Category Archives: advertising

“War is good business – invest your son.”

“GET UP, STAND UP!“[1] is the title of a wonderful exhibition held at the Millennium Iconoclast Museum of Art in Brussels, featuring numerous posters of the 1968-1973 civil protests across the West.

A sampling:

       

“Gone with the Wind, the film to end all films”, showing Reagan and Thatcher, a criticism of the atomic bomb.

“War is good business – invest your son”, a criticism of war.

“Milk in such containers may be unfit for human consumption”, a criticism of DDT.

“The age of nations is past, the task before us now, if we would not perish, is to build the earth.” —Teilhard de Chardin, a criticism of nationalism.

A Roland Topor graphic on censorship used by Scanlan’s, criticism of Nixon.

A poster mentioning the “Chicago Seven trial, G. Harold Carswell, The Cattonsville 9, Jackson State, Invasion of Cambodia, Kent State, My Lai Massacre, Alaskan pipeline, ITT scandal, Watergate Caper, 20,000 Americans dead, ? Asians dead, 26,000,000 bombs, General Lavalle, Wheat Scandal, Unemployment.”

Histoires d’A, On ne mendie pas un juste droit, on se bat pour lui (W. Reich), criticism of anticonception.

“Jesus was an only child”, criticism of anticonception. Correction: Jesus was apparently not an only child, he had brothers.

Introducing Ferenc Pintèr (1931 – 2008)

Ferenc Pinter by you.

Anima Mundi (2004) [source]

Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson (Italian edition cover by Ferenc Pintèr).

posted by tonto–kidd[3]

Researching Carlo Jacono in my previous post[1] brought me to the work of Ferenc Pintèr.

Ferenc Pintèr (1931 – 2008) was an Italian illustrator and painter. He is best-known for his book cover designs for Mondadori. he also designed tarot decks for Italian publisher Lo Scarabeo.

Digressions:

Pop. 1280 is a novel by Jim Thompson (1906 – 1977) first published in 1964. It is a particularly bleak species of American hard-boiled crime fiction, but exhibits experimental flourishes that align it with literary (as opposed to genre) fiction, as well as occasional surrealist episodes. The unreliable narrator as a story-telling device, of which Thompson was particulary fond, is exemplary in this  novel.

Pop. 1280 was made into the French film, Coup de Torchon by Bertrand Tavernier in 1981. In that film, Lucien Cordier (Philippe Noiret) is an ineffectual local constable (see bumbling authority figures in comedy) with a cheating wife and laughable job. He accepts condecension from his superiors and his wife with good humor, as his antisocial personality allows him to tolerate such abuse. However, he soon realizes that he can use his position to gain vengeance with impunity, and he starts to kill everyone who has regarded him as a fool. After numerous trysts and murders, his pathology catches up with him in the film’s climax.

RIP Franciszek Starowieyski (1930 – 2009)

RIP Franciszek Starowieyski (1930 – 2009)

Le Grand Macabre by Franciszek Starowieyski , 1965

Poster for Michel De Ghelderode‘s play Le Grand Macabre (1965)

Franciszek Andrzej Bobola Biberstein-Starowieyski (born July 8, 1930 in Bratkówka, Poland, died February 23, 2009), was a Polish artist. From 1949 to 1955 he studied at Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow and Warsaw. He specialized in poster, drawing, painting, stage designing, and book illustration. He was a member of Alliance Graphique International (AGI).

Here[1] is a fair collection of his work on Flickr.

I’ve previously reported on the Polish film poster[2].

Pete the Meat Puppet

[Youtube=http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=k7VzWitgeU4]

Diesel ad “Pete the Meat Puppet“

Since very young, I have been an advertising junkie. So much creativity can be found in the medium, and it is not hampered by the egos and pretentions usually found in the art or music worlds. That is probably why I focused on the applied arts between my twenties and thirties.

I’ve featured Diesel previously twice on this blog. A ‘minotaur‘ street ad here[1] and very fun film SFW porn film from earlier this year here[2].

The unkown artist is probably a fan of Zappa and The Residents.

Introducing Harry/i Peccinotti

penguin75_frontcover by bsjohnson_info.

Penguin Modern Poets 25 also features a photograph of female lips smoking a cigarette, one of his trademark image tropes.

The Woman of Rome by Moravia by you.

Alberto Moravia‘s 1976 Penguin edition of The Woman of Rome

I haven’t properly introduced Harri Peccinotti, the man celebrated in the previous post on Nova magazine.

Harry Peccinotti (born 1938, London, UK) is a photographer and art director. He was Nova magazine‘s first art director and regular photographer throughout. He also did the Pirelli Calendars of 1968 and 1969, with designer Derek Birdsall.

He also provided the cover photograph for Alberto Moravia‘s 1976 Penguin edition of The Woman of Rome and contributed photographs to The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics.

Penguin Modern Poets 25 also features a photograph of female lips smoking a cigarette, one of his trademark image tropes.

He has designed record sleeves for Esquire Records.

He is still working with fashion stylists such as Charlotte Stockdale and Antje Winter.

World cinema classics #39

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Xgn63o7UU]

Erotissimo is a 1968 French–Italian film directed by Gérard Pirès. Its theme is a satire on the use of sex in advertising and sexual objectification of women. I’ve mentioned this film before and posted a different trailer, but this trailer is superb, good rhythm, extremely funny (sorry French only!), nice score and stunning visuals.

Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.