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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

You Won't Bleed Me: How Blaxploitation Posters Defined Cool & Delivered Profits

Sept 2, 2021 – Feb 6, 2022
119 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011, United States

In the 1970s, no genre of movie poster flexed and flashed its gleaming muscle and hardware with the taking-care-of-business bombast of “blaxploitation,” as urban action films with major black stars and blistering soundtracks came to be known. This exhibition, curated by Adam Howard, pays tribute to the pride and splendor of blaxploitation iconography, where everything looks syruped with honey-gold and James Bond luxe. —J.W.

Tom Jung, “Superfly,” 1972. Courtesy of Poster House and Mathieu Bitton.