Gallery gives students cool break, unique look at art

Chris Richards Arizona Daily Wildcat Posters from around Europe are featured in the Union Gallery through Sept. 5

It's quiet, you can actually feel the air conditioning, and there are interesting things on the walls to look at.

Currently on the walls in the Union Gallery is "Posters from the International Theater Poster Exhibition-Rzeszow, Poland," composed of theater posters that were award-winners in the biennial poster competition.

Only 500 out of about 2,000 posters are chosen for exhibition, and only 5 or6 of those receive awards. About 60 made it to the university for our viewing pleasure.

"This is the best of everything produced," says Roslev Szaybo, an internationally-known poster designer whose work includes some of the posters on display as well as many album covers from years back.(He's done covers for Judas Priest, Simon and Garfunkel, and Leonard Cohen, to name a few.)

The posters hail from countries such as Hungary, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the United States and Japan, with most of the pieces on exhibition from Poland.

The history of poster art in Poland is actually quite interesting; it began

in the post-WW II era as a way for artist's to express themselves. Posters were not considered "art" and therefore were not really controlled by the government. So, artists used the streets and their posters as a subtle form of rebellion; no one would really criticize or censor the posters because the government "treated them as secondary," said Z. Rybka, the exhibition's curator. That history has expanded into colloquial art in the form of advertising.

It's even more intriguing for the English-speaking American college student to look at, since we have absolutely no idea what the poster is advertising. We can then look at the pictures on a different level, evaluating the artistic value.

"You cannot connect to a specific play," Szaybo said, "you can only admire what you're looking at. Once you know, everything is much clearer."

Not knowing what the plays were about, I took down some immediate observations about some of the more eye-catching posters.

Two bright and colorful posters hanging on the west wall have an ironic, childish yet disturbing look to them, kind of like Keith Haring on crack. The images are of people playing tennis using a human heart as a ball, and women shooting holes through each other.

These posters were more interesting than the possessed Emma Thompson of the U.S. poster not only in terms of artistic value, but also in the mystery of what the play was actually about. It also makes me think that there's definitely something lacking in American theater scripts.

The exhibit runs through Sept. 5, and I highly recommend strolling through even if the crowds in the Student Union don't try to step on you.

You'll be entertained by many of the Shakespeare advertisements, and you'll also be able to enjoy a fleeting moment of cool air and peace.