Demons, Snake Girls, and Evil Trees
@ Harold Washington College - President's Gallery
30 E. Lake Street Chicago, IL 60601
Opening Thursday, February 27th, from 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.
On view through Sunday, March 30th
Starting this month and running through the end of March, the President’s Gallery at Harold Washington College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago, will exhibit “Demons, Snake Girls, and Evil Trees.” This show includes selection of voodoo-themed posters promoting Nigerian movies from the collection curated by Brian Chankin who owns Odd Obsession Movies, an independent video rental store in Bucktown. In the 1980s, mobile cinema clubs showed imported films in Ghana, going from village to village with a TV, a VCR, and a generator. Lacking access to the sleekly printed posters from Hollywood, the video clubs commissioned local artists to paint promotional posters. The artists often painted on the backside of used flour sacks and without viewing the films. They created mesmerizing, idiosyncratic paintings that were transported across the country to promote the mobile showings.
Odd Obsession Movies (1822 N. Milwaukee | www.oddobsession.com) collected more than 200 of these posters and its collection offers a window into the nascent days of the poster phenomenon. This exhibition will showcase a couple dozen posters grouped thematically around Nigerian voodoo films.
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