#Josh macphee

[muffinlevelchicanery]

Poster by Josh MacPhee

[jacobwren]

Poster by Josh MacPhee

[mybeingthere]

Book covers and graphic works by Ben Shahn (1898 – 1969) a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Shahn

"One of the greatest things about much of Shahn’s cover work is that he composes original art and typography for the books. Each one is like a huge edition of a print—on many of the early commissioned he’s not recycling old images, but building the designs from scratch. The majority—and best—of this work was done for two large paperback houses, Vintage and Anchor Doubleday. I’ve found sixteen covers between the two. There is likely a handful more, and if you know them, please pass the info on, or better yet, send in images!"

- Josh MacPhee in his blog

"Judging Books by Their Covers"

Ben Shahn immigrated to the United States as a child and was apprenticed to a lithographer after finishing elementary school. In the 1920s, he studied at New York University and City College, and very briefly at the National Academy of Design. Shahn’s first major success came with the 1932 exhibition of his series The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti. Shahn once said that he paints two things, ​“what I love and what I abhor,” and during the Depression years his scenes of children playing in concrete urban parks, and of miners and construction workers engaged in their trades, reflect his admiration for the working American and his abhorrence of injustice and oppression. Throughout the 1930s Shahn worked for various government programs, and when the United States entered World War II, he joined the Graphic Arts Division of the Office of War Information, although only two of the many posters he designed were published. In the 1940s, Shahn turned to what he called personal realism.” His late work is often symbolic, allegorical, or religious and reflects his belief that ​“if we are to have values, a spiritual life, a culture, these things must find their imagery and their interpretation through the arts.”

[zenaidamacrouras1]

Bind of my fic Stellate. The chapter titles each have a different medicinal plant (chamomile pictured). The font is Slogan Sharp from the Just Seeds Design collective by Josh MacPhee.

The vinyl for the title is Siser Easy Puff, which gives it a fun 3D effect. It's picky to work with, but fun.

I did a Bradel Bind for the structure of the covers. I think it gives me more consistent results. Typesets available if anyone wants just ask.

I am getting both better and worse at bookbinding. Some things are easier but now some steps bore me and I am not as careful with them so I make more mistakes. But. It was still a fun process. I think my favorite part might be typesetting, which initially was the part I had no interest in.

Also can I get a new printer? Mine doesn't print nice enough. It's so extravagant to want that, I know. Who knew I cared about the depth and quality of the black my printer printed when I bought it 5 years ago.

Sorry for the quality of my photos. It made me laugh to use the food setting to take them, but then they ended up blurry and I didn't care enough to re-take them. I still think it's funny how the food setting does that cheesy soap opera blur. Also my phone camera lens is cracked because I always stick fossils and other cool rocks in my pockets and break my phone camera. Well. I have only done that 3 times, but still. That damn Ordivician crinoid waited 480 million years to break my phone and I fall for it every time.

[fuckyeahanarchistposters]

"Prisons don't work"

Graphic by Josh MacPhee

[victusinveritas]

Cartoon by Josh MacPhee, 2004

[semtituloh]

Vía palestineposterproject

L'humanité Qu'on Assassine Artist / Designer / Photographer Jeremy Garcia Zubialde

Related links Jeremy Garcia Zubialde's web site - Formes des Luttes web site

Year 2024

Wellspring International Artists/Agencies

Special Collection Operation Al Aqsa Flood/Operation Swords of Iron - Gaza - Formes des Luttes (FDL) - Lebanon

Iconography - Palestinian flag / Colors/

Tree / Roots / Branches

Publisher Forme des Luttes

Language French

Credit/Provenance/Source

Sent in by Josh MacPhee

Published In France

Duplicates 0

Status / Acquisition Goals

The PPPA has only the low resolution digital version of this poster featured

[burlveneer-music]

Sunwatchers - Music Is Victory Over Time

In the decade or so that hard-working New York quartet  Sunwatchers have operated, the group has steadily & subtly refined their sound - a brain-blasting mixture of jazz, psychedelia, krautrock, punk, noise, & Saharan blues - into something that is avant-leaning enough to appeal to the discerning jazz & experimental music fan & weird & wooly enough to get the true heads’ toes tapping. “Music Is Victory Over Time” is the band’s 5th album, and fourth for Chicago-based Trouble In Mind Records, seeing the long-running lineup of Peter Kerlin (bass guitar), Jim McHugh  (guitars), Jason Robira (drums), and Jeff Tobias (alto saxophone and keyboards) in prime form. The album’s beguiling title stems from a note scrawled in a book about electronic music donated to PITGOOSE Prisoner Books, the grassroots prison literature program run out of The P.I.T.  (aka Property Is Theft - McHugh’s Anarchist community space, venue, and info-shop located in Los Sures, Williamsburg). Scrawled as marginalia modifying a paragraph about durational minimalist composition, the concept illuminates music’s material and spiritual power to subdue the sensation of the passage of time, both as an experiential phenomenon and as a creative, communal, and socio-political force. McHugh says: “The notion resonated with our individual and communal experiences of loss, trauma, stasis, and frustration since 2020, our three-year semi-silence as a band relative to our previous characteristic prolificacy, and our progress, projects, and evolution since.” Group Vocals by Sunwatchers and Brittain Ashford Art/Design by Josh MacPhee Head/Tree logo borrowed from the 1970s East German Green Party SUNWATCHERS STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE DISPOSSESSED, IMPOVERISHED, AND EMBATTLED PEOPLE OF THE WORLD.

[snapshotspeirs]

CULTURAL PROJECT

Work to consider

For this project, I would like to look at a wide variety of work.

Josh Mcphee's image "Hands off the trans kids" is the perfect example of what I'm interested in. It's striking and simple, and he has mass produced the image for either selling for folk to have in their homes or for protests. The bright bold colours are very eye-catching. The image has simple but powerful imagery that is incredibly easy to read at a glance, and that's what you want out of activist work. Similar to the Gran Fury's " The Goverment had blood on its hands" with the clear consise imagery with a powerful message behind it.

JOSH MACPHEE 2022 HANDS OFF THE TRANS KIDS

GRAN FURY 1988 THE GOVERMENT HAS BLOOD ON ITS HANDS

While doing research I came across a poster by the See Red Women's Workshop. An image they had created called Black Women Will Not Be Intimidated 1980 really caught my attention. The image is incredibly striking, I'm now noticing that I'm very interested in the aesthetics around screen printing. The image is relevant to my topic in the sense that it's roots are in feminist activism but for cultural reasons its not an image i can look to draw too much from meaning wise but visually it's incredibly striking. I particularly like its use of photography and how it's a clear collage of images from protests pulled together to create one larger image to show solidarity and the struggles the black community was and to some extent still is facing while being a rallying cry for people also. It unites the people affected by the message and brings awareness to people who might not be aware of the struggles.

See Red Women's Workshop 1980 Black Women Will Not Be Intimidated

If I went down the route to create a poster inspired by old Hollywood posters i would look at the 1931 Frankestein poster. I'm unsure who created it unfortunately as I get mixed results when researching but the posters are in the public domain now. The specific poster I'm interested in shows a frankenstein in his lab experimenting on someone while frankensteins monster looks over watching. This is the type of poster I would like to emulate if I went down this route, I think it could be very on the nose and a bit comical while also commenting on political points. I think this would be tough to achieve but I'll attempt it as it was my first clear idea.

[copcomco]

The ninth issue of SIGNAL: A Journal of International Political Graphics & Culture is here – and it looks like the best issue yet in this long running series co-edited by erstwhile Copacetic customer, Alec Dunn, along with Josh MacPhee. Each issue is filled with the kind of material you rarely – if ever – see, all contextualized with essays and interviews. <<< Scroll through our post for a sneak peek >>>  

 All nine issues can be found in the BOOKS section on our site, HERE.

[kheelcenter]

This poster was designed in 2006 by Josh MacPhee, but the roots of ¡Si Se Puede! go back much further. Dolores Huerta coined the phrase, which translates to "Yes, we can" or, roughly, "Yes, it can be done", to encourage workers during Cesar Chavez's 25-day fast in 1972.

[catrocketship]

Josh MacPhee, You Only Get What You Are Organized to Take

[thinkingimages]

Josh MacPhee | Teach or Go to Jail!

“Teach or Go to Jail! is a multi-faceted look back on a 1977 public school teachers’ strike in Franklin, Massachusetts. Through a series of publications and printed ephemera, Josh MacPhee attempts to unpack the strike and engage with questions about what it can tell us about labor and education struggles today. MacPhee traces his family connection to the strike via his father, who as treasurer of the union was sentenced to jail time for refusing to go back to work. The publication reproduces a notebook of drawings the elder MacPhee made from his cell, press and photo documentation of the strike, ephemera, as well as a new interview done with three of the strikers. In many ways a blip in the history of labor unrest in the US, this publication argues the importance of the strike should not be underestimated—not only was it the first strike in modern US history where the rank and file were jailed for refusing to work, but because the union held strong, built solid relationships with the community, and ultimately won almost all of their demands.

Teach or Go to Jail! includes a 60 page, 8-color risograph printed booklet (comprised of analysis, an interview, a timeline of the strike, press and photo reproducitions, and documentation of strike ephemera), a 24 page reproduction of an artist notebook, a reproduction of 6 page corner-stapled info packet originally distributed to parents by the union, and a sticker sheet featuring a bumper sticker and buttons used as part of the strike campaign. All of this is packaged in a pressboard folder with a reproduction of MacPhee’s jail property tag on the cover.” - Booklyn

https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/58555/

[fuckyeahanarchistposters]

"Agitate, Educate, Organize"

Graphic by Josh MacPhee

[climatecalling]

Agua Para Todos Josh MacPhee

Ocean Death Spiral Erik Ruin

No More Dams Molly Fair

Water is Life Kevin Caplicki

[hellyeahanarchistposters]

“Universal Rent Control Now!”

Poster design by Josh MacPhee