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Between 1965 and 1967, an anarchist movement succeeded in ridiculing the rigid Dutch culture. Self-produced press, part of an unconventional form of communication, played a fundamental role in spreading their ideas, which concretely influenced the development of society and laid the foundations for the European counterculture.
The Provos were an anarchist group that, through a careful balance between artistic performance and political activism, managed to influence the conformist Dutch culture of the 1960s. Aware that they lacked the power to change many aspects of the society they criticized, they understood that their only weapon was to provoke an unprecedented discussion on these issues.
Thus, the Provos organized the first happenings in Amsterdam’s Spui Square, where, to condemn tobacco consumption, every Saturday at midnight a bronze statue donated to the city by the Hunter Tobacco Company was set on fire. The movement included a diverse social composition, centered primarily around Roel Van Duijn, an introverted intellectual; Robert Jasper Grootveld, an eccentric artist; and Rob Stolk, a politically engaged worker.
It is important to note that the Provos rejected the use of violence: when the police, systematically interrupting their public actions with batons and dogs, arrived, they never responded, earning public sympathy.
Communication played a fundamental role in the growth of the movement. It was a true semiotic guerrilla. From the very beginning of the Provos experience, a strange drawing appeared on the walls of Amsterdam, which no one could interpret exactly, but which became the group’s symbol.
Provo. Counterculture studied at Court, Andrea Vendetti, in PROGETTO GRAFICO, pp. 120–127, 2015