Preparations are currently under way toward the opening of new "Osaka City Museum of Modern Art " dedicated to modern and contemporary art and design. The design works to be housed in the new museum are already hailed as one of Japan's foremost collections in terms of both quantity and quality. This year's GRAPHIC WEST showed works from this collection spanning from modern design's developing period in the1920s to its period maturation in the postwar era. Modern designers took up two challenges: to change the old world and to create a new world. From the Russian avant-garde wedged between revolution and war, to the Bauhaus, to the diverse Swiss and Dutch graphics that under international development in the postwar era, amid social upheavals and reforms designers pursued dreams and ideals and sought to build a new society through design, searching for rationality appropriate to the times. GRAPHIC WEST 6 was an exhibition where visitors could experience the passion, and occasional coolness, of the 20th century avant-garde design firsthand.
ID
ddd_196
Exhibition Name
GRAPHIC WEST 6 Osaka City Museum of Modern Art Collection Modern Avant-Garde Graphics
Period
January 17, 2014–March 05, 2014
Exhibition Type
ddd exhibition
Venue
ddd Namba, Osaka
Featured Designers
Poster Designers
Special Cooperation
January 17, 2014
Gallery Talk
Namba SS Building- Participants: SUGAYA Tomio、UEKI Keiko、KUJI Tatsuya、KONDO Satoshi
Four participants took part in this Gallery Talk: Tomio Sugaya, Chief curator of the Osaka City Museum of modern Art Planning Office; Keiko Ueki, curator with the same affiliation Tatusya Kuji, who undertakes a broad range of research in art museum education etc.; and graphic designer Satoshi Kondo of Asatte Design Office, who designed the publicity for this exhibition. Ms. Ueki, serving as moderator, began by introducing the aims behind exhibition. Mr. Sugaya spoke of the concept for the new art museum, saying that a major pillar is to focus on modern design as art that forms part of our everyday lives. Mr.Kuji spoke of the situation of design museums primarily in Europe where, based on his own findings there, attempts are under way to provide the environment itself for creating such museums. He expounded on the importance of continuously redirecting one's eyes toward new directions.
ddd 196
