The folks who created the legendary rock posters for The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix and the Butthole Surfers were just as counter-culture as the bands they promoted.
These artists didn’t trash their hotel rooms or date supermodels. They simply defied all the rules of commercial art to become legends in their field.
“American Artifact: The Rise of American Rock Poster Art” pays tribute to the men and women whose imagination played a small but pivotal role in the rise of folk, punk and rock music.
Writer/director Merle Becker takes us on a deeply personal trek through the past 40-odd years, starting with the first artists who drew inspiration from ’60s era music.
They toiled in obscurity, content with the idea that their posters might draw extra attention to their favorite bands. After all, acts like Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead weren’t getting their music played on the radio back then.
Their talent ultimately exceeded those modest goals.
The artists’ work spoke directly to the counter culture, with imagery and text that defied conventional art practices. They used colors any respectable art professor would tell students to avoid at all costs, creating posters which repelled and attracted viewers all at once. They buried the text in their posters so that only the band’s biggest fans could decipher them.
“If you were stoned you could read it,” one of the rock poster experts in the film explains.
Becker introduces us to the biggest names in the field, like Stanley Mouse who created the iconic skull imagery for The Grateful Dead. The artists eschewed corporate America, eager to build upon the subversive spirit of the era’s greatest performers.
Becker’s exhaustive research reveals the passion - and the humility - lurking in the hearts of the rock poster artists. There’s some bitterness there, too, but mostly they appear delighted to be able to share their stories with an appreciate audience.
Today’s rock poster artists connect to fans via web sites like gigposters.com, but they also fall back on decades old methods like silk screening in their homes to create their personal paeans to the modern rock gods.
Becker’s film could have quizzed a few more musicians to learn how the posters impacted their careers, and the final half hour isn’t as compelling as the scenes recalling the earliest days of the movement.
“American Artifact” beautifully captures how artists pushed the boundaries of their own work in solidarity with the musicians who mattered most to them.
(Photo: The new documentary “American Artifact” celebrates rock poster artists like Stanley Mouse who created the imagery that became synonymous with The Grateful Dead.)
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I'm an award-winning journalist and film critic with more than a decade of experience in newspapers, magazines and the Web. I'm a member of both the Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association and the Denver Film Critics Society.
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