Think condoms please

This poster presents the human penis as a dangerous weapon akin to a pistol, and enjoins the viewer to protect others with a condom. This poster, and others like it, was commissioned by the French organisation Artis as apart of a mass-produced ready-made exhibition, 'Images for the struggle against AIDS',  for schools, community centres and other social hubs. The purpose of the posters was to promote understanding as well as reflection and dialogue.

The artist, Gérard Paris-Clavel was active in, and influenced by, the political unrest among workers and students that took place in France in May 1968. Screen printed propaganda posters played an important part in the communication of radical and subversive messages. This poster, with its hand-sketched style into which the words of a slogan are incorporated, has inherited some of the characteristics and techniques of the 1968 posters.