Josh MacPhee

Josh MacPhee is an artist, curator and activist living in Brooklyn, New York.

Josh MacPhee's work as a socially-engaged artist and designer focuses on production and distribution of political graphics. Originally from Holliston, MA, MacPhee was influenced at an early age by the work of Seth Tobocman and Peter Kuper. He attended Oberlin College and studied media and culture while publishing the zine Fenceclimber. After two years at Oberlin, MacPhee moved to Washington, D.C. where he helped create a community space called Beehive and collaborated on founding the D.C. chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross Network as part of MacPhee's broader burgeoning involvement in prison reform. MacPhee returned to Oberlin in 1994 and graduated in 1996, continuing his prison reform work on campus. Following graduation, he moved to Boulder, CO for a year to work with the Prison Rights Project, before moving to Chicago. His work against mass incarceration has continued, including a major 2013 public transit and commuter train design campaign with Philadelphia Mural Arts, and design campaigns with the Close Rikers campaign.

In 2001 he co-organized the Department of Space and Land Reclamation in Chicago with Emily Forman and Nato Thompson. MacPhee also participated in Rising Up, an exhibition with Vanessa Renwick at Tollbooth Gallery and Toby Room in 2004 with the project Celebrate People’s History that featured wheat paste art along with experimental video in public spaces and included work by Cristy Road, Sabrina Jones, Carrie Moyer, Laura Whitehorn, David Lester, and Eric Drooker. As part of the God Bless Graffiti Coalition, he collected and exhibited the work of 275 graffiti artists from around the world; some of this material was later made available in a box set. MacPhee is featured in the film Creative violation: the rebel art of the street stencil.

Josh MacPhee served as the juror for the Third Coast National in 2008, an exhibition of eclectic artworks by artists from across the United States at K Space Contemporary in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 2019, he served as a juror for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards in the printmaking category.

Justseeds

MacPhee spent eight years as an artist and activist in Chicago, Illinois where he established a distribution system called justseeds in order get more radical art projects out to the public. At its inception in 1999 Justseeds primarily functioned as a mail order system offering art by Josh MacPhee; now the Justseeds Artists' Cooperative is a cooperative of 25 like-minded artists.

Celebrate People's History Poster Project

The Celebrate People's History poster series originated during MacPhee's tenure in Chicago, and has become an ongoing project with the participation of artists from around the globe who create posters highlighting the contributions of important radical figures and events. The first poster in the series depicted Malcolm X, followed by a poster of John Brown. These are produced as educational materials and distributed inexpensively as a teaching tool on radical history. By 2018, over 100 designs had been printed in the series, with over 300,000 posters distributed, and an exhibition featuring selections from this project was mounted at the Brush Gallery at St. Lawrence University.

Spectres of Liberty

MacPhee was a member of the artist collaborative Spectres of Liberty with Olivia Robinson and Dara Greenwald, which used an inflatable reproduction of the Liberty Street Church to examine, spread awareness of, and create dialogue around the history of slavery and abolition in the United States. Their work as a collective was featured in volume 13 of Aspect Magazine.

Occuprint

As one of the first artists to respond to the Occupy Wall Street protests with artwork, MacPhee built on Adbuster's use of the image of the charging bull to make it a popular visual representation of the Occupy movement's focus on capitalism's destructive tendencies. His "Money Talks Too Much" poster featuring the charging bull was reproduced as a sign for protesters to carry at marches. MacPhee played a role in Occuprint, a group of volunteers who came together to curate and produce graphics for use in Occupy protests. The work of Occuprint focused on curating submissions of graphic material and making them available through a website, for reproduction around the world, thereby cultivating a network of graphic design material to be used as an organizing tool for Occupy movements worldwide.

Curatorial Work

MacPhee was curator of the politically charged printmaking exhibition, Paper Politics, which toured North America beginning in Chicago in 2004. It included an international group of approximately 200 artists including Sue Coe, Swoon, Sixten, Dara Greenwald, Tyler Kline, Meredith Stern and Meek, and focused on a broad range of political issues including peace, justice, social equity, and the environment; many works responded very directly to the war in Iraq. Various mediums were included in the show, including screenprint, stencil, and linocut. Every piece in the exhibition was printed by hand. Subsequent installation locations included 5+5 Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (2005-2006), Milwaukee (2006), Dowd Gallery at SUNY Cortland (September-October 2008), the Red House in Syracuse, NY (December 2008), Ghostprint Gallery in Richmond, VA (August 2009), West Central Illinois Arts Center (March-April 2010), and Space gallery in Pittsburgh, PA (August, 2010).

In 2008 he co-curated the exhibition Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960's to Now with Dara Greenwald. This exhibition focused on material produced by activist movements around the world.

In 2017, MacPhee curated Commonwealth: Water for all at the Queens Museum, focusing on crises in water management around the globe. Exhibition material highlighted protests in response to the 2016 proposal of the Dakota Access Pipeline, including a series of prints from the Justseeds Artists Cooperative, and was presented alongside the museum's panorama of New York City.

Interference Archive

Josh MacPhee was one of the cofounders of Interference Archive. This organization focuses on the intersection of social movements and cultural production, illustrating the history of social movement organizing through access to and display of cultural ephemera. MacPhee's personal collection of social movement publications, graphic material produced for organizing, and punk and DIY material culture, served as a major part of the original collection of Interference Archive alongside the collection of Dara Greenwald.

Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture

MacPhee has published Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture (PM Press) with Alec Dunn since 2010. This ongoing series shares and provides commentary on political graphics, with full color reproductions of a wide variety of graphic material.

Pound the Pavement

Pound the Pavement is a zine series featuring a variety of topics often related broadly, but not exclusively to street art and graffiti. Issues have included:

• Pound the Pavement #20: Total Control?, (2018)
• Pound the Pavement #18: God Bless Graffiti Coalition, with Daniel Tucker (2018)
• Pound the Pavement #17: Red Wedge and Black Wedge beat the Whites, [risograph printed zine] (2017)
• Pound the Pavement #16: An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels, (2017) -- features 142 record labels that produced political music on vinyl record between 1970 and 1990. Second expanded version includes 230 record labels.
• Pound the Pavement #15: Handala, (2018) risograph-printed zine featuring 29 reproductions of photographs of the Handala cartoon character created by Naji al-Ali, depicted around the Palestinian Occupied Territories
• Pound the pavement #14: lonely books, (2016) Microcosm Publishing
• Pound the Pavement #13: Book Zoo, (2014) Eberhardt Press, featuring 156 publishers marks
• Pound the Pavement #12, a collection of 13 posters reprinted as postcards
• Pound the Pavement #11 (2008), featuring over 100 photographs of graffiti on box trucks
• Pound the Pavement #10, (2007) featuring anti-George W. Bush graffiti
• Pound the Pavement #9, (2005) featuring photographs of art pieces on 135 lamp post bases
• Pound the Pavement #8, (2006) first issue, featuring full color reproductions of graffiti and stencils

Graphic Art

• Smile, You're on Camera, [artist book] (2018) visualizing the pervasiveness of security cameras in public space
• Illustrations for Road map for revolutionaries: resistance, activism, and advocacy for all by Elisa Camahort Page, Carolyn Gerin, and Jamia Wilson, (2018) Ten Speed Press
• Daddy, what did YOU do in the climate war? (2018), with Amplifier Foundation. Based on a 1915 British WWI recruitment poster.
• Commonwealth : water for all, a portfolio of 12 risograph-printed posters produced to accompany the Commonwealth exhibition at the Queens Museum, New York, (2017) Brightspot Press
• Security fear, [artist book] (2017)
• No Sides in Climate, [poster] (2017) Amplifier Foundation
• Capture the Flag, [artist book] (2016) with Jesse Purcell
• There are too many, [offset poster] (c. 2016) Amplifier Foundation
• Prisons Don't Work, [offset poster] (c. 2016) Amplifier Foundation
• Contributor to Wellspring: a portfolio of prints celebrating water, (2016) Justseeds Artists Cooperative
• Contributor to Celebrate people's history: Iraq Veterans Against the War; ten years of fighting for peace and justice, (2015) with Booklyn, Civilian Soldier Alliance, Repetitive Press, JustSeeds Artists' Cooperative, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)
• Contributor to Librarians & Archivists with Palestine box set, (2014) Booklyn
• Contributor to Librarians and archivists to Palestine, [zine] (2013)
• Contributor to Occuprint Portfolio, (2012) Occuprint
• The Truth Hurts, [artist book] (2012) with Chris Stain
• Contributor to Migration now: a print portfolio of handmade prints addressing migrant issues from Justseeds and CultureStrike, (2012)
• Contributor to Resourced: Justseeds portfolio, (2010)
• Stop uranium mining, [poster] (c. 2007) as part of The Nuclear Posters, Breakdown Press poster series no. 3
• Culture contains the seed of opposition becoming the flower of liberation, [silkscreen poster] (2006), with Favianna Rodriguez; Jesus Barraza; Amy Woloszyn; Design Action; Eric Drooker; Lincoln Cushing; Rini Templeton; Dave Buchen; Yoly Petra Stroeve; Mattie Weiss; Taller Tupac Amaru
• Real Estate, [stencil poster] (2000)
• Condozilla, [stencil poster] (2000)
• Greedy Politicians and Developers, [stencil poster] (2000)
• I have been locked by the lawless, [offset poster] (1998)

Publications

• Contributor to Posters for Change, (2018) by Jennifer Lippert and Avram Finkelstein for Princeton Architectural Press
• Liberation Support Movement: building solidarity with the African Liberation Struggle, (2017) Interference Archive
• "Power, Fists, Guns, Books: Black Power & Book Cover Design," in Printmag, (2016)
• Contributor to Artists reclaim the commons: new works-new territories-new publics, (2013), ISC Press
• Contributor to How to Make Trouble and Influence People: Pranks, Protests, Graffiti & Political Mischief-Making from Across Australia, (2013) PM Press
• Paths Toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism, with Cindy Milstein and Erik Ruin (2012) PM Press
• "Who's the Shop Steward on Your Kickstarter?", in The Baffler, No. 21 (2012)
• “A Qualitative Quilt Born of Pizzatopia.” in We Are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation, ed. Kate Khatib, Margaret Killjoy, and Mike McGuire, pages 23–35. 2012, PM Press.
• Celebrate people's history! the poster book of resistance and revolution (2011) Feminist Press
• Contributor to Firebrands: portraits from the Americas, (2010) Microcosm Publishing
• Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now with Dara Greenwald, (2010) AK Press
• Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today, (2009) PM Press, with Deborah Caplow and Eric Triantafillou
• Reproduce and Revolt, (2008) Soft Skull Press, with Favianna Rodriquez
• Cut and Paint #2, (2007) with Nicolas Lampert and Colin Matthes, including ready-to-use stencils
• Realizing the Impossible: Art Against Authority, (2007) AK Press, co-edited with Erik Reuland
• Contributor to Trashing the neoliberal city: autonomous cultural practices in Chicago from 2000-2005, (2007) Learning Site
• Contributor to Confronting capitalism: dispatches from a global movement, (2004) Soft Skull Press
• Stencil Pirates: A Global Study of the Street Stencil, (2004) Soft Skull Press, featuring over 100 photographs of stencil street art
• Cut and Paint, (no date) with Nicolas Lampert and Colin Matthes, a zine featuring stencil templates