Modern day propaganda

I was reluctant to call it "modern day propaganda" as I felt that there was a clear difference between the propaganda in all the propaganda books in the library and the notice I have seen around London myself. I think this image has proved me wrong.
The style is so similar to that of much war time propaganda - the realistic painting style and the bold large text that it seems unlikely that those war time poster have not been used as direct influence for these poster.
But it is the eye logo that I find most disturbing. I have seen it myself on many notices on the underground and buses around the capital and am always amazed that it is used so widely. It certainly doesn't make me feel safer. The connection with 1984 is remarkable clear. you don't even have to have read the book, there a f TV called big brother with the same fucking logo!

This cant have not been though of and must be used with the belief that this association would be a positive one in communicating the message. which raises the question of who the target audience for these posters are? it seems likely that this totalitarian approach cannot be accidental, and therefore the posters could be aimed "criminal" "scum" etc.
a deterrent, a warning.
It seems that this poster is evidence to surgest that proaganda has never gone away and possibly never will. This poster from a "post 9/11" world (a phase that i fucking hate) possibly suggested that the same fear in a general public can be used to excuse this kind of public notice as it was during the world wars. lets posters like this can be looked back on in books titled "the history of proaganda" in years to come and be seen as quaint funny relics of our strange paranoid history in the same way we can look at old war time posters today.

El Lissitzky - Beat the Whites with the red wedge (1919)

El Lissitzy was a designer and typographer who worked on many posters and exhibitions fo rthe Soviet Union. This, his most famous work, demonstrates his belief of using geometric forms to communicate political ideologies and ideas. It is interesting to see here a break from other Totlitarian regimes in his use of abstract art as proganda. Hitler was renowned for his dislike of anything other than realism ( a contradiction in the idea of propaganda if you ask me) and this rang true in many regimes, with the development of Soviet Realism as a art movement being a prime example. Lissitzy's break from the belief that an image needed to be realistic to be believable could be seen as an example of were the lines between propaganda and other art forms begin to blur.

Mykhaylo Khmelko

Forever with Moscow. Forever with the Russian People (Treaty of Pereyaslav). 1951

Triumph of Our Fatherland -

These Historical painting seem similar in composition to that of religious paintings of crowd scenes. This could be interpreted as an artist using his knowledge he has learned by studying biblical paintings purely for ascetic reasons, but then this ascetic quality was not used in religious art completely agenda-less either. Simple techniques of perspective and composition are used to draw the eye to certain figues. In both these images we see authority on the left, elevated above the other figures in front powerful architecture, with the gaze of the crowd on the left drawing the eye to them as well.

Propaganda - photographs and photo realism

As with much propaganda painting, the above image of Chairman Mao with the peasants is a realistic rendering of a symbolic event. A hyperbolic interpretation of an event, or perhaps even a representation of an event that did not take place. This of course could be said to be true of any number of paintings regardless of wether there is a political agenda behind that painting being made or not. It could also be argued that every painting has an agenda behind it, wether conscious or not. But if we look bellow we can see the stark contrast that can be made when we juxtapose a photographic representation with a painted representation.

Here we see a very different representation of Mao with the peasants, where he himself is a representation, placed amongst them. It could be said that this image communicates a more realistic power relationship between ruler and peasant.

It is interesting to wonder weather Mao himself would have had approved of this image.

it is the instantaious captureing of a scene allowed by photography that changed the way propaganda works.

Overhead projections

link

Barbara Kruger

Barbara Krugers collaged images have a strange authoritarian sense, visually resembling, in colour especially, soviet propaganda. However the weak link between text and image leaves the viewer unclear of the message being comunicated. This break down in communication is not uncommon within art; but it is the format of the poster that Krugers work takes that makes this disconnection so striking, So out of step with our expectations and experiences of advertising. If I were more of a cynic I may argue that the poster element that these works take, appearing at bus stops and bill boards etc. are merely photo opportunities or gimmicks that give the impression of this context for the work. But thats probably a bit harsh.