On the wall: Prints Posters Propaganda at Sager Reeves Gallery

The writing — and the remarkable images — behind vivid poster art is on the wall at Sager Reeves Gallery.

Through the end of March, the Walnut Street venue hosts Prints Posters Propaganda, an exhibit which offers a spectrum of household names and unknown artists, as well as persuasive and celebratory messages created for the public eye.

Some of the art world's most impressive names appear here, such as Salvador Dali, with his "Apparatus and Hand," a typically dimensional and abstracted work that leads the eye to consider real-world elements in disorienting (and, perhaps, reorienting) ways.

Andy Warhol makes his presence felt with a manifold celebration of sport and the Winter Olympics; Warhol's skater seems no doubt to be racing the competition, but also a range of color and their own body.

Elsewhere, we encounter the work of Marc Chagall, Robert Indiana — with an American bicentennial poster — and Keith Haring; Haring's "TV Man" is among the exhibit's highlights, showing what our brains might well look like after consuming capitalist transmissions .

Great musicians and musicals appear: an unknown artist furthers the Beach Boys' "endless summer" message with an image of advertising airplanes; Bob Dylan quite literally becomes starry-eyed and cosmically-minded in a rich bath of yellows, blacks and reds; and you can practically hear the booming voice of Chaim Topol in a poster for the 1971 big-screen adaptation of "Fiddler on the Roof."

Intriguing and eye-catching ads for everything from soda to a more mysterious elixir come into view, as does Gary Head's poster that positions a giant Absolut vodka bottle beneath the St. Louis arch. The iconic visages of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley line the gallery's walls, as does an ad promising a kiss from silent film star Mary Pickford.

Prints Posters Propaganda reinforces the reality that what we see matters, and that it's not just the portraits, landscapes or pieces of "conventional" fine art on our walls that say something about who we are and what we value.

For a fuller look at the exhibit's offerings, visit https://sagerreevesgallery.com/exhibits/prints-posters-propaganda/ ; for a closer one, stop into the gallery during operating hours.

Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com. He's on Twitter/X @aarikdanielsen .

This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Check out an array of posters and propaganda at Sager Reeves Gallery