Edited By Josh Macphee
In 1988, Josh Macphee walked through the streets of Chicago posting the first Celebrate People’s History poster, which depicted Malcom X. Since then, CPH has plastered the streets in many other cities with celebratory social justice posters designed to question the stasis of cultural memory and public debate.
The academic criticism usually so hefty in art books here occupies a scant 12 pages. Much like the street posters it chronicles, the book gives very little context. The reader must judge the collection alone, encountering the posters chronologically by memorialized subject matter rather than production date. The series of arresting, text-heavy, grungy, inspiring, historical posters chronicles a selection of unknown underdogs and famous figures of resistance.
Macphee writes that the CPH posters are “rooted in this do-it-yourself tradition of mass-produced and distributed political propaganda.” Limited resources forced the posters to be creative within an austere aesthetic: cheaper two-tone printing on inexpensive uncoated paper using outdated analog equipment. The book reflects this feeling, itself printed on unpretentious paper and sporting a brown-bag cover. Simply and radically, this book gives voice to the walls witnessing revolution and resistance and so rarely allowed to speak through public political artwork.
