Hi-Viz: Australian Political Posters 1979–2019

EN ES

February 8 – April 14, 2019
Opening reception: Friday, February 8, 6-9pm


From the collection of Alison Alder
HI-VIS: AUSTRALIAN POSTERS 1979–2019 is an exhibition of screen-printed posters that provide a visual commentary of politics and life in Australia over the last four decades. Renowned for their high visibility, particularly in the 1980s with their saturated fluorescent colors, these posters describe the times and events that have engaged socially active artists throughout recent periods of major change.
Many of the topics addressed in these posters remain relevant today including Indigenous rights, gender politics, unemployment, and the environment. Contemporary Australian artists are reinvigorating the screen printed poster as a form of protest and information sharing by pasting the work onto the wall and value adding to its potency by posting on social media.
These wonderful posters, with their ability to encapsulate ideas into a single image, continue to provoke debate, galvanize ideas into action, and invigorate those working toward an equitable and just society.

poster credits for the above, clockwise from top left: Alison Alder and Leonie Lane, Redback Graphix, Art and Working Life Festival, 1985, Screenprint; Michael Callaghan
Redback Graphix, What Now Mr Mao, Dance?, 1979, Screenprint; Colin Russell, Alison Alder and Neil Roberts, Megalo Print Studio, Greetings from Canberra, 1983
Screenprint;Wendy Murray, We All Need Nuclear Energy, 2011, Screenprint; Gregor Cullen, Redback Graphix, The Workplace is No Place for Racism, 1985, Screenprint.

About the collector: Alison Alder is a visual artist whose work blurs the line between studio, community and social/political art practice. Her formative years as an artist were spent working in the screen-printing workshops of Megalo (Canberra) and Redback Graphix (Wollongong/Sydney) where she was co-director from 1985–1993. The next major period of her art practice was spent working within Indigenous organisations in the Northern Territory, primarily for Julalikari Council in Tennant Creek. Alder received an International Year of Tolerance Fellowship from the Australia Council in recognition of her work toward social justice and equity through art practice. Alder’s work has been exhibited in several key Australian exhibitions including, amongst others, Roads Cross: Contemporary Directions in Australian Art at the Flinders University Art Museum and Gallery (Adelaide & touring), Making It New: Focus on Contemporary Australian Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney) and Ghost Citizens: Witnessing the Intervention at Cross Arts Project (Sydney & touring). Alder is currently Head of the Printmedia and Drawing Workshop at the Australian National University School of Art.