Josh MacPhee Books

A graphic history of global dissent and historical activism, featuring a hundred new full-color posters celebrating the possibilities of collective resistance.

A love letter to over 750 record labels which produced political music as a medium for improving our communities and world.

Signal is an ongoing book series dedicated to documenting and sharing compelling graphics, art projects, and cultural movements of international resistance and liberation struggles. Artists and cultural workers have been at the centre of upheavals and revolts the world over, from the painters and poets in the Paris Commune to the poster makers and street theatre performers of the recent Occupy movement. Signal will bring these artists and their work to a new audience, digging deep through our common history to unearth their images and stories.

From the fight against the AIDS crisis to the struggle for Black liberation and international solidarity, Graphic Liberation! digs deep into the history, present, and future of revolutionary political image making. What is the role of image and aesthetic in revolution? Through a series of interviews with some of the most accomplished designers, Josh MacPhee charts the importance of revolutionary aesthetics from the struggle for abolition by Black Panthers, the agitation during the AIDS crisis from ACT-UP, the fight against apartheid in South Africa and Palestine, as well as everyday organizing against nuclear power, for housing, and international solidarity in Germany, Japan, China, and beyond. In twelve interviews, political designer and street artist Josh MacPhee talks to decorated graphic designers such as Avram Finkelstein, Emory Douglas, and more, focussing on each of their contributions to the field of political graphics, their relationships to social movements and political organizing, the history of political image making, and issues arising from reproduction and copyright.

Stencil Pirates is the most comprehensive book dedicated to the street art of the stencil. The book contains an exhaustive collection of close to 1000 photographs from around the globe. The photos show work by hundreds of different artists, exposing the width and breadth of stencil graffiti, from political to abstract and purely aesthetic, from tagging to public announcements. Stencil Pirates offers in-depth writings on the complex history of stencil graffiti, its political context, and how stencils fit into the larger pantheon of street expression. It discusses stenciling as a way for political movements to resist and mark territory, whether as part of gentrification struggles in New York and San Francisco or as part of the general uprising in Argentina over the past couple years.Stencil artists are the printmakers of the urban landscape, dropping art on sidewalks, walls, park benches, bus stops, store windows, etc. By far the most accessible form of printmaking, stencil artists simply need a piece of cardboard, a knife, a can of spray paint and something to express. Stenciling is a form of expression that boldly reclaims public space by inserting political or metaphysical messages into corporate landscapes.

Calls adverts what they are—a powerful means of control through manipulation—and highlights how people across the world are fighting back. With case studies from both sides of the Atlantic, Raoul and Bonner showcase the ways in which small groups of activists are taking on corporations and states at their own game: propaganda. Offering detailed analysis of the hold advertising has on our lives, the authors then move on to offer practical solutions and guidance on how to subvert the ads. Using a combination of ethnographic research and theoretical analysis, they investigate the claims made by subvertising practitioners and show how they impact their practice. --Adapted from publisher description.