Auckland Museum Presents Towards the Precipice
ART EXHIBITION
20 April - 20 May ,2007
Towards the Precipice presents Spanish, German, British and Soviet posters from the period 1935 to 1942. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 they represented the voice of Republican opposition to the right-wing Nationalist forces of General Franco. The Nazi regime used posters to win ordinary Germans over to their worldview by showing them, and the world, the promised material advantages of belonging to Hitler's Germany. The British posters cover the early years of the Second World War and build upon the generally accepted idea that the war was both just and necessary to defend traditional British values. The Soviet posters were designed following Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. They were later adapted by the British to reinforce the resulting Anglo-Soviet alliance against Hitler.
These posters present their views in a way that is both overtly manipulative and stunningly simple when compared to the methods and media that are used to influence public opinion today.
The exhibition title, Towards the Precipice, is taken from the book Countdown to War: a personal memoir of Europe, 1938-1940 by the New Zealander Geoffrey Cox. The title refers to the period in August 1939 when Cox was in Paris. On 21 August he learned that Germany and the Soviet Union had agreed to sign a non-aggression pact, which, for Cox, confirmed that war was imminent.
20 April - 20 May ,2007
Towards the Precipice presents Spanish, German, British and Soviet posters from the period 1935 to 1942. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39 they represented the voice of Republican opposition to the right-wing Nationalist forces of General Franco. The Nazi regime used posters to win ordinary Germans over to their worldview by showing them, and the world, the promised material advantages of belonging to Hitler's Germany. The British posters cover the early years of the Second World War and build upon the generally accepted idea that the war was both just and necessary to defend traditional British values. The Soviet posters were designed following Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. They were later adapted by the British to reinforce the resulting Anglo-Soviet alliance against Hitler.
These posters present their views in a way that is both overtly manipulative and stunningly simple when compared to the methods and media that are used to influence public opinion today.
The exhibition title, Towards the Precipice, is taken from the book Countdown to War: a personal memoir of Europe, 1938-1940 by the New Zealander Geoffrey Cox. The title refers to the period in August 1939 when Cox was in Paris. On 21 August he learned that Germany and the Soviet Union had agreed to sign a non-aggression pact, which, for Cox, confirmed that war was imminent.
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