TO SEE MARKS OF TIME – CONTEMPORARY POLISH POSTER EXHIBITION
The contemporary Polish poster took on a very expressive poetics, creating an incredibly interesting phenomenon, especially set against the so-called Polish School of Posters. It represents itself and clearly defines its own identity. This encourages attitudes that treat art as a document or even as a testimony of the artist’s own experience. Among young poster artists you can often find an attitude of distance towards what was, for the older generation of graphic designers, the essence of creative identity. The language of poster art has become ascetic. It was ‘cleared’ of unnecessary elements obstructing the message and it became more literal, its message more direct and straightforward.
The contemporary poster quickly became a gallery or collectors’ item. Just a few years back, this caused abrupt discussions – today it’s not surprising and has even been accepted by most artists. Many of them create so-called “authorial posters” (non-commissioned work), by inventing, for example, their own theatre or cinema, and then, designing posters for those fictional theatre plays or movies. These works, submitted to various competitions, often win prestigious awards.
In the light of the foregoing considerations, you can conclude that although currently in Poland a “new Polish School of Poster Art” has not evolved yet, we are definitely witnessing the birth of a new reality, aesthetics and a new style of Polish Poster Design.
The exhibition serves the purpose of showcasing various aspects of art of the younger generation of Polish Poster artists, setting them in context with contemporary works of master graphic designers. It is a wonderful chance to analyse and compare works in terms of their poetics of image, to trace the influence of new technology on the style of posters and most of all, become acquainted with the outcome of the evolution, clearly visible in the advertising content, in the realm of artist’s communication with the viewer.
Poster collection, courtesy of the AMS Poster Gallery.
