219
●
(BLACK RADICALISM.) SIMBIONESE LIBERATION ARMY-PATTI
HEARST.
United States Department of Justice WANTED POSTER.
F.B.I. poster
10
3
⁄
8
x 8 inches; a couple of small spots, creases where folded.
Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1974
[500/750]
A SCARCE EARLY WANTED POSTER
for David De Freeze and members of his self-styled
“Simbionese Liberation Army,” with Patti Hearst as only a “material witness”—she later
joined the group. The “SLA” was a small revolutionary group active between 1973 and 1975
that considered itself a “vanguard” of the larger, popular revolution to come. Their motto was
“Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people.” While the group had com-
mitted various thefts, no one knew much about them until they kidnapped Patty Hearst, the
heiress to a huge media empire and her boyfriend Steven Weed. A media frenzy started when
Hearst, in a series of audio-taped messages delivered to, and broadcast by regional news,
denounced her parents and declared she had joined the SLA. She would later use the excuse
that she had been “Brainwashed” when she was eventually tried.
220
●
(BLACK PANTHERS.)
Black Power.
“Op art” piece with a dizzying white on
black design of concentric squares, growing smaller and smaller towards the center where
the line ends; and the words “Black Power” in red at the bottom, not signed.
Np, [1960’s]
[1,000/1,500]
The first piece of “Op Art” relative to the black power movement that we have ever seen. Op
Art is derived from the constructivist practices of the Bauhaus. This German school, founded by
Walter Gropius, stressed the relationship of form and function within a framework of analysis
and rationality. Students were taught to focus on the overall design, or entire composition, in
order to present unified works. When the Bauhaus was forced to close in 1933, many of its
instructors fled to the United States where the movement took root in Chicago and eventually
at the Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, where Anni and Josef Albers
would come to teach.
219
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