AuthorsAlec "Icky" Dunn
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Alec Icky Dunn is an illustrator, amateur historian, and printer living in Portland, OR. He has designed book and record covers, political graphics and punk fliers. He has done activist work around tenants' rights, public space, public housing and has been a member of the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative since it formed in 2007.
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Signal: 02: A Journal of International Political Graphics
Editors: Josh MacPhee and Alec "Icky" Dunn
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-298-0
Published July 2011
Format: Paperback
Size: 7 by 5
Page count: 128 Pages
Subjects: Art, Politics, History
$14.95
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 center 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 counter globalization 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. We have no doubt that Signal will come to serve as a unique and irreplaceable resource for activist artists and academic researchers, as well as an active forum for critique of the role of art in revolution.
In the U.S. there is a tendency to focus only on the artworks produced within our shores or from English speaking producers. Signal reaches beyond those bounds, bringing material produced the world over, translated from dozens of languages and collected from both the present and decades past. Although a full color printed publication, Signal is not limited to the graphic arts. Within its pages you will find political posters and fine arts, comics and murals, street art, site specific works, zines, art collectives, documentation of performances and articles on the often overlooked but essential role all of these have played in struggles around the world.
The second volume of Signal features:
- Design, Mass-Production, and Social Movements: An Interview with Sandy K. of image-shift
- Anarchist Posters in Japan
- Breaking Chains: Political Graphics and the Anti-Apartheid Struggle
- Selling Freedom: Promotional Posters from the 1910s
- Street Art, Oaxacan Struggle, and the Mexican Context
- Covering the Wall: Revolutionary Murals in 1970s Portugal
- Røde Mor -Danish printmaking, pop music, and politics
Praise for Signal:
"Signal reads like a magazine in that it consists of a number of smaller, independent articles but the loose continuity of subject holds it together as a book. As a series, this is going to be a great resource. Dunn and MacPhee are filling a void in terms of political graphics; there’s a lot of material for them to cover and this is solid start." —Printeresting.org
"Signal is dotted with stunning photography that will certainly reel in many people who are into unusual art. Clocking in at just under 140 glossy pages, Dunn and MacPhee do an impressive job of conveying not only what is new and relevant in political art, but also its history and its presence in the everyday." —Political Media Review
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Signal 01: A Journal of International Political Graphics
Artists/Illustrators: Josh MacPhee and Alec Icky Dunn
Publisher: PM Press
Published: June 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60486-091-7
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 144
Dimensions: 7 by 5
Subjects: Art, Politics, History
$14.95
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 center 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 counter globalization 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. We have no doubt that Signal will come to serve as a unique and irreplaceable resource for activist artists and academic researchers, as well as an active forum for critique of the role of art in revolution.
In the US there is a tendency to focus only on the artworks produced within our shores or from English speaking producers. Signal reaches beyond those bounds, bringing material produced the world over, translated from dozens of languages and collected from both the present and decades past. Although a full color printed publication, Signal is not limited to the graphic arts. Within its pages you will find political posters and fine arts, comics and murals, street art, site specific works, zines, art collectives, documentation of performance and articles on the often overlooked but essential role all of these have played in struggles around the world.
Signal 01 includes:
- The Future of Xicana Printmaking: Alec Dunn and Josh MacPhee interview the Taller Tupac Amaru
- The Adventures of Red Rat: Alec Dunn interviews Johannes van de Weert
- Hard Travelin’: A photo essay with IMPEACH
- Early 20th-Century Anarchist Imprints
- Mexico 68: The Graphic Production of a Movement: Santiago Armengod interviews Felipe Hernandez Moreno
- Adventure Playgrounds: A photo essay
- Designing Anarchy: Dan Poyner interviews Rufus Segar
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Josh MacPhee and Alec Icky Dunn Interviewed
Red Pepper Magazine
Most of the articles are illustrated interviews with artists and designers, rather than essays. Why did you take this approach?
Josh There is very little politically engaged art writing today that doesn’t exist in rarefied academic or art-world discourses. Unfortunately most critical exchange excludes the vast majority of those who might be interested in the intersections of art and politics.
Alec We wanted to show as much of the work as possible! That’s really one of the big focuses of what we’re doing. And also it was partly about expediency. This was a first issue, and it was hard to solicit longer writing when people didn’t really know what we were about. We are hoping to have more writing – not just interviews, but ideas, criticism, and even (gasp!) theory.
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by Pete Willis
Last Hour
December 10th, 2010
One aspect of anarchist history that has been over-looked in the past is the artwork it’s produced and that which has helped it function. The tides are changing, thanks in no small part to the work of Josh Macphee and others at the Just Seeds artist co-operative. There is a vital, fascinating and relevant history of politically antagonistic graphics, illustration and printmaking aside from the usual reference points of may 68 and dada, from Clifford Harper in the UK to the Mexican printmakers of Zapata’s day.
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Printeresting Spotlights Signal: 01
by Jason Urban
Printeresting.org
September 6th, 2010
Signal: 01 reads like a magazine in that it consists of a number of smaller, independent articles but the loose continuity of subject holds it together as a book. Most exciting is the fact that Signal is slated to be a serial effort. As a series, this is going to be a great resource. Dunn and MacPhee are filling a void in terms of political graphics; there’s a lot of material for them to cover and this is solid start.
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Signal: 01
by
Five Leaves
September 1st, 2010
The new American "journal of international political graphics and culture", Signal, features many of the covers and a long interview with Rufus by Dan, about the design process primarily. He was sent a postcard (oh, those innocent days) listing the articles and given a free hand to produce the cover. This is the first time I've seen so many of them together, other than on my shelves, making a good start on Dan's bigger project, which is about the art, but also the politics that made Anarchy such essential reading, even for those of us who were more interested in marbles than politics when the mag first started in 1961.
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Signal: 01
By Ernesto Aguilar
Political Media Review
September 4, 2010
Edited by Alex Dunn and Josh MacPhee, Signal: 01 is anchored by a fabulous interview with Jesus Barraza, Melanie Cervantes and Favianna Rodriguez, three artists creating the most important works galvanizing the movements against Arizona’s SB 1070. No doubt those familiar with other upsurges have seen their efforts, though. From Palestine solidarity to urban farming, Barraza, Cervantes and Rodriguez have created the most iconic pieces since Emory Douglas took up the pen for the Black Panther Party. Though the interview was conducted before the Southwest struggle came to full boil, the trio talk about the process of art development, their diverse range of campaigns for which they have created art, and, as Cervantes puts it, the role of the artist as organizer.
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