"Poster art
is ground zero of the design movement."
Attack of the Naked Pole Katz | Portland's mayor wages war
on a growing urban menace: music posters, diet ads and Haydn.
By Zach Dundas -
Urban
Pulse
Courtesy of Zach Dundas.
[...] The head of Portland's anti-graffiti efforts announced
a pilot program aimed at stripping utility and telephone
poles along Portland's main pedestrian arteries of the chaotic
collages of posters that often jacket them. While some see
this free-form propaganda for upcoming rock shows, protests,
yard sales and art happenings as the pulse of cultural life,
others--including Mayor Vera Katz--see it as a nuisance
at best, vandalism at worst. - Katz's office equates this
art form with graffiti (the official term is "pole
litter"). [...] For most poster critics, the argument
is more aesthetic. Many neighborhood activists and merchants
view fliers as a visual blight. This isn't the first time
the city has responded to such concerns by going on the
warpath.
"I think I spoke to a Willamette Week reporter about
this very issue 12 years ago," says Mike King, a local
graphic designer and poster artist. King and others involved
with Portland's art and music scene say a poster wipeout
could potentially devastate the city's homegrown culture.
For small clubs, bands and galleries, fliers are the one
and only source of promotion, and even larger music venues
rely on the virtually free medium. [...] Beyond immediate
threats to the local arts scene, King says anti-postering
efforts could hurt Portland's visual ecology over the long
term. "Poster art is ground zero of the design movement,"
he says. "Everything filters up from there. Ten years
ago you didn't see all the distressed, messed-up, distorted
graphics that you now see on TV commercials. It all started
on telephone poles."
