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Rene
Wanner in his office, Rheinfelden 2003
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China
and Iran at the Poster Triennial Trnava 2003
Rene
Wanner
Anyone following the international poster scene must have noticed
that two countries have appeared in international competitions that
were almost completely absent only a few years ago: China and Iran.
The recent exhibition of posters from the Triennial in Trnava, Slovakia,
is just an example for a trend that can be observed from Kharkov
to Lahti, from Toyama to Mexico.
The catalogue of the 1997 Trnava Poster Triennial lists only one
participant from China, Chen Fang, and none from Iran, while in
2003 there were 15 participants from Iran, and 40 from China, not
even counting chinese designers living abroad nor those from Taiwan.
Why these two particular countries, and why the sudden explosion
of activity? First, it should be noted that both countries have
a long visual arts tradition and also did not have to start from
scratch in poster design. Yu Bingnan, the great old Beijing graphic
design teacher, was a successful student in Leipzig (DE) in the
1960s, and the posters of Morteza Momayez from Tehran appeared at
the Biennials of Warsaw and Brno in 1974 already. Since 1986, there
are regular graphic design biennales in Tehran, with thousands of
entries.
Maybe the global internet has helped to lift the curtain, and certainly
the strong desire of the young generation to take part in the international
game, to measure themselves against the top artists of the world,
and maybe a growing self confidence and justified pride when they
realized that they would measure up.
Both countries contribute with their own alphabets to a poster world
dominated by roman characters. In particular the iranian professionals
seem to enjoy the liberties offered by the free flowing farsi typography,
as opposed to the grid bound structure of both roman and chinese.
Interestingly, the students of both countries seem to have more
trust in roman script and english language to convince international
juries of their qualities.
For more information about Rene Wanner's Poster page visit:
www.posterpage.ch
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