In with the old – out of the archives part 2
In response to yesterday’s post Jakub writes this:
Hi, I’ve just recently discovered these two:
Old ads: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/
Book covers, flyers etc: http://www.coverbrowser.com/-jakub
Thanks Jakub! The digital archive of old advertisements got me especially giddy. Something so fascinating about them. It also got me thinking about a recent interview on the Colbert Report with David Ross, an art buff (who doesn’t seem to be on Wikipedia’s list of famous people who share them name). They were looking at and discussing Olympics imagery through the ages . The interview was short but it was also a pretty fascinating journey through the history of the games, larger social and geopolitical histories, and the story of the medium of the poster itself and all the roles it can play (art-propaganda-advertisement-etc). I love this way of thinking about objects!
I used to volunteer in a political poster archive, and I often felt that many people didn’t really understand that there is a reason for archives beyond preservation. There’s all sorts of things we can learn from archival materials – the example above is but one of endless creative possibilities.
