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BACK
TO MAIN ART GALLERY
"Free
South Africa"
Mark
Vallen 1985
Offset poster 17" x 21" inches - $5.00
Vallen's 1985 poster played a historic role
in the movement to liberate South Africa from
white racist rule. The
print was eventually included in The Path
of Resistance, an exhibition of contemporary
protest art held at New York City's Museum of
Modern Art in 2000. Organized by Joshua Siegal
and Susan Kismaric, the exhibit traced 40 years
of socially critical and politically charged
art.
A
few copies of this rare poster are still available,
click
here to purchase one.
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Artist's
statement:
"I
created this poster in 1985 to support the freedom
struggle of the South African people, who were living
under a brutally racist white minority regime. Used
at anti-apartheid rallies, student occupations of
universities, and protests in front of South African
embassies all across the US - thousands
of these posters were given away, sold, and wheat-pasted
on city streets.
In
1985 the administration of Ronald Reagan was openly
supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa. Nelson
Mandela was in prison and regarded as a 'terrorist'
by US policy makers. It's worth noting that US Vice
President, Dick Cheney, was in fact at the time opposed
to the release of Mandela in the 1980's. However,
people all over the world were supporting Mandela's
African National Congress (ANC) and the movement for
a free and democratic South Africa. I was naturally
overjoyed with the eventual liberation of Mandela,
the total defeat of the criminal racist regime, and
the victory of the South African freedom struggle."
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Vallen's
poster was used in the 1980s across the US during
massive anti-apartheid rallies. In this 1986 photo,
hundreds of protestors in front of the racist South
African Consulate in Beverly Hills, California, called
for its closure, a demand that was eventually victorious.
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By
special arrangement with Columbia Pictures, Vallen's street
poster appeared in the film, The Pursuit of Happyness,
starring Will Smith. The poster was used as set dressing
to lend authenticity to the movie's depiction of San Francisco
in the 1980s. For the full story on the poster's appearance
in The Pursuit of Happyness, read
Vallen's blog.
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