Just Looking

Wish I could find more images online from this book: “Off The Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War.”

The Economist says:

IF THE devil has the best tunes, radicals make the best posters. In Lebanon the propaganda posters of Hizbullah and its allies are a heady mix of bright colour, simple logos and distinctively Arab calligraphy and portraits. The government commissioned Saatchi & Saatchi to make its case in 2006, but its advertising was never as striking as the humblest political placard from the Islamists.

The poster collection in “Off the Wall”, comes from the 20-odd factions of Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war and shows that the shifting alliance of leftists and other radicals had artistic flair from the outset. Hizbullah, the Communists, the Syrian nationalists and the PLO, among others, harnessed contemporary graphic design and made it their own: Jerusalem in glowing colours features alongside clenched fists and AK-47s; the four-sided Syrian symbol rises like a sun; car bombs go bang like Roy Lichtenstein paintings.