I really, really struggled with this one. I was torn between pursuing two different concepts‹first, the lack of these freedoms in other countries; second, a caution about the abuse of these freedoms in the US. I ultimately went with the latter. The point is that every day we see how these freedoms can not only be taken for granted, but that they can be twisted to harmful ends by the very people they are meant to serve. Thus Freedom from Want leads to rampant obesity; Freedom of Worship leads to using God to hate; Freedom of Speech leads to destruction of property; and Freedom from Fear leads to the proliferation and deadly use of guns.
Chipp Kidd is a graphic designer and writer based in New York City. His book jacket designs for Alfred A. Knopf, where he has worked since 1986, have helped spawn a revolution in the art of American book packaging... The Cheese Monkeys, Kidd’s first novel, was published in 2001 and was a national bestseller, a well as a New York Times Notable book of the Year. His second novel, The Learners, was published in 2008 to tremendous acclaim. A comprehensive monograph of Kidd’s work, CHIP KIDD: BOOK ONE was published in 2005 with an introduction by John Updike; the 400 page book features over 800 works. He is the recipient of the 2007 National Design Award for Communications. Of his work, Time Out New York write: “The history of book design can be split into two eras: before graphic designer Chip Kidd and after.”
Monday, June 23, 2008
Chip Kidd
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Design and Politics: Steven Heller's NY Times Article
As the Rockwell and Thoughts on Democracy posters illustrate, design can influence politics (and politics can influence design). Steven Heller, one of the co-curators of the Thoughts on Democracy exhibit, addresses this relationship in the context of the current presidential campaign in his recent NY Times article, "From Mousepads to Piggybanks".
From Mousepads to Piggy Banks (NY Times; May 4, 2008)
This primary season campaign souvenirs are cropping up like kudzu. Retail stores on each of the candidates’ official Web sites offer copious merchandise from lapel pins and mousepads to hoodies and onesies alongside the requisite buttons and bumper stickers. Given the ease with which a logo or slogan can be stamped on any product, the sheer quantity of retail campaign stuff is possibly greater than at any other time in history, albeit a lot less campy than during other elections.
What a particular campaign chooses to sell may not reveal anything momentous about a candidate who has little to say about the inventory (unless, of course, they have relatives in the novelty or dry goods businesses), but the products do say something about how strategists use consumer culture to propagate the candidates’ images (and get free advertising).
So I asked four design critics to examine the quality of the candidates’ online stores, and to go a little below the surface to extract some deeper meaning from the merchandise being sold.
John McCain comes out ahead in the retail offerings with the broadest inventory (from wall clocks to water bottles), notes Julie Lasky, editor of ID magazine. Hillary Clinton comes in a close second (including coffee mugs and plastic piggy banks) and Barack Obama a more focused third.
But the difference is not just quantity. “McCain is the only candidate to offer leisure-class items like polo shirts (including stylishly hued pink ones for men) and sailing jackets before getting down to the nitty-gritty of hoodies,” Ms. Lasky reports. “Clinton and Obama are all about working-class apparel: T-shirts, hoodies and fleece jackets.”
Karrie Jacobs, a contributing editor to Metropolis, concurs that Senator Obama’s merchandise reflects the grassroots insurgent culture of his campaign. She notes that Senator Clinton’s paraphernalia is “conspicuously ugly,” and questions the taste of whoever is in charge of her campaign’s merchandise.
“Where the real editorial opportunity lies,” adds Allan Chochinov, co-founder of Core77.com, an industrial design website and blog, “is in the accessories section, and though the easy targets are Clinton’s ironic ‘ruler’ ($3.50; volume pricing available) and McCain’s more oblique ‘ice scraper’ ($10.00), it’s Obama’s ‘hope bracelet’ that is sure to move the merchandise — 4 bucks each and available in both black and white.”
In a race where the issue of race and ethnicity has reared its predictable head, it is also interesting to see that Senators McCain and Obama especially reach out to their Irish constituencies and their female supporters. Senator Clinton sells her “Hillary for Women” paraphernalia lumped in with narrowly focused buttons for Asian-American and Pacific Islanders, African-Americans, gays, educators, nurses, Jews and veterans — but no mention of the Irish.
Julie Lasky also observes that Senators Clinton and Obama both freely borrow the “Got Milk?” slogan (Obama: “Got Hope?”; Hillary: “Got Experience?”), which is less indicative of their unoriginality than of the ubiquity of the milk campaign.
Alissa Walker, a design blogger, says John McCain’s merchandise works well because it clearly projects the image of a “super-serious” candidate “in shades of black, navy blue and gold.” She points out that his nautical lapel pins and polo shirts emphasize his military experience.
But Ms. Walker was most impressed by his ownership of the four words: leadership, experience, integrity and honor, which emblazon everything from shirts to signs. “Who wouldn’t be proud to borrow a bit from his legacy and stick this leadership sign on their front lawn? Without wearing the standard McCain shirt, you can wear his values with the message of your choice. I really like this option, and the words that he picked. The only bummer here is the women for McCain stuff — truly stereotypical in a sickening shade of Pepto-Bismol pink.”
Senator Obama’s site is the only one to post a disclaimer that some items are back-ordered; whether true or not, it is a brilliant retail tactic.
“But with all the press Obama’s getting for the design of his campaign,” says Alissa Walker, “I was pretty disappointed by his products. There’s really not much that differentiates Obama’s merchandise from Hillary’s: it’s all the same color of blue.”
However, Senator Obama has a unique multimedia section, including a DVD of his speeches. “The Obama-as-cultural-icon angle is absolutely achieved by selling documentary-style videos of him; he’s crossed the line into entertainment,” says Ms. Walker.
She wonders how effective the merchandise on Clinton’s site is since it is “overwhelmingly girly. All the t-shirts look like they’re designed for women or being worn by women. The lapel pins are really matronly, from the Hillary bling pin to her signature pin by Ann Hand, a jewelry artist.” But Ms. Walker loves the “I’m your girl” button with its casual portrait and Senator Clinton’s handwriting. “They should make this image into posters because it gives her campaign a much-needed boost of that evasive personality.”
Julie Lasky observes that in all this, Senator McCain may lose the vote of bargain seekers: at $25, his T-shirts are $4.92 more expensive than similar versions on the Clinton and Obama Web sites.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Thoughts on Democracy on Flickr
Tag, comment, and share images and posters from Thoughts on Democracy with Flickr!
To contribute your own photos to the Thoughts on Democracy Flickr site, use the tag "Thoughts on Democracy."
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Thoughts on Democracy Press Release
THOUGHTS ON DEMOCRACY EXHIBITION DEBUTS JULY 5, 2008 AT THE WOLFSONIAN–FIU
60 Contemporary Artists and Designers Offer Interpretations of Norman Rockwell’s
Iconic “Four Freedoms” Posters
MIAMI BEACH, FL (May 29, 2008) - The Wolfsonian–Florida International University announces Thoughts on Democracy, an innovative initiative that brings together 60 renowned contemporary artists and designers to present original works inspired by Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” posters. Thoughts on Democracy is part of CELEBRATING AMERICA, a series of four exhibitions on view in 2008 and 2009, that examine and celebrate the social, political, and personal American experience from the 1930s to the present.
In keeping with its theme, Thoughts on Democracy is free and open to the public in the museum’s lobby beginning July 5 through December 7, 2008. The exhibition will culminate with an event celebrating democracy during the prestigious 2008 Art Basel Miami Beach festival. In conjunction with the show, The Wolfsonian is also producing limited-edition portfolios of the new works (available in September), with all proceeds benefiting the graphic arts acquisitions and curatorial and educational programs. A poster that compiles all four of Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” images is on view in The Wolfsonian’s permanent collection gallery.
“We invited artists and designers to participate in a ‘graphic remix’ that would reinterpret Rockwell’s posters in today’s visual language,” said Wolfsonian Art Director Tim Hossler, who conceived the project and is co-curating the show with Steven Heller, co-chair of the MFA Design Department at the School of Visual Arts. “We are thrilled with the response and are eager to see how the participants’ exploration of democracy stimulates public conversation on the subject.”
Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” paintings were first published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943, and were later issued by the government as posters for a U.S. war bond drive. The paintings illustrated the ideals expressed in Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s impassioned “Four Freedoms” speech to Congress in 1941, in which he envisioned a “world founded upon four essential human freedoms”—Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear.
“We are always looking for new, provocative ways to foster dialogue around our collection in relation to contemporary issues, particularly when we are able to involve contemporary artists and graphic designers,” said The Wolfsonian’s director, Cathy Leff. “Thoughts on Democracy will be a fascinating and timely reflection of how Roosevelt’s universal ideals, articulated in 1941, are interpreted and expressed in 2008.” She explained that The Wolfsonian’s impetus for the project was a recent gift of the “Four Freedoms” posters to the museum by Leonard A. Lauder.
The public will also be able to enjoy and contemplate the new works beyond the museum walls. The Wolfsonian, in partnership with the award-winning international advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, also playing a role as exhibitor, will display the posters in newspapers and on billboards. The Wolfsonian will also offer public educational programming in conjunction with the exhibit and promote dialogue about the show on the internet using web-based tools (Flickr, iGoogle gadgets), a Thoughts on Democracy blog (http://thoughtsondemocracy.blogspot.com), virtual worlds, and social networking sites (The Wolfsonian Facebook page).
In keeping with the spirit of expanding Thoughts on Democracy into the greater public domain, The Wolfsonian will also partner with Turnberry for the Arts to present a concurrent exhibition of the posters in the Aventura Mall (www.aventuramall.com), 19501 Biscayne Boulevard, beginning July 5 through August 2008. “Turnberry for the Arts is delighted to have the opportunity to share the artworks in this exciting and timely exhibition with visitors at Aventura Mall. The Thoughts on Democracy project is a wonderful complement to the works by contemporary artists that are permanently on display at the mall. Two of the artists - Lawrence Weiner, whose installation is currently on view here, and Daniel Arsham, whose installation will be unveiled at the mall this fall, are also featured in The Wolfsonian's exhibition," noted Jacqueline Fletcher, Director of the Turnberry for the Arts program.
All artists and designers included in the exhibition have generously donated their time and creativity. Thoughts on Democracy is supported by a generous grant from the Funding Arts Network (FAN), in partnership with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Wolfsonian is the only recipient of FAN’s Knight New Work Award for 2008; the $50,000 grant was awarded to the museum in May 2008. “The ambitious scale of Thoughts on Democracy and its resonating message of democracy made this project irresistibly compelling,” said Rachel Blechman, president of FAN. Additional support for Thoughts on Democracy is provided by Turnberry for the Arts exhibited at the Aventura Mall.
About the artists
As illustrated by the quantity and quality of the posters that will be on display, the idea behind Thoughts on Democracy was received with an outpouring of enthusiasm by the participants. Local, national, and international visual artists, graphic designers, and one poet contributed works to the project. A brief biography of select artists from the exhibition, and a statement about their poster follows below:
Elliott Earls is a performance artist, musician, and designer, and is designer-in-residence and head of the Graduate Graphic Design Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Earls has lectured extensively at American universities, and has given workshops on design, culture and new media in Europe and America.
Artist’s Statement: Entitled “Liberty Weeps,” Elliott Earls’ contribution to The Wolfsonian’s Thoughts on Democracy poster project was inspired by Eugene Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People." In this piece, Liberty is embodied in the innocence of a crying child. Is Liberty crying for the victims of September 11th? Is Liberty crying over the loss of civil liberties in the War on Terror? Is Liberty crying for our fallen soldiers in Iraq or for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? The open nature of the language in this poster contrasted with the specificity of the image is meant to provoke discussion.
Experimental Jetset is an Amsterdam graphic design unit founded in 1997 by Marieke Stolk, Erwin Brinkers and Danny van den Dungen. Focusing on printed matter and installation work, Experimental Jetset has worked on projects for the Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum (SMCS), Purple Institute, Centre Pompidou, Colette, Dutch Post Group (TPG), Réunion des Musées Nationaux (RMN), Le Cent Quatre (104), De Theatercompagnie, and t-shirt label 2K/Gingham.
Artist’s Statement: The slogan “Loose Lips Build Ships” is a collision of two iconic WWII posters: the “Freedom of Speech” poster as painted by Rockwell, and the “Loose Lips Sink Ships” poster, the US Office of War Information's attempt to limit the possibility of people inadvertently giving useful information to enemy spies.
On the one hand, our contribution is a tribute to the concept of freedom of speech: the idea that all constructive things start with an open exchange of ideas. On the other hand, we wanted to show our uneasiness with the concept of propaganda. Acknowledging freedom of speech by turning a propaganda slogan on its head is our attempt to create a little bit of friction, or better said, to reveal a friction that is already there.
Taku Satoh is a Tokyo-based graphic and product designer, and the director of 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT in Tokyo. He attended Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music for both undergraduate and graduate school and then joined the firm Dentsu, before establishing the Taku Satoh Design Office in 1984.
Artist’s Statement:
Inspired by the four posters of freedoms drawn by Normal Rockwell, I have added
the most important kind of freedom for the present time.
That is “Freedom to Imagine.” Nothing should prevent imagination.
Imagination creates the future. Imagination cultivates technology.
Imagination saves the environment. Imagination protects human rights.
Imagination prevents battles. Imagination creates art.
Everything begins with imagination.
Of course it is imagination for coexistence of different cultures, not a selfish imagination.
Scott Stowell is the proprietor of Open, an independent design studio that creates rewarding experiences for people that look, read, and think. Before starting Open, Stowell received a BFA in graphic design from Rhode Island School of Design and served as the art director of Colors magazine in Rome and a senior designer at M&Co. New York. A former vice president of AIGA/NY, Stowell teaches at Yale and the School of Visual Arts.
Artist’s Statement: This poster uses words – from FDR's speech and Rockwell's posters – distilled into calls to action that are still relevant and urgent today. The typography was inspired both by traditional "show print" posters and the I AM A MAN signs from Martin Luther King's 1968 march in Memphis. Two of these calls to action are usually heard from the left. They appear in blue. The other two, more often heard from the right, are in red.
Lawrence Weiner is a central figure in the history of conceptual art, whose work often takes the form of typographic texts. The first presentation of his work was in Mill Valley, California in 1960. He participates in public and private projects and exhibitions in both the new and old world maintaining that: art is the empirical fact of the relationships of objects to objects in relation to human beings and not dependent upon historical precedent for either use or legitimacy.
Artist’s Statement:
LIFE • LIBERTY • & • THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS
N'EST-CE-PAS?
About The Wolfsonian–Florida International University
The Wolfsonian is a museum, library, and research center that uses objects to illustrate the persuasive power of art and design, to explore what it means to be modern, and to tell the story of social, historical, and technological changes that have transformed our world. The collections comprise approximately 120,000 objects from the period of 1885 to 1945—the height of the Industrial Revolution to the end of the Second World War—in a variety of media including furniture; industrial-design objects; works in glass, ceramics, and metal; rare books; periodicals; ephemera; works on paper; paintings; textiles; and medals.
The Wolfsonian is located at 1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, Fla. Admission is $7 adults; $5 seniors, students, and children six-12; free for Wolfsonian members, State University System of Florida staff and students with ID, children under six, and Miami Beach residents with ID. The museum is open Monday, Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday from noon-6pm; Thursday and Friday from noon-9pm; and is closed on Wednesday. Contact us at 305.531.1001 or visit us online at www.wolfsonian.org.
The Wolfsonian receives ongoing support from the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs; the Florida Arts Council; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council; the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Foundation; the William J. & Tina Rosenberg Foundation; Continental Airlines, the preferred airline of The Wolfsonian; Crispin Porter + Bogusky; The Miami Herald; Bacardi U.S.A., Inc; Robert Mondavi Winery; and Pistils & Petals.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms" Speech
On January 6, 1941, United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt presented his annual State of the Union Address to Congress. Presented when the United States was on the brink of entering into World War II, Roosevelt’s speech has become known as the “Four Freedoms” speech for the President’s enunciation of the “four essential human freedoms:” freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of want, and freedom from fear.
Hear FDR's speech at The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library
Full Text of The Four Freedoms Speech
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress:
I address you, the Members of the Seventy-seventh Congress, at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union. I use the word "unprecedented," because at no previous time has American security been as seriously threatened from without as it is today.
Since the permanent formation of our Government under the Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. Fortunately, only one of these--the four-year War Between the States--ever threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, one hundred and thirty million Americans, in forty-eight States, have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity.
It is true that prior to 1914 the United States often had been disturbed by events in other Continents. We had even engaged in two wars with European nations and in a number of undeclared wars in the West Indies, in the Mediterranean and in the Pacific for the maintenance of American rights and for the principles of peaceful commerce. But in no case had a serious threat been raised against our national safety or our continued independence.
What I seek to convey is the historic truth that the United States as a nation has at all times maintained clear, definite opposition, to any attempt to lock us in behind an ancient Chinese wall while the procession of civilization went past. Today, thinking of our children and of their children, we oppose enforced isolation for ourselves or for any other part of the Americas.
That determination of ours, extending over all these years, was proved, for example, during the quarter century of wars following the French Revolution.
While the Napoleonic struggles did threaten interests of the United States because of the French foothold in the West Indies and in Louisiana, and while we engaged in the War of 1812 to vindicate our right to peaceful trade, it is nevertheless clear that neither France nor Great Britain, nor any other nation, was aiming at domination of the whole world.
In like fashion from 1815 to 1914-- ninety-nine years-- no single war in Europe or in Asia constituted a real threat against our future or against the future of any other American nation.
Except in the Maximilian interlude in Mexico, no foreign power sought to establish itself in this Hemisphere; and the strength of the British fleet in the Atlantic has been a friendly strength. It is still a friendly strength.
Even when the World War broke out in 1914, it seemed to contain only small threat of danger to our own American future. But, as time went on, the American people began to visualize what the downfall of democratic nations might mean to our own democracy.
We need not overemphasize imperfections in the Peace of Versailles. We need not harp on failure of the democracies to deal with problems of world reconstruction. We should remember that the Peace of 1919 was far less unjust than the kind of "pacification" which began even before Munich, and which is being carried on under the new order of tyranny that seeks to spread over every continent today. The American people have unalterably set their faces against that tyranny.
Every realist knows that the democratic way of life is at this moment being' directly assailed in every part of the world--assailed either by arms, or by secret spreading of poisonous propaganda by those who seek to destroy unity and promote discord in nations that are still at peace.
During sixteen long months this assault has blotted out the whole pattern of democratic life in an appalling number of independent nations, great and small. The assailants are still on the march, threatening other nations, great and small.
Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the Union," I find it, unhappily, necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.
Armed defense of democratic existence is now being gallantly waged in four continents. If that defense fails, all the population and all the resources of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia will be dominated by the conquerors. Let us remember that the total of those populations and their resources in those four continents greatly exceeds the sum total of the population and the resources of the whole of the Western Hemisphere-many times over.
In times like these it is immature--and incidentally, untrue--for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed, and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.
No realistic American can expect from a dictator's peace international generosity, or return of true independence, or world disarmament, or freedom of expression, or freedom of religion -or even good business.
Such a peace would bring no security for us or for our neighbors. "Those, who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted; but we cannot afford to be soft-headed.
We must always be wary of those who with sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal preach the "ism" of appeasement.
We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests.
I have recently pointed out how quickly the tempo of modern warfare could bring into our very midst the physical attack which we must eventually expect if the dictator nations win this war.
There is much loose talk of our immunity from immediate and direct invasion from across the seas. Obviously, as long as the British Navy retains its power, no such danger exists. Even if there were no British Navy, it is not probable that any enemy would be stupid enough to attack us by landing troops in the United States from across thousands of miles of ocean, until it had acquired strategic bases from which to operate.
But we learn much from the lessons of the past years in Europe-particularly the lesson of Norway, whose essential seaports were captured by treachery and surprise built up over a series of years.
The first phase of the invasion of this Hemisphere would not be the landing of regular troops. The necessary strategic points would be occupied by secret agents and their dupes- and great numbers of them are already here, and in Latin America.
As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive, they-not we--will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack.
That is why the future of all the American Republics is today in serious danger.
That is why this Annual Message to the Congress is unique in our history.
That is why every member of the Executive Branch of the Government and every member of the Congress faces great responsibility and great accountability.
The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily-almost exclusively--to meeting this foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency.
Just as our national policy in internal affairs has been based upon a decent respect for the rights and the dignity of all our fellow men within our gates, so our national policy in foreign affairs has been based on a decent respect for the rights and dignity of all nations, large and small. And the justice of morality must and will win in the end.
Our national policy is this:
First, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to all-inclusive national defense.
Second, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to full support of all those resolute peoples, everywhere, who are resisting aggression and are thereby keeping war away from our Hemisphere. By this support, we express our determination that the democratic cause shall prevail; and we strengthen the defense and the security of our own nation.
Third, by an impressive expression of the public will and without regard to partisanship, we are committed to the proposition that principles of morality and considerations for our own security will never permit us to acquiesce in a peace dictated by aggressors and sponsored by appeasers. We know that enduring peace cannot be bought at the cost of other people's freedom.
In the recent national election there was no substantial difference between the two great parties in respect to that national policy. No issue was fought out on this line before the American electorate. Today it is abundantly evident that American citizens everywhere are demanding and supporting speedy and complete action in recognition of obvious danger.
Therefore, the immediate need is a swift and driving increase in our armament production.
Leaders of industry and labor have responded to our summons. Goals of speed have been set. In some cases these goals are being reached ahead of time; in some cases we are on schedule; in other cases there are slight but not serious delays; and in some cases--and I am sorry to say very important cases--we are all concerned by the slowness of the accomplishment of our plans.
The Army and Navy, however, have made substantial progress during the past year. Actual experience is improving and speeding up our methods of production with every passing day. And today's best is not good enough for tomorrow.
I am not satisfied with the progress thus far made. The men in charge of the program represent the best in training, in ability, and in patriotism. They are not satisfied with the progress thus far made. None of us will be satisfied until the job is done.
No matter whether the original goal was set too high or too low, our objective is quicker and better results. To give you two illustrations:
We are behind schedule in turning out finished airplanes; we are working day and night to solve the innumerable problems and to catch up.
We are ahead of schedule in building warships but we are working to get even further ahead of that schedule.
To change a whole nation from a basis of peacetime production of implements of peace to a basis of wartime production of implements of war is no small task. And the greatest difficulty comes at the beginning of the program, when new tools, new plant facilities, new assembly lines, and new ship ways must first be constructed before the actual materiel begins to flow steadily and speedily from them.
The Congress, of course, must rightly keep itself informed at all times of the progress of the program. However, there is certain information, as the Congress itself will readily recognize, which, in the interests of our own security and those of the nations that we are supporting, must of needs be kept in confidence.
New circumstances are constantly begetting new needs for our safety. I shall ask this Congress for greatly increased new appropriations and authorizations to carry on what we have begun.
I also ask this Congress for authority and for funds sufficient to manufacture additional munitions and war supplies of many kinds, to be turned over to those nations which are now in actual war with aggressor nations.
Our most useful and immediate role is to act as an arsenal for them as well as for ourselves. They do not need man power, but they do need billions of dollars worth of the weapons of defense.
The time is near when they will not be able to pay for them all in ready cash. We cannot, and we will not, tell them that they must surrender, merely because of present inability to pay for the weapons which we know they must have.
I do not recommend that we make them a loan of dollars with which to pay for these weapons--a loan to be repaid in dollars.
I recommend that we make it possible for those nations to continue to obtain war materials in the United States, fitting their orders into our own program. Nearly all their materiel would, if the time ever came, be useful for our own defense.
Taking counsel of expert military and naval authorities, considering what is best for our own security, we are free to decide how much should be kept here and how much should be sent abroad to our friends who by their determined and heroic resistance are giving us time in which to make ready our own defense.
For what we send abroad, we shall be repaid within a reasonable time following the close of hostilities, in similar materials, or, at our option, in other goods of many kinds, which they can produce and which we need.
Let us say to the democracies: "We Americans are vitally concerned in your defense of freedom. We are putting forth our energies, our resources and our organizing powers to give you the strength to regain and maintain a free world. We shall send you, in ever-increasing numbers, ships, planes, tanks, guns. This is our purpose and our pledge."
In fulfillment of this purpose we will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators that they will regard as a breach of international law or as an act of war our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. Such aid is not an act of war, even if a dictator should unilaterally proclaim it so to be.
When the dictators, if the dictators, are ready to make war upon us, they will not wait for an act of war on our part. They did not wait for Norway or Belgium or the Netherlands to commit an act of war.
Their only interest is in a new one-way international law, which lacks mutuality in its observance, and, therefore, becomes an instrument of oppression.
The happiness of future generations of Americans may well depend upon how effective and how immediate we can make our aid felt. No one can tell the exact character of the emergency situations that we may be called upon to meet. The Nation's hands must not be tied when the Nation's life is in danger.
We must all prepare to make the sacrifices that the emergency-almost as serious as war itself--demands. Whatever stands in the way of speed and efficiency in defense preparations must give way to the national need.
A free nation has the right to expect full cooperation from all groups. A free nation has the right to look to the leaders of business, of labor, and of agriculture to take the lead in stimulating effort, not among other groups but within their own groups.
The best way of dealing with the few slackers or trouble makers in our midst is, first, to shame them by patriotic example, and, if that fails, to use the sovereignty of Government to save Government.
As men do not live by bread alone, they do not fight by armaments alone. Those who man our defenses, and those behind them who build our defenses, must have the stamina and the courage which come from unshakable belief in the manner of life which they are defending. The mighty action that we are calling for cannot be based on a disregard of all things worth fighting for.
The Nation takes great satisfaction and much strength from the things which have been done to make its people conscious of their individual stake in the preservation of democratic life in America. Those things have toughened the fibre of our people, have renewed their faith and strengthened their devotion to the institutions we make ready to protect.
Certainly this is no time for any of us to stop thinking about the social and economic problems which are the root cause of the social revolution which is today a supreme factor in the world.
For there is nothing mysterious about the foundations of a healthy and strong democracy. The basic things expected by our people of their political and economic systems are simple. They are:
Equality of opportunity for youth and for others.
Jobs for those who can work.
Security for those who need it.
The ending of special privilege for the few.
The preservation of civil liberties for all.
The enjoyment of the fruits of scientific progress in a wider and constantly rising standard of living.
These are the simple, basic things that must never be lost sight of in the turmoil and unbelievable complexity of our modern world. The inner and abiding strength of our economic and political systems is dependent upon the degree to which they fulfill these expectations.
Many subjects connected with our social economy call for immediate improvement.
As examples:
We should bring more citizens under the coverage of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance.
We should widen the opportunities for adequate medical care.
We should plan a better system by which persons deserving or needing gainful employment may obtain it.
I have called for personal sacrifice. I am assured of the willingness of almost all Americans to respond to that call.
A part of the sacrifice means the payment of more money in taxes. In my Budget Message I shall recommend that a greater portion of this great defense program be paid for from taxation than we are paying today. No person should try, or be allowed, to get rich out of this program; and the principle of tax payments in accordance with ability to pay should be constantly before our eyes to guide our legislation.
If the Congress maintains these principles, the voters, putting patriotism ahead of pocketbooks, will give you their applause.
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way--everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want--which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear--which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor--anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
To that new order we oppose the greater conception--the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change -- in a perpetual peaceful revolution -- a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions--without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.
This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose. To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
Norman Rockwell's "Four Freedoms" Posters
Inspired by FDR’s 1941 “Four Freedoms” speech, American illustrator Norman Rockwell created his iconic “Four Freedoms” paintings in 1943. Like much of Rockwell’s work, these paintings were popularized by The Saturday Evening Post, which published the paintings with corresponding essays that same year (Freedom of Speech published February 20; Freedom of Worship published February 27; Freedom of Want published March 6; Freedom of Fear published March 13;). Following the success of the posters in print, the United States Department of Treasury reproduced Rockwell’s paintings as part of a campaign to raise war bonds; through a gift from Leonard A. Lauder, these posters are now on display at The Wolfsonian-FIU.
© 1943 SEPS 
© 1943 SEPS 
© 1943 SEPS 
© 1943 SEPS Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Agey Tomesh Design Bureau
Agey Tomesh Design Bureau was founded in Moscow by Arseny Mescheryakov in 1990 and later evolved into an art group. In autumn 2000, Agey Tomesh opened Gallery 259 where showed its own projects, experimenting with digital and reproduction technologies while also developing a concept of collective and pseudonymous authorship. Continuing to work with digital and reproductive technologies, in 2002 Agey Tomesh began publishing WAM (World Art Museum) magazine, positioning it as an exhibition and museum space on paper. Eric Bulatov is one of the cult artists of Soviet underground of the 1960-70s. Trying to reflect social reality, Bulatov combined the methods of realism with a special significance of words and texts, which is characteristic of the conceptual school. He currently lives in Paris. Mikhail Nikitin is a graphic artist in Moscow who has been a member of Agey Tomesh.
Ruth Ansel
Ruth Ansel, an art director and designer, has collaborated over four decades with international artists and photographers including Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Helmut Newton, Andy Warhol, Bruce Weber, Annie Leibovitz, and David Hockney. She started out as co-art director of Harper’s Bazaar with Bea Feitler in the 1960s...She went on to art direct the New York Times Magazine, House and Garden, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. In the early 1990s she founded Ruth Ansel Design in New York. Notable projects include the film titles for My Dinner with Andre, visual identity graphics for photography dealer James Danziger of Danziger Gallery, and serving as consulting creative director for Mirabella magazine. The studio’s international advertising and design clients have included Karl Lagerfeld, Gianni Versace, and Club Monaco. Book projects include A Demand Performance, about Mark Morris and Mikhail Barishnikov, photographed by Annie Leibovitz; The Sixties by Richard Avedon; Women by Annie Leibovitz; a monograph of the work of Peter Beard; and the first major book about the life and work of jewelry designer Elsa Peretti, which is in progress. Among the awards she’s received are the Herb Lubalin Award for Continuing Excellence in the field of Publication Design from The Society of Publication Designers, gold and silver medals from the Art Directors Club of New York, and numerous awards from the AIGA.
