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Available on Black and Grey, sizes Extra Small up to Extra
Large (XXL on
Black).
This shirt costs $25 US, postage included (air mail in
North
America, surface mail elsewhere).
The
graphic here was originally designed by the Soviet artist Alexander
Rodchenko in 1925. The text in that orginal simply read "Books!", and
used as part of early Soviet literacy campaigns,
early enough in the daze for most folks to have felt that what was
happening in the USSR was an example of permanent radical social
change...
Rodchenk was a leading "constructivist", a Soviet art movement which
combined optiomism with big bold type and flat geometric shapes. In
some ways, fifty years later, this same style was regenerated by many
punk poster artists, though (fittingly) replacing this optimism with
pessimistic and skeptical content. So it's probably my own attraction
to 80s punk aesthetic which led me to use this image...
i must not be the only one who feels this way, and many of you will
have seen this graphic with different words, but not Rodchenko's
either, as it has been used over the years by a variety of folks, from
anti-fascist women in Spain to radical dykes in the united states...
Of course the realities of the Soviet 20s, or anti-fascism in the 70s,
or queer lib. in the 80s, are all either going or gone, as is much of
what seemed eternal in the 20th
century. At the same time capitalism remains and remains just as
deadly and able to summon up nightmares that seem dead and buried -
thus the words on the side: "against the new racist capitalist
patriarchy
just as bad as the old racist capitalist patriarchy".
When was showing friends and comrades different drafts of these
designs, most were less enthusiastic about this one than the other two.
So it came as a pleasant surprise at the recent Montreal Anarchist
Bookfair - where these shirts all made their debut - that this shirt
was by far the most popular, being bought and commented upon by far
more people than the other two.
Available on black and grey - note that on the grey the print is pink,
not yellow.
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