Disobedient Art Endures

The tens of thousands of CED posters printed on recycled paper in the spring of 1970 were intended as temporary broadsides. Nearly half a century later, the handful that still exist are prized by museums and private collectors for their compelling graphics and their window onto the impassioned politics of a student counterculture.

 

Even in our age of instant messaging, the poster remains viable as medium of oppositional protest. East Bay artist Jon-Paul Bail printed hundreds of posters at Occupy movement gatherings in 2011. Setting up his equipment on Sproul Plaza, the “home of the Free Speech Movement,” Bail created Occupy Cal, the work on the left.