|
With our own election day fast approaching, we wanted to share with you this campaign of 1928, in which the topic of abortion was already hotly debated (see sixth poster below). In 1928, the Austrian artist Victor Slama (1890–1973) created eighteen striking posters for the German Communist Party (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands; KPD), urging voters to “Vote List no. 5.” In order to retain his anonymity, he did so under the pseudonym A. Malsov, an inversion of the letters of his real name. These posters were published under the authority of Communist parliamentary representative Hugo Eberlein in advance of the May 20, 1928 federal election, alongside John Heartfield’s famous photo-based poster 5 Finger hat die Hand (The Hand Has Five Fingers). The power of Malsov’s posters lay in their bold graphics, which borrowed from Russian ROSTA posters and the caricatures of Viktor Deni and Dmitrii Moor. Their impact was reinforced through repetition and ubiquity.
|
