PRINT, POWER, AND PERSUASION: GRAPHIC DESIGN IN GERMANY, 1890-1945
September 28, 2000 to April 29, 2001
Overview
When graphic design emerged as a profession in the early twentieth century, Germany was at the vanguard. Since the Middle Ages, the country had been associated with the arts of the book, and as industrialization took hold, it witnessed an explosion in the printing arts, with the rise of mass-circulation advertising, books, magazines, and packaging.
The extraordinarily rich history of German graphic design is the subject of Print, Power, and Persuasion: Graphic Design in Germany, 1890-1945. More than 50 posters and a selection of books, journals, brochures, and other printed materials from The Wolfsonian's collection are on view, tracing the emergence of modern, commercial print media in Germany, and the major role that graphic designers played.
The "graphic designer" was an invention of the period. Between 1890 and 1945 unprecedented attention was given to the design of graphic ornament, typefaces, and logos in a range of printed media, such as books, advertisements, magazines, posters, and signs. Many German designers during this period, including luminaries such as Peter Behrens, Lucian Bernhard, Herbert Bayer, and John Heartfield, strove to raise the standards of printed culture by integrating experimental ideas from design reform movements of the late nineteenth century to the other avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century, such as Constructivism. Accordingly, they produced a wide stylistic range of objects.
At the same time, they operated in politically turbulent times, which saw Germany rise to power and aggression, and then, after defeat in the First World War, pass through the experimental decades of the Weimar Republic. From 1919-1933, designers joined forces with other cultural figures in the hope of establishing an international exchange of ideas - a hope that was quashed as Adolf Hitler consolidated his power after January 1933, and National Socialism clamped down on most progressive artistic activity.
Print, Power, and Persuasion presents new ways of thinking about design, especially as it relates to key trends of the modern age. Was graphic design an art form or a form of commerce? Was it moral or immoral? Did it serve nationalistic or internationalist ends? The exhibition's guest curators, Jeremy Aynsley and Marianne Lamonaca, suggest it was all these: Diverse and contradictory, graphic design showed itself capable of satisfying different expectations within different contexts.
The book Graphic Design in Germany 1890-1945, by Dr. Aynsley and published by Thames & Hudson (240 pages, $60), accompanies the show. It is available in the Wolfsonian museum shop.
Jeremy Aynsley is a well-known scholar of twentieth-century design whose special research interest is early modern graphic design. He was curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum's 1997 exhibition, Signs of Art and Commerce: Graphic Design in the German Language, 1900-1950, and was a Visiting Fellow at The Wolfsonian in 1996. Wolfsonian Curator Marianne Lamonaca worked closely with Aynsley on the exhibit. Lamonaca is a specialist in nineteenth- and twentieth-century design history.
This exhibition was at the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture in New York from May 24 through August 26, 2001, at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island in the fall of 2002 and at the Massachusetts College of Art from January 22, 2003 through March 22, 2003.
Exhibition support was provided by the Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany, Goethe Haus, Dresdner Bank Lateinamerika, and SunTrust Bank.
The
Wolfsonian-FIU receives support from the State of Florida; Department of State,
Division of Cultural Affairs, Florida Arts Council; Miami-Dade County Department
of Cultural Affairs through the Cultural Affairs Council, the Mayor and the
Miami-Dade County Board of County Commissioners; the Mayor and City Commission
of the City of Miami Beach and the Miami Beach Cultural Arts Council; Continental
Airlines; Northern Trust Bank, DACRA and Miami Design District.
Back
to Past Exhibitions Main
