What do you think?
Rate this book
Armed By Design: Posters and Publications of Cuba’s Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America
304 pages, Paperback
Published January 14, 2025
15 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 13, 2025
The editors have produced a volume of penetrating studies interleaved with such beautiful graphics it rivals coffee table books. It is a big, beautiful, thoughtful and internationalist consideration of the art of the Organization of Solidarity with Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL).
Big: Its 320 pages are filled with images, many full page. There's a thumbnail gallery showing the front covers of almost all OSPAAAL publications which serves as an invaluable visual index. Even without counting the thumbnails, there are over 300 images. There are a dozen essays and interviews with as many contributors, plus a portfolio of recent posters inspired by OSPAAL's designs. This is the first study to extend serious attention to graphics beyond the famous posters, examining Tricontinental (the journal, 1966-2019) and Tricontinental Bulletin (1966-1980) plus supplements and books.
Beautiful: Almost all the images are in color, but it also includes black and white images from inside Tricontinental; this is a first. The creativity of these matches that of the posters; many were created by the same artists. The covers of Tricontinental often resemble the posters, but with a wider artistic range including collage, staged photos, comics, paintings, drawings and more.
Thoughtful: the essays and interviews with and by artists, historians, archivists and activists cover such topics as the design process, the impact on activists in the U.S., ongoing comics production, and case studies of the connections with North Korea and Palestine (see the Table of Contents below). The book is an essential contribution to Third World/Global Studies, Cultural Studies, historians of the period, and most of all to internationalist artists and activists worldwide.
Internationalist: In the spirit of OSPAAAL, all parts of the book are in Spanish, French, and Portuguese as well as English. The index has entries for some 75 countries and peoples. Also in the spirit of OSPAAAL, the book is licensed as Creative Commons 4.0, permitting free reproduction for non-commercial purposes, with attribution.
Full disclosure: I coauthored the brief introduction to the visual index and with Freedom Archives helped digitize some of the images, but full credit for the book goes to the editorial collective. For a large collection of scanned issues, see the Freedom Archives web site.
Big: Its 320 pages are filled with images, many full page. There's a thumbnail gallery showing the front covers of almost all OSPAAAL publications which serves as an invaluable visual index. Even without counting the thumbnails, there are over 300 images. There are a dozen essays and interviews with as many contributors, plus a portfolio of recent posters inspired by OSPAAL's designs. This is the first study to extend serious attention to graphics beyond the famous posters, examining Tricontinental (the journal, 1966-2019) and Tricontinental Bulletin (1966-1980) plus supplements and books.
Beautiful: Almost all the images are in color, but it also includes black and white images from inside Tricontinental; this is a first. The creativity of these matches that of the posters; many were created by the same artists. The covers of Tricontinental often resemble the posters, but with a wider artistic range including collage, staged photos, comics, paintings, drawings and more.
Thoughtful: the essays and interviews with and by artists, historians, archivists and activists cover such topics as the design process, the impact on activists in the U.S., ongoing comics production, and case studies of the connections with North Korea and Palestine (see the Table of Contents below). The book is an essential contribution to Third World/Global Studies, Cultural Studies, historians of the period, and most of all to internationalist artists and activists worldwide.
Internationalist: In the spirit of OSPAAAL, all parts of the book are in Spanish, French, and Portuguese as well as English. The index has entries for some 75 countries and peoples. Also in the spirit of OSPAAAL, the book is licensed as Creative Commons 4.0, permitting free reproduction for non-commercial purposes, with attribution.
Full disclosure: I coauthored the brief introduction to the visual index and with Freedom Archives helped digitize some of the images, but full credit for the book goes to the editorial collective. For a large collection of scanned issues, see the Freedom Archives web site.
Displaying 1 of 1 review