These connections let Chankin begin commissioning new posters for specific genre titles, including all five Death Wish films, which was how Deadly Prey Gallery was born.
It turns out Kofi worked in the Ghanaian Mobile Cinema as a kid.” “To my surprise, not only was he in touch with them,” Chankin says, “but many of the original artists from the ’90s were his close friends.
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I found a handful on eBay and replaced the paper posters that formerly lined the walls in favor of these giant, super wild, colorful, hand-painted ones.”Ĭhankin wanted to increase his inventory, which is how he connected with Ghartey, who would supply Chankin with more (and higher-quality) movie posters and connect him to the artists who painted them. “Nine years ago, a friend brought in the book Ghanavision, and I freaked out,” says Chankin, “researching all I could on the posters immediately. They’re bright and graphic, with a rugged, vintage throwback appeal.Ĭhankin stumbled onto the posters, and onto the West African cinema industry they helped sustain, via his video store, Odd Obsession Movies. The sacks also lend a specific aesthetic to the movie posters. always available on the market, which makes convenient to use.” The flour sacks are very strong, flexible and have a smooth surface. That’s why we take our time and invest a lot of effort to come out with a unique finishing in order to maintain the tradition and the reputation of the Ghana movie posters. “There is a saying in Ghana,” Ghartey says, “‘A good name is better than riches.’ Mass-produced posters do not last, and it also destroys and tarnishes your image as an artist. Painting the posters on flour sacks was a deliberate decision, says Ghanaian cinema expert Robert Kofi Ghartey - Chankin’s direct connection to Ghana’s poster artists.
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With a television, VCR, VHS tapes and a portable generator, they’d travel throughout the country, setting up makeshift screening areas in villages void of electricity.” According to Chankin, it was a “business started in the late 1980s when artistic, industrious groups of people formed video clubs. The posters Chankin collects, painted by Ghanaian artists on two flour sacks sewn together as a canvas, were the original advertising arm of a once-booming film industry called Ghanaian Mobile Cinema. Deadly Prey Gallery sits in the kitchen of my Chicago apartment, but I do traveling exhibitions quite often.” “I’ve been collecting these hand-painted movie posters from Ghana for the past nine years,” says Chankin, “but the gallery has officially been a thing for almost five years. Deadly Prey Gallery, founded and curated by Brian Chankin, traffics in a pretty niche type of artwork: hand-painted Ghanaian movie posters. Movie fans, if you’ve got an open spot on your calendar on Thursday, June 13, you might consider making a trip to Plaza Theatre for Videodrome’s mash-up event with Chicago’s Deadly Prey Gallery.
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