23th IPB Laureates exhibition
The opening: Friday, 6th June, 2014 at 7 p.m.
(free entrance)
Open from 7 June – 31 July 2014
Centrum Łowicka, Łowicka 21 St., Warszawa
Gallery open from Monday to Sunday, various opening hours, please see here: Lowicka Centrum opening hours
Curator of the exhibition: Aleksandra Oleksiak
Cooperation: Anna Torończyk
Following a long-standing tradition and competition regulations, the Laureates’s exhibition honours recipients of Gold Medals of previous editions of the IPB. Laureates send selected posters which, after the closing of the exhibition, are included, with their consent, in the collection of the Poster Museum at Wilanów. The first shows were held at the Poster Museum, however now the event is hosted by a different Warsaw gallery each time. This year, the exhibition features the work of two Gold Medal recipients of 2012 – Jianping He (Germany) for the poster Unfolding Keith Godard (Category B – Cultural Poster) and Tetsuro Minorikawa (Japan) for the poster Tsunami (Category A – Ideological Poster). Apart from the above two posters, the winners will present nearly 30 other works.
The work of Jianping He is a bridge between the East and the West, as illustrated by two posters advertising his own exhibitions in 2012. The first one of them was designed for the show In Between He Jianping, displayed at the Avla gallery in Ljubljana (Slovenia). The second one evokes nostalgia with the title Flashback hanging from a tree branch, and was created to accompany the exhibition at the prestigious ggg (Ginza Graphic Gallery) in Tokyo. We will also showcase the posters from the Cloning series, which won the Silver Medal at the 18th IPB in Warsaw in 2002, being a visual commentary on the debate about genetic engineering which was a hot topic back then.
Tetsuro Minorikawa’s work includes cultural posters, although a dominant theme is the destructive power of natural elements, such as earthquakes or tsunamis, but also those caused by humans, as demonstrated by the posters Sarajevo 1914–2014 and No More Fukushima.
There are certain destinations in the ever-changing world, allowing us to find all the things gone by. These are collections of art. When the International Poster Biennale was brought to life in 1966, the initiators had already planned to preserve the presented artworks for future generations. The year 1968 marked the opening of the first poster museum in the world, located in Warsaw. It was also the first year when the laureates of the Biennale were honoured with an exhibition at the new museum gallery with an interesting modernist architecture. The posters featured were designed by the Gold Medal recipients Jan Lenica (Poland), Hiroshi Tanaka (Japan), and Kazumasa Nagai (Japan). Since all museum professionals and collectors have an insatiable appetite for adding to their treasures, all the works included in the luareates’ exhibition were placed in the museum storage which was still fairly roomy at the time. The posters were then properly described and given inventory numbers, so they can be easily reached for today. Thanks to that, we can compare them with the later work of the designers and reflect on the decisions of the jury.
The need to continue with the idea of the global poster competition resulted in the redevelopment of the museum gallery in 1993. The new premises at the Wilanów Palace complex provided space for an amazing event – the International Poster Biennale. It was then that the laureates’ exhibition started to wander around Warsaw, having been hosted by the Xawery Dunikowski Museum of Sculpture at the Królikarnia Palace, the Studio gallery at Centrum Sztuki Studio in Warsaw, Centrum Łowicka, the Faculty of Media Arts of the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, the Warsaw Printing Museum, and many others. The review of work of the members of the jury of the competition – prominent graphic designers – has also been presented at various Warsaw galleries.
This year, both exhibitions will be held at Centrum Łowicka (as in 1998, 2000 ). The public will have an opportunity to see the work of two laureates of Gold Medals at the 23rd IPB in 2012 – Tetsuro Minorikawa from Japan and Jianping He from Germany. The Jury members – Stephan Bundi from Switzerland, Kenya Hara from Japan and Jakub Stępień Hakobo from Poland, will also present some of their achievements. In accordance with the competition regulations, each participant may submit a maximum of three posters. The exhibitions accompanying the Biennale give selected artists more room to show off their talent.
Visitors exploring the Laureates’, Jury Members’ and the competition exhibitions of the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw will be able to enjoy the most recent achievements of international graphic designers for nearly four months. What happens to the featured posters after the closing of the event? They appear in other contexts: new exhibitions, specialist studies, publications, as document of social life. They will survive in the collection of the Poster Museum at Wilanów.
And in two years’ time, once again we will see new designs and learn about the new laureates selected from among a great number of participants by another jury panel.
Today, however, we just hope you enjoy all of the events of the 24th edition of the IPB, Warsaw 2014.
The exhibition includes a presentation of the profiles of the laureates and jury members of all editions of the IPB, Warsaw 1966–2012.
Aleksandra Oleksiak, curator
Jianping He
Jianping He was born in 1973, China. He is now living in Berlin, working as a graphic designer, professor, and publisher. He studied graphic design at the China Academy of Art (1991–1994), and at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) (1997-2001). In 2011 he received his PhD degree in cultural history from the Free University of Berlin. He works at the Berlin University of the Arts, and was a guest professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. In 2002 he established his own design studio and publishing house, hesign, based in Berlin, with a branch in Hangzhou since 2008.
Jianping He has won numerous awards, such as the gold and two silver medals at the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw (2002, 2010, 2012); gold medal at the International Poster Triennial in Toyama, Japan (2012); silver medal at the Ningbo International Poster Biennial (2001); silver and bronze medal of the New York ADC (2008 and 2010); first prize at the Lahti International Poster Biennial in Finland (2005); silver medals at the International Poster Triennial in Hong Kong (2004, 2010); the Golden Bee 7 at the Moscow International Biennale of Graphic Design (2007); Award for Typographic Excellence, TDC New York and TDC Tokyo (2007–2010); silver medal at the International Poster Biennial in Mexico (2010); bronze medal of the HKDA, Hong Kong (2009). In 2006 he received the Internationaler Plakatkunst Hof Rüttenscheid Preis in Essen, Germany. His solo exhibitions took place in Germany, Malaysia, Slovenia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Japan, among others.
He judged many international competitions, including „100 beste Plakate des Jahres” (100 Best Posters of the Year) – Germany Austria Switzerland, the International Biennale of Theatre Posters in Rzeszów, the International Poster Biennale in Warsaw, the Ningbo International Poster Biennial, the Red Dot Design Award, and the Design for Asia Award in Hong Kong and many more.
Jianping He is a member of the examination association at the ESAG school of design, Paris, as well as the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI).
Tetsuro Minorikawa
Tetsuro Minorikawa was born in 1976 in Saitama, Japan. He graduated from the Tama Art University and has worked as Associate Professor at the Nagaoka Institute of Design since 2011. His most recent projects include: No More Fukushima, Tokyo, Niigata, Aichi, Japan (2011); Project Sunshine for Japan, Dusseldorf, Germany (2012); Tsunami and Earthquake in Japan, Queretaro, Mexico (2012); and Sarajevo 100, 1914–2014 (2014). Among his awards are the Grand Prize, Acryl Award 2005, Japan (2006); the Gold Medal, 23rd International Poster Biennial in Warsaw, Poland (2012); the Jury Prize, 1st Tokyo Book Jacket Illustration Competition, Japan (2012); the Platinum Medal, Graphics Poster Annual 2014, USA (2013); and the Member Prize, 2nd Tokyo Book Jacket Illustration Competition, Japan (2013).
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