The School of Visual Arts shares a unique relationship with the Poster House museum, located on 23rd Street, just a short walk from many of the College’s buildings. Among its substantial permanent collection of posters and pop art are nearly 100 works in SVA’s Subway Series of posters, a collection to which the College continues to donate. SVA has a significant presence on Poster House’s advisory board, too, with members including MFA Design Co-Chair Steven Heller, BFA Design faculty member Paula Scher and Gail Anderson (BFA 1984 Media Arts), chair of BFA Advertising and BFA Design and the creative director of the College’s Visual Arts Press in-house design studio.

Poster House’s current exhibition, “Masked Vigilantes on Silent Motorbikes,” explores how posters have become a staple of public discourse, providing artists with a range of material to draw upon, reconfigure and subvert.

Throughout history, posters have been used by artists, designers and businesses alike to shape popular culture. In this exhibition, artists such as Michael De Feo (BFA 1995 Graphic Design), Nicholas J. Fraser (MFA 2008 Fine Arts) and KAWS (BFA 1996 Illustration) intercept and reformulate the poster’s messages—by cutting them up, painting over them and gluing them back together—to question the hierarchy between creator and viewer and, in many cases, subvert the original intentions. By mapping out the poster’s role in society, “Masked Vigilantes on Silent Motorbikes” allows us to see the power that is harnessed by visual language and how it can be reclaimed to demonstrate the democratic potential of the medium. The exhibition is on view through Sunday, February 12, 2023.

Features

The latest exhibition at the museum, which presents notable posters from throughout history, explores artistic interventions in the form