"Graphic Intervention" showcases 25 years of AIDS posters

MassArt exhibit includes more than 150 posters collected from around the world.

James Lapides believes in the power of the poster. He's been collecting posters for the past twenty years, and a good portion of his collection is now on display at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. "Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters" includes moving, powerful works of art that showcase AIDS awareness across the world from 1985 to the present.

"These posters address virtually every aspect from the myths to prevention to who could be affected, virtually everything," Lapides told Bay Windows. "As a student of the poster, I felt that [the AIDS awareness campaign] was perhaps the most powerful campaign ever done in the media."

Included in the show are posters from more than 100 countries. "What's fascinating with the poster standpoint is that this campaign in so many countries around the world is the dominant communicator because there is no TV, and there's not that much radio, and there's not that much film," Lapides said. "There was so much misinformation, and posters were part of addressing those things." The collector referred to one poster in particular, a J. Keeler drawing that in 1987 was used by California's AIDS Hotline for Kids. "It's a stick figure -- a 'See Dick, See Jane' kind of image -- that says, 'I have AIDS; please hug me,' and it's a little boy with his hands outspread. 'I can't make you sick,'" Lapides explained. "So much of the news [about HIV and AIDS] is good today...but there's clearly a lot of problems all over the world that need to be solved regarding AIDS. I think this campaign continues because this is far from over."

Lapides was motivated to begin this particular collection after the death of his sister's best friend from AIDS-related causes in 1991. A European friend who commonly pointed Lapides in the direction of interesting posters "embarked on this pursuit primarily from a social/political standpoint, and it struck a chord in me," Lapides said. He joined in, and "Graphic Intervention" was born. "This show is really kind of everything that I would want it to be because these posters ultimately belong in a museum."

Aside from inspiring the continued campaigns for AIDS awareness and prevention, Lapides hopes that "Graphic Intervention" will serve as a memorial for those who have died from AIDS, including his sister's friend. "It's a way of remembering the past," Lapides said. "It's kind of fascinating to go back and see where we were 20 years ago, and how far we've come, which is pretty remarkable, but it's clear we have a ways to go."

While the gay community was a target of AIDS-related media campaigns over the past 25 years, the exhibit is steadfast in its portrayal of the disease as a problem affecting society at large, rather than one community in particular.

"[AIDS] affects everyone," Lapides said. Posters included in "Graphic Intervention" speak to drug users and straight people in a multitude of languages. Graphic design is "a universal language that communicates very, very powerfully," Lapides said. "This show is truly about the best examples of that, which makes it visually stunning as well."

The international aspect of the collection brings layers of meaning to the epidemic in examining the ways different cultures tackle the problem. "Once you think you have exhausted the ways you can take something, you'll find somebody who's done it differently," Lapides said. "There's one by Steff Geissbuhler...a stop sign that says AIDS. Stop AIDS. That's as simple as it could possibly be; it uses a symbol that we all understand, but it puts a different message on the stop sign, and one that couldn't be any more telegraphic."

"The poster has played a special role in promoting AIDS awareness and safe sex education across cultures," wrote the show's curators, Elizabeth Resnick, Professor and Chair of Graphic Design at MassArt, and Javier Cort�s, Partner and Creative Director at Korn Design. "Different aims, messages, visual metaphors, and strategies have strongly influenced the content and design of AIDS posters."

"Graphic Intervention: 25 Years of International AIDS Awareness Posters" is on display at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design now through Dec. 4 in the Stephen D. Paine Gallery (621 Huntington Ave., Boston). An opening reception will be held on Thursday, Oct. 7 from 6 to 8 p.m. and a panel discussion titled "Visualizing Solutions: Designers and the HIV/AIDS Crisis" will be held on Thursday, Nov. 4 at 6 p.m. Events are free and open to the public. For more information, please visit www.graphicintervention.org