Gutenberg Museum shows controversial posters

On display are "classics" such as the Benetton series from the 1990s - the textile company advertised its clothes with dying AIDS patients and bloody uniforms. The exposed buttocks of the Sloggi advertisement, which was considered sexist, and the naked skin of a campaign for Rifle jeans are also on display. However, the exhibition from May 6 to June 27 also shows posters that once caused red heads and have long since been forgotten. The exhibition organizers announced on Monday that it gives an idea of the morals, mentality and visual culture that prevailed in the respective era. For example, the oldest poster in the exhibition, an affiche for the 1883 national exhibition, fell out of favor due to its graphic design, which was considered antiquated. In 1947, the innkeepers fought against the mineral water slogan "Trink lieber Eptinger" for a completely different reason: they feared a decline in alcohol consumption.

The black sheep of the SVP
Political posters also often caused a stir. Until 1990, a total of ten posters were banned for political reasons - all of them from the left. This changed with the offensive appearance of the SVP from the 1990s onwards. The black sheep on the poster for the deportation initiative caused a particular stir in 2007. The anti-minaret poster at the end of 2009 caused even more of a stir, even earning those responsible from the right-wing camp a reprimand from the UN Human Rights Commission. According to the exhibition organizers, blasphemous posters are a rarity. In the past, however, the alteration of religious images, such as the misuse of Leonardo's "Last Supper" for advertising kitchen appliances, was undesirable.

Anti-Aids campaigns and the church
The Stop AIDS campaigns also repeatedly called Christians onto the scene. In 2003, the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) ran the headline: "Greetings, Mr. Pastor, if Rome doesn't like to hear you talk about contraception, why don't you talk about condoms?" The Bishops' Conference demanded that the poster be withdrawn as it mocked religion. After a discussion, the FOPH withdrew the poster. Most of the posters shown in Fribourg come from the poster collection of the Basel School of Design.