contemporary propaganda posters

8/6/2019 Contemporary Propaganda Posters

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The Detrimental Post-War American Dream in the United States:Contemporary Propaganda Posters

Andrew Maloney

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of

Senior Independent Study atThe College of Wooster

Department of Art

March 6, 2009

Advisor: Bridget Milligan


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Acknowledgements

I want to extend my appreciation to the following individuals:

The Faculty of the Art Department that I have studied under for the past four years,

because if it were not for your teachings, I would not be the artist I am today. I want toespecially call to attention my advisor, Bridget Milligan, who played an important part inthe formation of my project.

My close friends Michael Zappitello, Samuel Taylor and Bryn Tulip for listening to me

and helping me solidify my project, and to the many other acquaintances I have spokenwith that have all directly or indirectly contributed to my project.

Henry J. Copeland Fund for allowing me to have the opportunity to present an art exhibit

I really put myself into.

The College of Wooster for allowing me the opportunity to go abroad and see other partsof the world, as those experiences have an important impact on my view of the world as

an artist.

And most importantly my family, for being supportive of my artistic endeavors andeverything else I have engaged in.


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Illustrations

Figure 1: Shepard Fairey, Untitled, 2008...18

Figure 2: Shepard Fairey, Untitled, 2008...18

Figure 3: Ralph Steadman,Lizard Lounge, 1997. 19

Figure 4: Derek Hess,Intervention, 2007..20

Figure 5: Derek Hess, obama, 2008...20

Figure 6: Mimmo Rotella, Chisum, 2004..21

Figure 7: Andrew Maloney, Untitled, 2009...22

Figure 8: Andrew Maloney,Detail, 2009..23

Figure 9: Andrew Maloney,Detail, 2009..23


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It was not until four years ago that I had a revelation about my life and the choices

I had been making, or not making. In the middle of my senior year of high school, on

Christmas Eve, I watched my father succumb to Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia and

die. His health deteriorated because of a multitude of factors: the cancer itself, the

radiation treatment from the bone marrow transplant he was undergoing, and old age.

Because the death happened in such a rapid manner, I was emotionally taken aback.

Going through my fathers death put me in a dissatisfied mental state. After the funeral

events settled down, I became increasingly interested in how for such a long time I had

been content with how I was previously living my life. That is to say, I realized that I had

essentially been coasting on cultural and religious autopilot. It was as if I never knew

there were other options out there. I did not know that I could stop attending church and

entertain other spiritual options. I also that there was increasing unrest and criticism about

the suburban lifestyle my family and millions of other families had been living in the

United States of America.

The post-war idea of the so-called American Dream is a template for a lifestyle

that is defunct and obsolete for numerous reasons. We have passed the point in the

continuum of societal decisions and humanitarian progress where it is rational to maintain

a lifestyle that produces exorbitant amount of waste and is spiritually defeating. The

incredible horizontal expansion and outrageous consumption of land and resources in

effort to better ones self is a fashion fleeting away. Traditions die hard in the United

States of America, as is evident in the only recently transcendence of traditions of racism

and subsequent election of the first African-American president in our nations history.


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is a growing discourse about the flaws of this type of living situation. Given the current

state of our earth, the precious, colossal entity that gives us life and the pursuit of

happiness, I feel as though more attention to this matter needs to be brought.

Author, social critic, and public speaker, James Howard Kunstler maintains that

suburbia is the greatest misallocation of resources in the world. He describes the spaces

we live in as the physical manifestation of the common good and that we define

ourselves by these such places. The spaces we dwell in tell people about who we really

are (or at least how perceive ourselves), and the sprawl we are experiencing is saying

very negative things. He goes even as far as saying that certain parts of America beg the

question, Is this a place worth caring about? or even Is this a place worth defending?

Such a statement does not leave many feathers unruffled. There exists an educated man

and many others like him, saying that our brothers, sisters, sons and daughters are spilling

blood overseas only to come back to Walmarts, Targets, and lifeless suburbiaand that

is what is wrong with our country.

What was lost in the post-war boom of private single-family housing was the

blurring of definitions between the rural country home and the city apartment or condo.

There used to exist a distinct difference between the rural and the urban, and that is what

was the novelty of it all. The two need to exist independent of one another in order for

both to be equally treasured. Suburban subdivisions litter the American landscape as

foolish cartoons trying to incorporate both the urban and the rural, an obnoxious

combination. They are labeled as cookie-cutter houses, each one probably exactly or at

least extremely structurally similar to the rest. Sometimes they do not even have windows

on the sides of houses and have miniature, unusable cartoon porches. The double-car


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garage is essential to these tiresome units as owning and operating a car is essential to

having a normal, functioning American life. The residents of these communities need to

be conscious civilians, not passive consumers.

Was it normal for me to live in a neighborhood where every house looked the

same, where no one who lived in the neighborhood could barely ever be seen out of their

homes (the transition from the house to the car was usually made in the cover of the

garage), where the automobile was so heavily relied on, and where conspicuous

consumption and unconscious adaptation to societal norms took place? I do not think so.

Perhaps it was normal for the past 50 years, but times need to change. How have we

veered so off course? There are a few important points in the past couple decades that

have put Americans in a position I do not think they should be in any longer.

After World War II, a number of federal policies that were passed, when

combined together, strongly encouraged the American people to move away from urban

centers. The Federal Housing Administration and the Veterans Administration helped

inexpensive single-home units become more affordable, and even provided mortgages for

over eleven million homes2. Unfortunately, the emphasis was put on building more

homes, not fixing up old ones. Thus, the inner urban centers deteriorated while the

growth moved outward. Meanwhile, a 41,000-mile Interstate Highway System was

created, and mass transit in turn was neglected3. Again, elements of the previous, rich

urban environment become dilapidated and urban exodus was further encouraged.

2Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of

Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. 2000. 7.3Ibid., 8


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Because these new areas of growth were only focused on homebuilding, there was

no room put aside for corner stores or any semi-commercial unit where one could shop.

Therefore, shopping centers were constructed elsewhere along roads. Roads at this point

were the most logical place to put goods and services since everyone drove cars. And

because the shopping centers were placed along roads, they needed a place for a parking

lot, so the store was moved away from the road. Signs were erected and endless stretches

of parking lots lay4

putting thousands upon thousands acres of indigenous nature under

several inches of concrete.

At some point in our countrys history, country planners became convinced that

segregating all different aspects necessary for life was a good idea, and zoning became a

major issue. Communities tended to contain a majority of some class or ethnicity within.

But for the most part, diversely populated subdivisions were and still are rare. All land-

use zones had to be split up and segregated. F.J. Popper makes the point that:

the basic purpose was to keep Them where They belongedout.If they had already gotten in, then its purpose was to confine Them to

limited areas. The exact identity of Them varied a bit around the country.Blacks, Latinos, and poor people qualified. Catholics, Jews and Orientals

were targets in many places.

One might be able to deduce that perhaps the reason why our communities are in turmoil

is because their advent was influenced by racism5. There was a massive migration known

as the White Flight that occurred in the 1960s after an influx of poor, southern African-

Americans reached northern cities. These cities experience high crime rates, racial

tensions, high unemployment, and rising taxes. The white people that had previously

4Ibid., 9.

5Ibid., 10.


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inhabited the city fled to the suburbs out of the city6. It is true that there is an increasing

number of blacks entering the suburbs, however there is still a significant separation from

the whites within these communities7.

As the troops returned home from World War II in Europe, they also brought with

them a new ability to efficiently manage complex, large-scale tasks. Since we were

successful, and luckily the war seemingly went our way, these skills were brought back

over to America and were applied to every other aspect of life. In doing so, the out with

the old sentiment swept across America and the old way of town planning based on

history, aesthetics and culture itself became obsolete. Managing land became a project

based on numbers. The methods of classifying and counting that were so successful when

building munitions and positioning and allocating troops were then applied to the facets

of planning. The art of constructing successful cities was then replaced by a simpler

version8.

A consequence of these spread-out communities is that in order to have a normal

functioning life, one needs a car. Cars are crucial for transport to any number of an

Americans lifes priorities. But as weve learned in the past few decades, the more cars

we have, and the more those cars use oil as means of fuel, the more pollutants enter our

atmosphere and kill our planet. It is a fundamental truth that the more cars we have using

oil and emitting pollutants into the atmosphere, the more we endanger the health of the

earth and our childrens future.

6Baldassare, Mark. Suburban Communities. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 18, 1992.

480.7Ibid., 482.

8Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of

Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. 2000. 11.


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Until the middle of the century, traditional, small-scale neighborhoods were the

type of living situations that were most common in the world. They came from European

settlements, and contained varied populations and a variety of uses. These settlements

that were brought from the New World explorers of the past allowed people to settle on

the continent without depleting the countrys financial resources or destroying vast

quantities of nature as suburban expansion does9.

Suburban sprawl as some put it, is now the most widely used system of growth

in North America. Even when the population density is low in these areas, the sprawl

does not pay for itself financially. In these areas traffic problems are produced, as well as

societal problems such as inequality and social isolation10. The horizontal expansion of

sprawl is literally like an explosionthe most active growth of the whole situation occurs

at the outside edge, expanding outward, while the middle settles into a hapless void. In

sprawl, there usually contains housing subdivisions, shopping centers, office parks, civic

institutions, and an extensive maze of roadways11

. Because of the 1970s and the 1980s

and their respective federal handling of economic restructuring, the increasingly common

replacement of domestic products by foreign goods and the subsequent loss of jobs, the

suburbs grew because of the fall out in the city centers12

.

Suburbia and the neglect of alternate, culturally successful ways of life is not just

the fault of town planners, military tactics, or a few federal policies passed, but also the

fault of some of our past leaders to focus on other important matters. After all, the person

9Ibid., 4.

10Ibid., 4.11

Ibid., 7.12

Baldassare, Mark. Suburban Communities. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 18,

1992. 481.


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leading our country needs to be aware of these matters as it not only affects us, but the

rest of the world. It is notable that middle-class America has not been socially or

economically successful when under the leadership of a Republican president. In fact, it

is as if those that live in these subdivisions do not want change. Republicans make up

48% of the voters in these eras, and wield an advantage when voting on city policy13.

It seems like we have known for quite some time about the peril of the Rustbelt

in America, a prime example of where suburban sprawl has continued and how the

current state of affairs is detrimental to our economy and quality of life. In 1968 when

Richard Nixon ran for president, a campaign contributor named Kevin Phillips wrote a

document stating that Nixon could win the election if they gathered the votes of the

Sunbelt or the Old Confederacy, the Southwest, and the West Coast, then they could

almost guarantee a republican win without carrying any industrial state in the Northeast

or Midwest. So thus it is obvious that Carter and Clinton were able to win in 1976 ad

1992 by means of winning a state in the south or winning California14

.

When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980, it was the first time in the history of

our country that money was redistributed from the poor to the rich, from minorities to

whites and from financial suffering cities to the cities of the Sunbelt and the west. Reagan

had a lot to deal with coming out of the 70s, where neglect for the consequences of

unrelenting pillaging of natural resources and overall neglect of the environment and

13Ibid., 478.14

Phillips, Kevin. Reagans America: A Capital Offense, as appeared inA History ofOur Time: Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University

Press. 1995. 447.


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workers health15

left Jimmy Carter reeling and positioned Reagan in a place similar to

George W. Bush was after Clintonthe seemingly lesser of two evils.

Within the suburbs, there is a widening gap between the rich and the poor, as

local governments within these segregated communities can vote and channel their taxes

towards improving localities, and attracting more affluence to the area. And in doing this

they attract industries, increasing the economic deprivation of the less affluent areas of

the metropolitan area. With the politicians trying to win the support of the affluent in the

states excluding the rust belt, it is no wonder why concern for proper urban development

fell by the wayside.

In the 1980s, the rich were getting richer, with decamillionaires, centimillionaries,

half-billionaires, and billionaires all increasing in quantity. The net worth of the richest

Americans according to Forbes 400 tripled between 1981 and 1989. As CEOs got richer,

the corporations moved out of the city towards the suburbs, more specifically, towards

the CEOs house.16

And as the corporations moved out, they moved into Business Parks,

sprawling asphalt deserts with enormous corporate cubes laid on top, with their

subdivision counterparts close by.

For the past few decades, there has been a significant decline in Americas path

towards economic success and grasp on the environmental push. After Reagan, George

Bush Sr. promised early on that he would be the environmental president, and signed the

15 Lekachman, Robert. Greed Is Not Enough. New York: Pantheon Books. 1982. 44.

1616

Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise of

Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press. 2000. 9.


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Clean Air Act of 199017

. However, when the economy started to stutter, and the EPA

wanted to prosecute the big corporate polluters, he allowed the Justice Department to

overrule them18

. Bush Sr. also created the Council on Competitiveness, a continuation of

a Reagan policy, which allowed corporations to slide beneath emissions and pollutant

control because they impeded economic growth and cost jobs19. Then in 1992, Bush Sr.

was the only leader of a nation not to sign a treaty to conserve millions of plant and

animal species20

. In his 1994 State of the Union Address, Bill Clinton stated that from

1989 to 1992, the national debt quadrupled, and the nation experience the slowest growth

rate in half a century, and for the past twenty years the status of working families was

stagnant or had been declining21. And thanks to the continuation of our current paths of

wastefulness, a child born in the United States will have thirty times more of a wasteful

impact on the earth during its lifetime than a child born in India.

So obviously there is a lot that needs to change. This is an enormous case, and

change can only be put into place one step at a time. Certain cities in the United States

have instituted growth borders, and in doing so negotiate a stopping point to which the

sprawl from an urban area will reach. In doing this, whatever exists within the confines of

the city is forced to adapt and diversify within.

17Gore, Jr., Albert, The Global Environment, as appeared inA History of Our Time:

Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.

1995. 497.18

Ibid., 497.19

Ibid., 497.20Ibid., 497.21

Jefferson Clinton, William. The State of the Union as appeared inA History of OurTime: Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University

Press. 1995. 507.


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people and socialize is dwindling. Driving in cars has enabled us to become desensitized

to the amount of danger we are in when we are driving, whether it is weather, road

conditions, pedestrians, and even other drivers26

.

All in all, attention needs to be paid to stopping horizontal expansion, as it is

obvious that this is harmful to human development. Diverse, multi-purpose

neighborhoods that are exemplified by old European standards, and pre-World War

America are what are needed to bring back culturally significant establishments. America

needs places worth caring about. In order to reach our greatest potential as humans we

need the help of our government to do this. The first step is to gain awareness to this

issue.

In order to raise awareness to this issue, my project consists of multiple

propaganda posters echoing my sentiment towards suburban culture. Historically,

posters have been valuable tools used by governments and certain peoples to gain

attention to issues and to encourage action. Theyve been used for both altruistic and

mischievous causes, but nonetheless they have been effective. They were first used in the

First World War by the government as an advertising technique27

. During the First World

War in Britain, Charles Higham said that these posters, improved lives by informing the

public of new products, modes of behavior and even appearance. In 1925 the Bishop of

Durham said in a sermon given in the Westminster Abbey that the posters were

26Ibid., 59.

27Aulich, James. War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication.New York: Thames &

Hudson. 2007. 8.


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persuasive and positive educational forces that provided social and aesthetic frameworks,

much as religious art had done in the past.28

The success of the poster depends on its appeal to the masses. Psychologists

warned in the early 20th

century that populations were susceptible to contagious and

irrational suggestion through the subconscious and by the affirmation and repetition of

appealing statements. The poster is considered the one of the most modern types of media

because it is integral to the urban environment. These posters can be put virtually

anywhere in the city where there is a surface, and where a multitude of eyes can see them

e.g. venues, railway lines, streets, in commercial hearts, industrial centers, public squares

and transport hubs. According to a 2002 report for the Advertising Standards Authority in

the UK, the public ranked posters second only to television advertising in terms of

impact29

. Using the poster is a double-edged sword, however, as the pervasiveness of the

industry makes the posters all the more invisible30

.

An effective poster is one that does not necessarily need to offer descriptive

narrative elements or detailed renderings and illustrations. Simply substituting concepts

for simplistic imagesmetonymycan adequately portray a message. For instance,

including a picture of a bomb in a poster can readily send a message about war without

explicitly stating so31. Photographs are becoming increasingly vital elements of

contemporary propaganda, especially the unforgettable images of torture at Abu Ghraib

28Ibid., 11.29

Ibid., 12.30

Ibid., 13.31

Ibid., 15.


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prison in 2004. These photos were recognized all over the world and when shown

effectively evoke sickening sentiments over the disputed conflict in Iraq32

.

The popularity of propaganda posters in America and other combatant nations

increased during wartime as the governments of these respective nations tried to rally

men and women together to accomplish various tasks. American corporations have often

used such posters to energize their workers and to solidify their patriotism33

. Traditional

American posters shroud the confidence in American military might by stressing the

power of the working family or working peoples34

.

Unfortunately, posters in the past have aimed at featuring the seemingly

positive nature of American life such as the pervasiveness of consumerism and the

virtues of having a middle class home in a free enterprise economy35

. The joys of being

American are many and splendid, but the posters I wish to create discount the

consumerist elements of the past. The posters of the past have also taken a more blatant

and aggressive tone, as in the Vietnam era of graffiti spit phrases like, Fighting for peace

is like fucking for virginity.36 The dissenting tone associated with a lot of these posters

is something that is special, as activist Susan Sontag said in a speech in 2003 at a human

rights award ceremony:

We are all conscripts in one sense or another. For all of us, it ishard to break ranks; to incur the disapproval, the censure, the violence of

an offended majority with a different idea of loyalty. We shelter underbanner-words like justice, peace, reconciliation, that enroll us in new, if

much smaller and relatively powerless communities of the like-minded;

32Ibid., 15.

33Ibid., 51.34

Ibid., 162.35

Ibid., 169.36

Ibid., 220.


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that mobilize us for the demonstration, the protest, the public performanceacts of civil disobedience not for the parade ground and the battlefield.

So the need for propaganda posters is still imminent, even though social spaces exist like

the Internet, where information can be processed extremely fast. But the Internet only

reaches a select group of individuals. There exists the rest of the population that walks

around in the public realm, their eyes feasting on visual displays.

There are several contemporary artists that have influenced my project

stylistically. The former street-art guru and now mainstream artist Shepard Fairey has

transcended notions of graffiti and has constructed images increasingly viewer friendly,

as his poster for President Barack Obama (Figure 1) became the most widely used image

of him during his campaign. The way he crafts his propaganda posters is what influenced

me to have multiple layers on my work. Often his artwork yields a look to patterns or

posters that lay underneath the readily apparent images. At the same time, those readily

apparent images are thought provoking and visually striking (Figure 2).

Figure 1 Figure 2

Shepard Fairey, Untitled. 2008. Shepard Fairey. Untitled. 2008.Poster Poster collage

Size unknown. Size unknown.


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The layers that make up my posters are intended to give the illusion that the

background of the present piece is something that has existed for an extended period of

time under an extended amount of use. The many worn-away layers are meant to

replicate the walls of buildings, worn by constant graffiti, weather, commercial

advertising and the like. The idea of diverse, multiple layers, also exists in tandem with

the need for diversity in the narrowing scope of American life. Just as using one solid

color for the background would make the piece seem boring and homogenous, so does

the lack of diversity and public discourse in our suburban communities.

The work of Ralph Steadman, made famous as the illustrator who used to work

for Hunter S. Thompson influenced my work as well. Steadmans relationship with

Thompson concerned trying to find the American Dream at one moment when the two

visited Las Vegas together. Steadmans art plays a perfect companion for Hunters

engaging gonzo journalism. Artistically, Steadman does not engage in creating

propaganda posters, but his style demonstrates the ability to create massively moving and

organic images in a whirl of ink and color. His images are sometimes borderline

grotesque or absurd, but offer telling stories (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Ralph SteadmanLizard Lounge, 1997.

Nine color silkscreen38 x 50


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Similar in style, Derek Hess creates multimedia works, often for bands or flyers

for musical shows. His style uses very gesture-oriented strokes of the pen, coupled with

emotional splotches of ink or paint to create stunning compositions (Figures 4 and 5).

Especially relevant for my project is the work of Mimmo Rotella (Figure 6), who merely

uses the element of ripping posters on top of layers of other posters to create interesting

compositions. The advantage of seeing multiple layers of posters gives the viewer

something unique.

Figure 4 Figure 5Derek Hess,Intervention, 2007 Derek Hess, obama, 2008.

Pen, ink, acrylic Mixed Media14.5 x 8.75 28 x 11


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Figure 6

Mimmo RotellaChisum, 2004

Color screen print and collage40 x 27.6

The propaganda posters I have created are masonite boards with several layers of

multiple types of media on them. The result is an amalgamation of media that hopefully

portrays a definitive message, but at the same time begets more questions. There are

several layers of gesso that were laid and sanded, then base layers of paint were laid on

top of that. Then after producing three digitally rendered posters, I printed and laid them

on top of the paint. The posters I have made were laid like bonds, pasted to the walls of

buildings. After they dry, I proceeded to sand them down with an electric sander and rip

them just as bonds and posters are ripped from various urban sites. Before I started


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rendering the superficial objects of the posters, I wanted to achieve a weathered-looking

environment first (Figure 7).

Figure 7Andrew Maloney, Untitled, 2009

Mixed Media4 x 5

As if I was preparing a canvas, or making an under-drawing, I aimed to recreate

the status a building wall might have at an urban site, with posters peeling, revealing

layers underneath (Figure 8 and 9), all emitting the same weathered, emotional

undertone. Just as posters usually vary in size, as do mine, creating different feelings as

the relationship between content and space varies. The content, or paintings and drawings

laid on top of the illustrious environment behind were produced with acrylic paint,

protective enamel, and various types of markers and pens. Using all types of media

allowed me to work on large-scale but also maintain elements of detail.


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Figure 8 Figure 9Andrew Maloney, detail, 2009 Andrew Maloney, detail, 2009

Mixed media Mixed media

I feel as though my methods were effective, as they incorporate a lot of various

elements from the different artists that influence me. The posters are glimpses of urban

environments, but hung in an art-oriented enclosure, an interesting juxtaposition of

competing concepts. It at first almost does not make sense for these posters to be hanging

in an art gallery, as they might be better off in a city setting. But as far as my intention for

people to see these, this is perfect. Hanging the posters in a gallery space focuses

attention on them, and hopefully on the important matters the posters contain. The

scattered and various elements within the poster will hopefully draw the viewer closer in

for a better look, and in essence better establish my ideas and concepts for better urban

and smarter suburban development in their cognitions.


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Bibliography

Aulich, James. War Posters: Weapons of Mass Communication.New York: Thames &

Hudson. 2007.

Baldassare, Mark. Suburban Communities. Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 18, 1992.

Duany, Andres, Plater-Zyberk, Elizabeth, Speck, Jeff. Suburban Nation: The Rise ofSprawl and the Decline of the American Dream. New York: North Point Press.

2000.

Gore, Jr., Albert, The Global Environment, as appeared inA History of Our Time:Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: Oxford University

Press.

Howard Kunster, James. The Tragedy of Suburbia James Howard Kunstler. AccessedJanuary 22, 2009 online at

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia.html.

Jefferson Clinton, William. The State of the Union as appeared inA History of Our

Time: Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: OxfordUniversity Press. 1995.

Lekachman, Robert. Greed Is Not Enough. New York: Pantheon Books. 1982.

Phillips, Kevin. Reagans America: A Capital Offense, as appeared inA History of Our

Time: Readings on Postwar America. Fourth Edition. New York: OxfordUniversity Press. 1995.

contemporary propaganda posters

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