Month: July 2009
Polish posters: Freedom on the Fence
Poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, designed by Bronislaw Zelek (1965).
Freedom on the Fence is a 40-minute documentary film by Andrea Marks about the history of the Polish poster which includes a look at the many unique cinema and theatre designs produced in the 1960s and ’70s. Marks spent ten years working on this short film, interviewing many of the artists responsible for designs such as the one above. While searching around for links I came across a brief interview with {feuilleton} favourite Franciszek Starowieyski who died in February.
As to the current state of the art form in Poland, Marks has this unsurprising but still dispiriting note:
The Polish government no longer finances most cultural events; theatres cannot afford to publish artistic posters, and the idea of a film as an excuse to make a poster has vanished. Ironically, although the climate of Communism was a good ground for creating posters, the freedom of a free market society has resulted in a more restrictive climate for the creation of powerful posters. The art form is forever changed. A few concerned collectors and publishers, such as Krzysztof Dydo and Edmund Lewandowski, are attempting to keep the art form alive by commissioning and publishing new works, but their efforts alone will not overcome the situation. It is hoped that an outside appreciation of pre-1980s poster design history in Poland will ultimately help to encourage the government and private interests to commission more posters from Polish artists.
Freedom on the Fence is due to be released on DVD later this year.
• An interview with the director
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Robing of The Birds
• Franciszek Starowieyski, 1930–2009
• Czech film posters
Art of forgery: Fakes, mistakes and discoveries at the National
The art of Juliet Jacobson
I’ll be Your Mirror (2005).
Not quite finished with the Moon since it’s visible in the background of Juliet Jacobson’s beautiful drawing, together with some other items of recurrent {feuilleton} concern: masturbating males, peacock feathers and human skulls. Pam at Phantasmaphile has a larger copy of this work while Ms Jacobson’s site has a number of equally luscious pencil drawings.
On the Moon
Two Apollo 11 pictures from NASA’s endlessly fascinating collection of high-res photos. Both these are of Buzz Aldrin taken with Neil Armstrong’s suit-mounted Hasselblad. The one above is the most famous of the lot, of course, reproduced endlessly (I even copied it once as part of a drawing), but you hardly ever see it in its original tilted state like this; picture editors prefer to balance the horizon. The one below I hadn’t seen before in such detail. The lunar lander here looks remarkably small and fragile.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Memories of the Space Age
• Apollo liftoff
• Earthrise
• East of Paracelsus