Taking it to the streets

摘要

Colorful banners promoting everything from downtown neighborhoods or condominium units to art exhibitions are now commonly part of the architectural and visual environment of cities. The advent of this phenomenon may be traced to the fine arts and a moment in 1962 during a newspaper strike in New York City. Gallery dealer Robert Graham decided to produce outdoor flags and banners to publicize his shows during the strike. The designs attracted so much attention that Graham went on to commission and sell vibrant nylon, felt and canvas banners by Pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg and Robert Indiana. They strove to reinvent the art world in the image of the optimistic popular culture of the early 1960s, and the banners were produced in large editions so as to be affordable to the public. From 1963 to 1965, the artists toured in the exhibition Banners U.S.A. 1 & 2, launching a new art form, the "multiple." Recently, this work was shown in The Great American Pop Art Store: Multiples of the Sixties curated by Constance W. Glenn, lending us the opportunity to rediscover these early examples.