From grubby dorm rooms to art galleries and museums, concert posters have told the story of rock ‘n’ roll over its nearly 70-year existence.
But even as tastes and technology have changed, the best posters still do the same things they did in the late 1960s and early ’70s heyday of Bill Graham’s psychedelic shows at San Francisco’s Fillmore West.
“On first viewing, the poster informs you what the event will be like and why you should attend. After the concert it stands for what the event was like and why it was special,” writes historian Paul Grushkin in the foreward to “One Thing Leads to Another: The Posters and Art of Dan Stiles.”
“The best poster art stands for real truth in advertising.”
“One Thing Leads to Another,” published this month by powerHouse Books, is a striking update on the culture of gig posters. The softcover book contains glossy reproductions of 200 of Stiles’ work for acts such as Sonic Youth, The Roots, Arctic Monkeys, Lauryn Hill and Wilco — many of them from Colorado gigs. The “new-school” approach of the Portland, Ore.-based artist favors bold, colorful graphics, clean lines and chunky shapes that border on the abstract.
It’s an embarrassment of visual riches, but it represents less than half of the posters the 44-year-old has created over a career that began with a passion for punk rock and now finds Stiles crafting images for Google, the BBC and other corporate clients.
“If you create a body of work that’s really interesting, Nike or MTV will see it and think, ‘This guy fits in with what we’re selling,’ ” Stiles said over the phone. “The best-paying work is still outside of the world of posters. They’re much more visible than ever before, but when I’m picking my kids up from school and another parent asks me what I do for a living, 99 percent of the time I just get a blank stare.”
Graphically speaking
Growing up in Ann Arbor, Mich., Stiles gravitated toward art and writing more than sports, which primed him for the graphical playground of skateboards, comic books and rock T-shirts.
“I always thought fine art was bull—-,” Stiles said. “But then I started seeing art applied in a way that I could get into it.”
When he moved to Eugene, Ore., to attend college at the University of Oregon, Stiles lucked into a concert ecosystem that sat smack-dab between San Francisco and Portland. He benefitted from the stream of Seattle-bred grunge and alt-rock bands flowing through town, who paid him $20 and all the beer he could drink to make fliers for their shows.
Soon, he was studying the work of noted poster artists Coop, Frank Kozik, Art Chantry and others, playing with color and form while delving into the history of a culture that straddled creativity and commerce.
Posters, he realized, did something photographs and paintings couldn’t, cutting through the visual noise to deliver a practical message mixed with a specific (and often subversive) point of view.
“Most people, and especially galleries, don’t know what to do with posters. Are they art? Advertising? They’re confused by it,” Stiles said. “If you didn’t get into (posters) in high school or college, they’re probably lost on you. But when you get 100,000 music fans together, like at the Flatstock show at South by Southwest (in Austin, Texas), they get it.”
Poster children
Flatstock and its parent organization, the American Poster Institute, coalesced in 2002 around the GigPosters.com website, which gave poster artists and fans a desperately-needed online forum. Since then, Flatstock’s cross-country incarnations and the 2012 film “Just Like Being There” (a gig-poster documentary with an appearance by Stiles; available on Netflix) have popularized this niche but vibrant, growing community.
Now it’s rare to find a music festival or merchandise table at an indie-rock concert that doesn’t include some form of organized poster display.
“EyeRock was something I wanted to do after seeing Flatstock at South by Southwest,” Kendall Smith, the executive director of The Denver Post’s Underground Music Showcase, said of his local version. “In the digital age, when so much artwork can be done that way, the whole screenprinting thing has really become a craft, and Denver’s a very crafty town.”
The nationwide, Internet-fueled turn toward DIY art doesn’t diminish the impact of a well-made poster, however.
“Posters are unique,” said Stiles. “They started as a form of advertising, then moved onto merchandise, and now they’re art. It’s not lucrative — even if some of my out-of-print work goes for $400 on eBay — but I enjoy doing it. It’s another way to getting unfettered creativity out into the world.”
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642, jwenzel@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnwenzel
