The America letterpress poster by Beautiful Angle was created in October 2015 in Tacoma, WA USA.
America
$375.00
4 in stock
4 in stock
Description
The America letterpress poster by Beautiful Angle was designed, written and printed in October of 2015. The images include a hand-carved linocut, as well as vintage printing plates gifted to us by Art Chantry. The text was printed with a combination of vintage wood type and vintage lead type. A lot of it.
This poster also demands a short explanation. For some reason that may be obvious to others but still remains a mystery to us, Beautiful Angle has a significant following of what we like to call middle-aged church-going white ladies. In order to (ahem) broaden our base, we determined to create a poster specifically designed to alienate this portion of our followers. So, we thought, let’s make a poster intentionally garish. Let’s make the subject astonishingly critical of the worst aspects of white, middle-class America. And, just to make sure, let’s add an image of the Statue of Liberty with her head chopped off.
The voice of the poster is that of a circus sideshow barker, who describes America as, among other things, a headless woman with a Colt pistol in each hand and a flaming sabre between her knees!
So did it work? No. An astonishing number of these middle-aged church-going white ladies have described this as their favorite poster and praised it for its beauty.
We’ll keep trying.
The words on the poster read:
Right this way, folks! You can’t afford to miss her! Behold! America, the headless woman! Feast your eyes as she dips her fingers into death’s sugar bowl and licks them clean! America! She drinks light beer with one hand and pokes a stick at the world with the other! A daring exhibition, folks, as she snatches the apple pie of Armageddon from the windowsill of old Aunt Sally! America, the headless woman! Satisfy your curiosity as she descends upon the midway like a chapter from the Old Testament! She eats gunpowder and spits like a Roman candle, all over the road! See sparks fly from her fingertips as she straddles her world-famous two-headed calf! To see is to believe! Watch as she attempts to draw out Leviathan with a hook and tie down its tongue with a nylon rope! A Colt pistol in each hand and a flaming sabre between her knees! America! The headless woman! Satisfy your curiosity! Feast your eyes! If you miss out for certain, you’re certain to miss out!