Skip to content

Graphic Design Worlds

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Graphic Design Worlds
Triennale Design Museum, Milan, IT
January 6 – March 27, 2011

Curator: Giorgio Camuffo
Assistant curator: Maddalena Dalla Mura
Statement: «The Triennale Design Museum presents Graphic Design Worlds, the first major exhibition totally devoted to graphic design, that will be curated by Giorgio Camuffo. The Triennale Design Museum carries out this way its commitment to researching and promoting contemporary design.
Graphic design is a discipline that is undergoing a significant change, which is also reflected in the development, in recent decades, of a specific critical discourse. Engaged in shaping the universe of communication we are immersed in, active at different scales and on different dimensions, translators as well as actors that contribute in building relationships and knowledge, graphic designers draw a territory that is in constant evolution and may offer interesting perspectives for understanding contemporary culture and society.

Necessarily in dialogue with different fields and disciplines – art, music, fashion, cinema, architecture etc. –, graphic designers are also increasingly engaged in developing and taking a critical position, with respect to both the world and their own tools and objectives.
Graphic Design Worlds will provide a look at this phenomenon: not so much an exhibition of “graphics”, but rather “on graphic design”, it will focus on the multifarious interpretations of this discipline and practice, on the various routes to graphic design and the paths that branch off from it, into the world.
The notion of “worlds” is meant as a key to investigate and to shed light on the plurality and diversity of approaches and readings that animate contemporary graphic design – that is, the worlds of the graphic designers. Furthermore, this notion refers to the relationships that graphic design and graphic designers have with the world, with the contexts in which they operate, with the society they address, with the visual and material culture to which they refer and which they contribute to shape.
The aim of Graphic Design Worlds is not to offer a comprehensive and definitive survey, but to present the richness of graphic design through a selection of significant visions, which may stimulate reflections and interest, beyond the exhibition itself.
Over thirty graphic designers will show their worlds and present their approaches to the world, exemplifying a variety of possible routes, languages, attitudes. What these designers share is a critical awareness of graphic design and of their position as graphic designers. Besides international names, there will be Italian designers and teams that have entered the profession in the new millennium.
The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication of the book Graphic Design Worlds, edited by Giorgio Camuffo and Maddalena Dalla Mura, published by Electa. The book, bilingual (Italian and English), will offer a critical reflection on the issues that have fostered the exhibition, through the voice of renowned scholars, critics, and the designers themselves.»
http://graphicdesignworlds.triennaledesignmuseum.it/

See the blog A diary of an exhibition

Filed in Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Curating, Europe, Italy, Museums | | Comments Off on Graphic Design Worlds

Some Things Better Change
HBKsaar HfBKunst, Saarbrücken

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Some Things Better Change
HBKsaar Hochschule für Bilende Kunst, Saarbrücken, DE
November 6 – December 12, 2010

Statement (by Paulien Barbas, exhibition design): «Some Things Better Change was a solo exhibition by graphic design studio Our Polite Society at HBKsaar Gallery in Saarbrücken, Germany. In collaboration we made a work emphasizing the problem of presenting graphic design work in the context of a gallery. In such a setting the work loses its functionality and to a certain extent represents itself: when the work is hung on the wall in order to be ‘viewed’ and not to be ‘used’ it turns into a representation of an idea rather than a functional object. Trying to not fall into this trap the exhibition focused on the aspect of (re-)presentation of the work in general. In collaboration we showed a series of screen printed sheets (70 × 100 cm) that functioned as backgrounds in a series of photographs made as work documentation for the studio’s website. On an opposite wall this series of documentation photographs was shown as C-prints in 1:1 scale depending on the object shown on the photograph – the representation of a poster would be bigger in size than the representation of a business card. A third part of the exhibition was a (conventional) display of original works on walls and tables. In the interaction of these 3 elements (screen prints, C-prints, originals) the exhibition tried to activate the above mentioned problem within the presentation itself.»

Filed in Contemporary, Context, Curating, Europe, Exhibit design, Exhibition, Germany, Photography, Solo show | Tagged | Comments Off on Some Things Better Change
HBKsaar HfBKunst, Saarbrücken

Graphisme… Architecture
MAV – NDPC, Lille

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Graphisme… architecture
Maison de l’Architecture et de la Ville du Nord-Pas de Calais, Lille, FR
October 19 – December 23, 2010

Curators: Étienne Hervy and Vanina Pinter

Statement: «La MAV propose une exposition qui met de nouveau en relation l’architecture et les arts appliqués. L’image et l’illustration font aujourd’hui partie intégrante de nos bâtiments : signalétique, dessin de façade, aménagement intérieur. L’exposition propose de réfléchir aux liens qu’entretiennent graphisme et architecture. Si le catalogue mettra en perspective l’histoire du graphisme, la sélection sera focalisée sur des créations contemporaines. Elle s’articulera autour de modules où les différents rapports entre graphisme et architecture seront révélés pour en montrer la richesse et la complexité. Le graphisme dans l’architecture (façades et signalétiques) tiendra une place prédominante.
L’exposition est organisée en modules, qui sont autant de galaxies de références sur une orientation donnée.
Ces références mêlent indistinctement pièces originales, documents de travail, reproductions, jusqu’à la simple photocopie d’une page ou d’un objet. De la sorte, productions historiques et contemporaines, françaises et étrangères se collisionnent.
Graphisme sur l’Architecture – Publications consacrées à l’architectures : livres, revues et supports électroniques. Graphisme vers l’Architecture – Signalétique directionnelle. Graphisme dans l’Architecture – Lettrage. Graphisme autour de l’Architecture – Travail d’identité et de communication d’institutions ayant l’architecture comme sujet. Graphisme suivant l’Architecture – Pregnance d’une architecture sur un travail graphique. Graphisme sans l’Architecture – L’architecture “imaginée” dans des univers graphiques. Graphisme contre l’Architecture, tout contre – Les façades et interventions non signalétiques dans l’architecture. Graphisme avant l’Architecture – Le travail de vue d’architecture, les utopies L’architecture sans le bâti. Graphisme or l’Architecture – Safari typo.
Graphisme comme Architecture – L’architecture par des graphistes.»

—

A detailed review of the exhibition is available at www.archiver.cc.

Filed in Architecture, Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Europe, Exhibit design, Exhibition, France | | Comments Off on Graphisme… Architecture
MAV – NDPC, Lille

Rebecca Stephany
GfZK, Leipzig

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Rebecca Stephany
Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Lepzig, DE [INFORM Award for Conceptual Design]
October 9 – November 14, 2010

Curator: Barbara Steiner

Statement: «INFORM has been awarded on an annual basis since 2007 and is at the crossroads of graphic design and art. The award, which comes with 5,000 euros, was set up by Arend Oetker, Berlin. Laurent Benner (London) won the award in 2007, followed by Julia Born (Amsterdam). Rebecca Stephany (Amsterdam) was the winner in 2009. In 2010 works of Stephany will be shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Stephany distances from the notion of design as pure service. Instead she articulates the position of an author, bringing up and working on subjects and aspects she finds relevant in relation to contemporary art, design and culture. The visual language Stephany uses is developed in relation to the respective task, situation and context. The genesis of the work remains visible. Methodological dead-ends, ideas considered to be awkward or are otherwise abolished are not hidden but also presented. To fail – in terms of not meeting certain expectations she or others have – becomes an intrinsic part of Stephany’s work. This allows her to challenge to a large extent art and design, their respective traditions, standards and rules. Combining a genuine passion with analytical approach she pushes the perception and understanding of art, design and their relationship further.
Rebecca Stephany was born in Wittlich, Germany, in 1980. She lives and works in Amsterdam. Stephany studied Visual Communication at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Offenbach am Main and Graphic Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. Since 2007 she teaches Grafikdesign an der Gerrit Rietveld Academie. For 2010 and 2011 she has gotten a residency for the renowned Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.»

Filed in Art and Design, Awards, Europe, Exhibition, Germany, Solo show | | Comments Off on Rebecca Stephany
GfZK, Leipzig

UnCOVERing Women

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Uncovering Women
Graphic Design Museum Breda, NL
September 25, 2010 – May 29, 2011

Curator: Margriet van der Linden
Statement: «In the 19th century wealthy women browsed through women’s magazines mainly out of boredom. In the 20th century, women became more aware of their role within the family and at work. Where women’s magazines were mainly focused on clothing, recipes and feuilletons in the fifties and sixties, in the seventies and eighties subjects like career, relationship problems and sexuality were addressed. With this history the magazines developed into the contemporary women’s magazines as we read them now, in large numbers.
The exhibition demonstrates selected images from women’s magazines within a timeline, showing the evolution of women. These images illustrate events from present and past, from the women’s’ right to vote to the first frozen dinner. This is the thread that runs through the exhibition. From a collection of 50.000 Dutch and international magazines, guest curator Margriet van der Linden, chief editor of Opzij, a large monthly magazine in the Netherlands, selected the designs together with the Graphic Design Museum.
Think about Chanel’s little black dress, the first lipsticks and the start of Libelle, a large weekly magazine in the Netherlands. See a lot of familiar, old and new advertising campaigns. Amaze yourself with skinny and plus size models who decorated the magazine covers through the years.»

Watch the video presentation

UnCOVERing woman: promo from MOTI on Vimeo.

Filed in Europe, Exhibition, History, Magazines, Museums, Netherlands, Thematic | | Comments Off on UnCOVERing Women

Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design
Moravian Gallery, Brno

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design
Moravian Gallery, Brno, CZ
24th International Biennial of Graphic Design Brno
June 23 – October 24, 2010

Curator: Rick Poynor

Statement: «The Surrealist movement of the 1920s and 1930s focused on literature, painting, photography and the object, and the Surrealists’ publishing activities provided only hints of what a fully conceived Surrealist graphic design or typography might look like. Many of the most suggestive early examples came from Czechoslovakia, where Surrealism would become a lasting influence. Subsequently, Surrealist ideas and images had a profound impact on image-makers in every sphere of art and design, and by the 1960s the effects of Surrealism were widely felt in international graphic communication. Uncanny traces this intermittent line of development up to the present. Work showing a strong debt to Surrealism emerges only when a designer appears who is attuned to this way of thinking, dreaming and imagining. Most graphic design conforms to an underlying grid, a sense of structure and professional good taste, which brings order but also imposes limits. The images and designs in Uncanny break free from these bureaucratic restrictions and follow the impulses of a wayward, subjective, dreamlike logic to arrive at their own kind of equilibrium and form. They show that graphic design, too, can sometimes be a place to encounter the strange, the fantastical and the uncanny, to rediscover our lost sense of mystery, and to experience the convulsive beauty and capacity for enchantment and wonder that the Surrealists called “the marvellous”.»

Featured designers and graphic artists include: Jan Švankmajer, Eva Švankmajerová, Jindřich Štyrský, Karel Teige, Karel Teissig, Josef Vyleťal, Zdeněk Ziegler (Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic); Roman Cieslewicz, Jan Lenica, Franciszek Starowieyski, Bronislaw Zelek (Poland); Laboratoires CCCP, M/M Paris, (France); Grandpeople (Norway); Andrzej Klimowski, Vaughan Oliver, Brothers Quay, Graham Rawle (UK); Elliott Earls, Edward Fella, Jonathon Rosen, Stefan Sagmeister, Brian Schorn (United States).

Exhibition design: Šárka Ziková
Exhibition graphics: Adam Machácek and Sébastien Bohner

Publication: http://www.moravska-galerie.cz/moravska-galerie/vzdelavani/publikace-mg/2010/cosi-tisniveho-surrealismus-a-graficky-design.aspx

Travelling exhibition:

Moravian Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic
23 June to 24 October 2010

Kunsthall, Rotterdam, Netherlands
24 September – 4 December 2011

—

Articles by Rick Poynor about the exhibition, design and Surrealism are availabe via designobserver.

Filed in Art and Design, Collective exhibitions, Czech Republic, Exhibition, Museums, Retrospective, Travelling exhibitions | | Comments Off on Uncanny: Surrealism and Graphic Design
Moravian Gallery, Brno

Shaping Time, by Lev Manovich

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Shaping Time
Graphic Design Museum Breda, NL
May 11 [?] – June 2010

Curator: Lev Manovich
Statement: «Lev Manovich is one of the most influential thinkers in the field of new media and digital culture. He is professor of visual arts at the University of California, San Diego and director of the Lab for Cultural Analysis at the Californian Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology. In addition to being an academic, he is also an artist, designer and programmer.
Manovich’s research is for everybody to see in the glass corridor of the Graphic Design Museum or from outside in the Pasbaan.
Manovich researches the effects digital media have on the image culture.
In his theories he postulates that designers may very well prove superfluous in the future as software becomes increasingly advanced.
The Graphic Design Museum is exhibiting his research into the use of colour for the covers of TIME MAGAZINE from 1923 to today. Trends in design are revealed as you look at the images. The images which he shows in this way seem like works of art in themselves.
“The visualisation of the Time covers exposes the gradual changes in the design and content of the magazine”, says Manovich. “It shows, for example, how colour was introduced at a given moment and is used in combination with black and white elements.” The colour contrast of the covers gradually increases in the 20th century, but surprisingly this trend disappears at the end of the previous century. In the last decade, designers have made increasingly sparing use of colour. Content changes in the magazine are also exposed by this cultural analysis. The moment when sport and culture made their appearance alongside politics can be clearly seen. Because this visualisation shows the actual covers instead of standard statistics, far more trends can be revealed at a glance and it is more broadly accessible to a large public than statistics.»

Filed in Collection, Curating, Exhibition, Magazines, Museums, Netherlands, Photography, Publishing, Visual | | Comments Off on Shaping Time, by Lev Manovich

The Situation Room
P/////AKT, Amsterdam

Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Situation Room
P/////AKT platform voor beeldende kunst, Amsterdam, NL
April 8-24, 2010

Statement: «The Situation Room [is] an exhibition of works by graphic designers Hilde and Janna Meeus, Our Polite Society, Karl Nawroth, Young Na Kim and Nina Støttrup Larsen. […] The Situation Room is a 150 square meter temporary set up and documentation center in the main hall of the gallery space P/////AKT. It is run on the occasion of a three weeks exhibition to monitor and deal with crises and to conduct communication with the outside. The Situation Room is equipped with communication equipment in order to re-project and re-produce.»

Filed in Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Curating, Europe, Exhibition, Galleries, Netherlands | | Comments Off on The Situation Room
P/////AKT, Amsterdam

Infodecodata

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Infodecodata
Graphic Design Museum Breda, NL
February 20 – September 5, 2010

Statement: «The weatherman on TV has been replaced by the shower radar; you can check whether your train is delayed with your iPhone App. We use transitory media such as internet and the mobile telephone to find information much more quickly, in any format required. There are an increasing number of products on the market which select the required information and deliver it ‘made-to-measure’. The consumer no longer wishes to be served; he serves himself. Data visualisation, the profession that is involved in visualising and structuring data, has achieved a prominent place in graphic design. The exhibition INFODECODATA puts our explosive information world in the spot lights.
How do designers structure complex data?
Where do we find the information that we are looking for?
The exhibition presents an overview of information design with image icons, scientific data visualisations, infographics and experimental computer animations. From the invention of the printing press, with which we could for the first time duplicate information, to scientific 3D visualisations of highly complex data. At INFODECODATA, the Graphic Design Museum shows exceptional work from various disciplines in one exhibition.»

Designing universal knowledge
Gerlinde Schuller
Designer Gerlinde Schuller shows the development of information design and data visualisation throughout the centuries. Knowledge is power, goes the saying. Does this mean that somebody who owns a collection of the universal knowledge of the whole world also possesses ultimate power? Just like encyclopaedia makers, philosophers, and scientists before her, Schuller is fascinated by the idea of putting together a comprehensive, global knowledge collection. In the research for her book Designing universal knowledge (2009), she asked people what they considered the most universal images, events, and persons in world history. Using these data, Schuller designed a 26 metre long time line from the Big Bang to 2010, the present. Visitors can add their own highlights to this wall with historical data and milestones in the history of information design.

A journey to information spaces
Prof. dr. ir. Jack van Wijk
Jack van Wijk, professor of visualisation at the Technical University of Eindhoven presents his fascinating data visualisations in the Graphic Design Museum. The abstract data with which he works provides Van Wijk with considerable freedom for his designs. His visualisations appear to be autonomous works of art, but, on closer investigation, reveal a world of information. The professor developed with his group something called SequoiaView, a method of visualising the contents of your hard disk. The computer program has been downloaded by more than a million people. The Graphic Design Museum will exhibit hundreds of disk visualisations of visitors, but also maps of a folded-out world, congested surfaces, and stream visualisations.

Work in Process
Luna Maurer, Edo Paulus, Jonathan Puckey and Roel Wouters
In their work, the designers Luna Maurer, Edo Paulus, Jonathan Puckey and Roel Wouters focus on processes rather than on products: things that adapt to their environment, emphasise change, and display differences. Their installations in the Graphic Design Museum visualise processes that have taken place in the year prior to the exhibition. The works arise from the combination of programmed rules and the interaction with them by people and their environment. In their project Skycatcher, the designers have been making a photograph of the sky above Amsterdam every five minutes since 2005. For INFODECODATA, they made obsessive self-portraits with the camera in their laptops. They programmed a script that for nine months made a picture of themselves and their screen image once every five minutes. In these projects, the focus is both on the details and on the larger patterns that become visible by multiplying the details.

Watch the logo animation:

Infodecodata: Logo Animation from MOTI on Vimeo.

Filed in Art and Design, Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Netherlands, Thematic, Visual | | Comments Off on Infodecodata

Kiosk: Modes of Multiplication (the book)

Monday, November 2, 2009

kiosk_F

Kiosk: Modes of Multiplication

«Since 2001, Christoph Keller’s famous archive “Kiosk – Modes of Multiplication” has been exhibited 27 times all around the world, in institutions such as the ICA (London), the Witte de With (Rotterdam), Artists’ Space (NY), the Emily Carr Institute (Vancouver), MUDAM (Luxembourg) and some biennials such as Manifesta 4, the 25th Graphic Biennial of Ljubljana and the Istanbul Biennial. It contains today more than 7000 publications by approximately 500 independent art publishing projects such as smaller, non commercial publishers, magazines, fanzines, newspapers, journals, audio- and video-labels, corporate and institutional publishing etc. The focus has never been set on exhibiting the most interesting individual artists’ publications but the whole bandwidth of publishing possibilities, the motivations and strategies of the people “behind the scenes”, the editors, publishers, designers, multipliers.
On the occasion of the final public presentation of the archive at the Kunstbibliothek, Berlin, who has now taken over the archive as a special collection, this handbook represents an overview and reflection on independent art publishing activities today. It contains a lot of textual statements by the protagonists of this scene, some theoretical texts, documentary illustrations and a broad source-part with comprehensive information on the contributing publishing projects.»

The book was published by JRP Ringier on the occasion of the public presentation of the archive at the Kunstbibliothek, Berlin

Filed in Art and Design, Authorship, Books, Collection, Collective exhibitions, Contemporary, Curating, Exhibit design, Magazines, Printing, Products, Publication, Publishing, Reference, Retrospective, Thematic, Travelling exhibitions | | Comments Off on Kiosk: Modes of Multiplication (the book)