Carol Wells
Founder and Director, Center for the Study of Political Graphics
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"The Center for the Study of Political Graphics' human rights and protest posters are calls to action. They educate about diverse issues, fan the flames of protest, and remind future generations of the good fights that were won—and those still being fought. An effective poster can provoke an insight into another way of looking at the world. It can break through the insulating bubble that surrounds us all, offering us a choice. We can see the world in a different way…or not. And once we see the world differently, we have another choice: Try to make the world a better place…or not. There’s a slogan that describes this process: ‘You can know and not care, but you can’t care if you don’t know.’ Posters help us know. Caring is up to us."
Biography
Carol Wells earned her B.A. in history and M.A. in art history at UCLA. She taught the history of art and architecture for 13 years at California State University, Fullerton. Wells founded the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in 1989, a Los Angeles–based educational and research organization that collects, preserves, documents, and exhibits posters relating to historical and contemporary movements for social change. Using its more than 90,000 human rights and protest posters and prints, CSPG creates traveling and online thematic exhibitions and publications. In this capacity and beyond, Wells has published numerous articles and catalog essays on political poster art, and has produced over 100 political poster exhibitions since 1981.
Photo Credits
Installation of “To Protect & Serve? Five Decades of Posters Protesting Police Violence” at the Social and Public Art Resource Center (SPARC), Venice, CA
Posters from collection of the Center for the Study of Political Graphics: Viet Nam Aztlan, Malaquías Montoya, Chicano Vietnam Project, 1973, Berkeley, CA
Justice Now! Reparations Now!, James Kodani; Little Tokyo Art Workshop; Little Tokyo Peoples Rights Organization, 1981, Los Angeles, CA
Fight for the International Hotel, Rachael Romero, San Francisco Poster Brigade, 1977, San Francisco, CA
Rural Women Unite Against Violence, Network of Rural Women's Groups, Silkscreen, Circa 1970s, Sri Lanka
Fukushima Mon Amour, Yossi Lemel, Offset, 2011, Tel Aviv, Israel
Warning Against Warming, U. G. Sato, Pan-Pacific Committee for Environmental Poster Design Exhibition, 1998, Tokyo, Japan