Silence = Death: In Loving Memory of Oliver Johnston

New York: Silence=Death Project, 1990. Offset. 7 x 5 in. Very good..

Original sticker created by the Silence=Death Project bearing an alternative version the striking Silence = Death design, published in memory of Oliver Johnston, one of the original 6 members of the Silence=Death collective.

The Silence=Death collective, comprising Avram Finkelstein, Brian Howard, Oliver Johnston, Charles Kreloff, Chris Lione, and Jorge Soccarás, emerged following the death of Finkelstein's partner Don Yowell from AIDS in 1984. A group of graphic designers and art professionals, the collective designed and produced the groundbreaking poster and began wheatpasting copies throughout the city in the months before the formation of ACT UP. The collective attended Larry Kramer's speech at the Center in March 1987, which led to the creation of ACT UP, and members of the collective joined the new group.

Johnston was a graduate of Parsons and a career graphic designer; he passed away from AIDS-related illness in 1990, and this sticker was designed by the surviving members of the original pre-ACT UP collective in the bright color-way that Johnston may have chose had the design been solely his own.