three original posters are known to survive; one in the Imperial War Museum in London, one in the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, and this one.

The powerful image started off life as the front cover of a September 1914 edition of magazine 'London Opinion' (a popular weekly magazine with a circulation of 300,000 copies) which had commissioned graphic artist, Alfred Leete, to design and illustrate the cover. In response to requests for reproductions, the magazine offered postcard-sized copies for sale. The Parliamentary Recruiting Committee obtained permission to use the design in poster form and the rest, as they say, is history....

Interestingly, author and historian James Taylor published his book only last year called 'Your Country Needs You' disputing that these posters were ever even used ( in a similar vein to the eponymous 'Keep Calm and Carry on' posters from WW2)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Country-Needs-You-Propaganda/dp/1887354972

I had a quick look on the auctioneers website (Onslows) and was rather more impressed by the design of this striking poster below.

This is a poster promoting an exhibition of war pictures by CRW Nevinson, the official artist on the Western Front. It's an original lithograph poster 1918 760x 510mm, although I don't believe the designer is credited. Unfortunately it's not for sale.

http://www.onslows.co.uk/home.htm

Posted by Justin Hobson 11.07.2014