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Blood Money

Jaap Proost — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:14:57 +0000

‘IN this country, you got to make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you got the power, then you get the women’, Tony Montana explained on a poolside in Miami. If you are a dictator, its the other way around: first you got to have the power, then you get the money. Your own money.

Muammar al-Gaddafi (1949 – )
In power in Libya since a 1969 coup, Gaddafi held no office or title. He is known as ‘Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’ or ‘Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution’. Gaddafi invented a system called Islamic Socialism, and wrote a three volume with his political philosophy, called the ‘ Green Book’. Didn’t like opposition and send Libyan hit squads abroad to kill dissidents.

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Idi Amin Dada (mid-1920s – 2003)
Succeeded to give even dictators a bad name. The number of people killed as a result of his regime is unknown, estimates range from 80.000 to 500.000. His mental state was reflected in the title he gave himself: ‘His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beast of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea and the Conquerer of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular’.

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Mobutu Sese Seko (1930 – 1997)
Was president of Zaire from the mid sixties till 1997. He liked public executions, often organized as open-air spectacles. Mobutu created a personality cult around himself. The evening news on television was preceded by an image of him descending through clouds from heaven. There was only one political party, The Popular Movement of Revolution, and its membership was obligatory for everyone in Zaire. Voting also, with Mobutu as sole candidate.

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Saddam Hussein (1937 – 2006)
Everyone knows this fellow. Even killed some husbands of his daughters because they were not loyal. He used chemical weapons against his own people, that caused thousands of deaths. Uncountable portraits, posters, statues, and murals were erected in his honor. Saddam Hussein was also famous for his doppelgängers. The real Saddam was dragged out of a hole in the ground and met at the end, rather chaotically, the gallows.

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Mao Zedong (1893 – 1976)

IF you managed to control every daily aspect of the lives of one fifth of the worlds population, you got to have charisma. Mao Zedong combined that with a huge ego and a crazy mind. His ideas, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are blamed for costing millions of lives. For instance, he ordered that unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques should be used. The result was that the grain production dropped and many millions starved to death in the largest famine in human history.

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Jean-Claude Duvalier (1951 – )

Better known as Baby Doc. Ruled Haiti in the seventies and eighties. When his father Francios Duvalier (Papa Doc) died, he became at the age of nineteen the world youngest president. Baby Doc left all the work for his mother, attended only ceremonial functions and lived as a playboy. Robbed the country for millions. While the people struggled for their livelihood, Duvaliers wedding costed an estimated 3 million dollars. When he left in 1986 to live in exile in France, Haiti was bankrupt.

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Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini (1902 – 1989)
When you think that God is on your side, it’s hard for other people to convince you that what you do is wrong. From 1979 till 1989 Khomeini was the 1st Supreme Leader of Iran. His government was was ‘a God’s government,’ and disobedience against it was a ‘revolt against God’. He gave Rushdie his fatwa. Women were forced to cover their hair, men were not allowed to wear shorts. Opposition to the religious rule met harsh punishments. Or as he said; ‘I shall kick their teeth in’.

Act Up Paste Up

Jaap Proost — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:01:42 +0000

SINCE the introduction of medicine that postpones AIDS for a very long time, the Western world has lost some of its fear for the disease. That was different in the late eighties and early nineties. In those days, due to little information, the public was afraid for anyone with HIV or AIDS. People who had the disease were treated like lepers. Luckily organizations like Act Up from New York fought for their rights. With stenciled posters like the ones on this page Act Up tried to influence politicians and the general public. I like them for their simple designs. Despite of their serious nature, they have the charm of a missing cat poster. See more here.

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Cockpit View

Jaap Proost — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:42:24 +0000

WAR can be horrible and beautiful at the same time, as you can see on this spread in LIFE magazine from January 1963. Famous war photographer Larry Burrows shot this picture of a napalm bombing in Vietnam from a T-28 Trojan aircraft. He persuaded the pilot to fly so low that the airplane went through part of the fireball after Burrows made the picture. The title of the piece was ‘We Wade Deeper Into A Jungle War’ and LIFE had asked Burrows to shoot in color. Until then no war had been satisfactorily photographed in color. Larry Burrows made some iconic pictures if the Vietnam War. He died in 1971 when his helicopter was shot above Laos.

Flood Flag

Jaap Proost — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 10:34:41 +0000

EXACTLY five years ago hurricane Katrina raged over New Orleans. It caused major flooding and brought, as I can recall it, since a very long time a Western city to its knees. Floods are a familiar sight in countries like Bangladesh and, like now, Pakistan. But to see the apocalyptic scenes around the Super Dome was something new. Spike Lee made and excellent documentary about the disaster. Today the second part of the movie is released: When God Is Willing And Da Creek Don’t Rise. It is about the aftermath of Katrina and the rebuilding of New Orleans. I tell you all this because I like the flag they made for this movie. It is inspired by the New Orleans Saints. Check out the T-shirt Mr. Lee is wearing.

Chasing Tail

Jaap Proost — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 19:02:15 +0000

ANOTHER example of war paint on tails of fighter jets. ‘Aviation artist’ Lou Drendel painted these rear ends. He collected a series F-18 and A-18 tails with images like Playboy bunnies and painted them a cardboard. Drendel works as an illustrator for aviation magazines. These two pieces he made for the magazine Hornet. The illustrations are for sale. For $100 one of them is yours.

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Lubalin Logos

Jaap Proost — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:07:56 +0000

A baker doesn’t buy bread and a plumber fixes his own sink. Graphic designer Herb Lubalin made in is his long career six logo’s for him and the various partnerships with other designers he led. A summarized resume of Herb Lubalin would look something like this:

1918 – Born in New York City

1939 – Graduated from Cooper Union School of Art

1945 – Creative director of Sudler & Hennesey, later Sudler Hennesey & Lubalin (logo #1).

1964 – Establishes his own design firm, Herb Lubalin Inc (#2).

1967 – Forms a partnership with Ernie Smith and Tom Carnase (#3).

1975 – Alan Peckolick joins the ranks, creating LSC&P (#4).

1978 – Creates Herb Lubalin Associates (#5).

1980 – Together with Peckolick forms Lubalin Peckolick Associates (#6).

1981 – Dies in New York University Hospital.

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More Lubalin here, here and here.

‘The Bronx Is Burning’

Jaap Proost — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:50:05 +0000

URBAN decay is a fascinating process. At one time a neighborhood is safe and clean. But then something happens and lawlessness and decay enter the area. This was the case in the South Bronx in the seventies and eighties. President Reagan once compared the place with ‘London after the Blitz’.

The transformation from a pleasant residential area till a warzone goes in several steps. In the South Bronx there have been several factors contributing to the decay: the flight of the middle class, landlord abandonment, general economic decline, and also the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway.

This expressway cut neighborhoods in half, causing a decrease in property value and loss of social cohesion. In combination with the elements mentioned earlier people started moving out. Whole blocks were abandoned and the only way landlords could make any money was to set fire to the apartments to collect the insurance money. At the peak of the downfall over 40 percent of the South Bronx’s buildings had been burned or abandoned.

At the time, because it struggled to deal with the overwhelming surge of crime, the police station of the NYPD’s 41st Precinct became known as ‘Fort Apache, The Bronx’. Hollywood even made a movie about the station house. By 1980, the 41st’s station had been renamed ‘The Little House on the Prairie’, as two thirds of the residents of the neighborhood had fled and left the station house as the only building on the block that had not been abandoned, burnt by arson, or both.

Another steady pillar in the middle of this decay was Yankee Stadium. But it was hard to see the two separated. In 1977, during a game in the World Series, a helicopter filmed the stadium from the sky. The viewers at home could clearly see an uncontrolled fire burn the corner of their television sets. When the commentator saw the fire, he said the iconic phrase ‘The Bronx is burning.’

Next to the rundown buildings, another typical feature of urban decay are the car wrecks in the street. Probably the city didn’t have the money or manpower to remove these rusty piles of steel. The car wrecks even blocked parts on the exits of the expressway, where the problems in case of the South Bronx all started.

Read this article in the New York Times about how an apartment slides into decay. Photographer Robert Ronan made the pictures, see more here.

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Lucy Sky Diamonds

Jaap Proost — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:18:32 +0000

SO they would try still wilder improvisations… like the Human Tapes, huge rolls of butcher paper stretched out on the floor. They would take wax pencils, different colors, and scrawl out symbols for each other to improvise on: Sandy the pink drum strokes there, and he would make a sound like chee-oohn-chunh, chee-oohn, chunh, and so forth, and Kesey the guitar arrows there, broinga broinga brang brang, and Jane Burton the bursts of scat vocals there, and Bob Stone the Voice Over stories to the background of Human Jazz- all of it recorded on the tape recorder- and then all soaring on- what?- acid, peyote, morning –glory seeds, which were very hell to choke down, billions of billions of seeds mulching out into sodden dandelions in your belly, bloated- but soaring!- or IT-290, or dexedrine, benzedrine, methedrine- Speed!- or speed and grass- sometimes you could take a combination of speed and grass and prop that… LSD door open in the mind without going through whole uncontrollable tumult of the LSD… And Sandy takes LSD and the lime::::::: light:::::: and the magical bower turns into… neon dust… pointless particles, brilliant forest-green particles for sure, now.

-The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe-

Madras Fabric

Jaap Proost — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 08:42:05 +0000

ON a recent stroll through the digital archives of the New York Library I found these samples of Madras fabric. Samples books are cool. For your information, Madras fabric takes its name from the Indian city of Chennai, in colonial times known as Madras. The lightweight cotton cloth is famous for its typically patterned texture and plaid design.

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Debate Eighty-Eight

Jaap Proost — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 05:29:26 +0000

IN 1987 Mike Quon designed these two logos for the League Of Women Voters for the upcoming presidential debates in the election year 1988. Three elections in a row the LWV had organized the debates. But in October 1988 the political organization (since 1973 men can also become a member) pulled out from debate sponsorship, in protest of the major party candidates attempting to dictate nearly every aspect of how the debates were conducted. So I guess these logos lived a short life.

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