Exhibition

La Voz del Pueblo

Image

The active participation of the Swiss population in the political process draws back to the foundation of the State itself, in 1848. This participation takes place by one of the to mechanisms established the the direct democracy: the citizen initiative and the referendum, in either of the three government levels: municipal, cantonal, and federal. Frequently, the topics submitted to popular vote are polemic, and within the debate of which alternative to choose, passionate ideological disputes tend to arise. The posters that formed the exhibition La voz del pueblo show said controversies; from the beginning of the 20th century, they sought to have direct influence on the opinion of the masses. For said purpose, the use of clichés, over-simplifications and mainstream subjects and slogans were used. Throughout a century, a great number of renowned artists and designers have created memorable cartels within a propaganda genre; true emblems of the Swiss art of the poster, already impregnated in the collective visual memory of the country. After the World Wars, a political impasse occurred, with the generalized abandonment of the radical ideologies and the emerging of new consumer-oriented publicity strategies. In this period, along with a great amount of innocuous posters harmlessly gilded in political correctness, every now and then a different type of poster appear, reneging the consenting aesthetic, and hence regaining the capacity of provoking new political debate. In an exemplary manner, the two opening cartels of the exhibition ilustrase said case. In 1920, in order to promote the vote against female suffrage, Otto Baumberger represented the politically active woman as a horrible hiena, who gesticulates exaggeratedly. In 2009, to promote the minaret prohibition in Switzerland, in another poster, the muslim woman is represented, covered by a hijab, as a delayed public enemy, submitted and threatening. The exhibition La voz del pueblo focused on the reasoning strategies and visual rhetoric that govern the medium and that mark the development from the Swiss voting poster in 1918 to present time. As a totality, the selection was a barometer that manifested the sociopolitical emotional state, each poster registers, like a valuable historical document, the history of the Swiss mentality and the development of global tendencies.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Facebook Event

Image