The works seen in this show make up a grouping resulting from the critical eye of three designers turned to the graphic design & city binomial. It is not, however, a conventional exhibition on the profession itself – in which commissioned projects stand out for having skillfully provided feasible solutions or evidence the latest trends in graphic language.

Our choice here was meant to move the divide. The boundaries establishing what design is or is not were set aside to make room to all sorts of contamination. More than the answers, the focus is on the issues raised, on the processes behind the works and, above all, on the strategies whose common denominator is the insightful use of the graphic tools to deal with collective issues.

By benefiting from the fertile ground provided by the city, our desire with this project was to expand the repertoire of possibilities for both of the use of the design lexicon and the ways of practicing design. The set of works on display encourages designers to a more proposition-geared practice disconnected from commissioned works and prone to include research, reflection, political activism. The emphasis is on visual communication that prioritizes the exchange and the dialog by bearing in mind that the urban city is the place of heterogeneity, of encounter and difference, of conflict and negotiation.

Graphic City exhibition ran at Itaú Cultural from November 20, 2014 to January 4, 2015.

Celso Longo, Daniel Trench and Elaine Ramos

With the purpose of casting a broader eye on, enhancing understanding and promoting more debate on the foreign and Brazilian graphic design, Itaú Cultural presented in 2014 the Graphic City exhibition. This show gave a panorama from a specific perspective: the investigation of the relationship between designers and urban issues - their complexities and problems -, either in a critical approach or in a creative and/or poetical one.

The show is curated by Celso Longo, Daniel Trench and Elaine Ramos (members of AGI - Alliance Graphique Internationale) and prioritizes both conventional graphic designs (books, posters, sources etc.) and academic research and works of artists who move between the fine arts and graphic design, for it accepts the assumption that work processes are as important as the final product.

The narrative of the show is focused on some Brazilian capitals and the works selected in a national open call - carried out through the Internet for a broader scope. Nevertheless, the exhibition space layout does not drew a distinction between the projects selected in the open call and those chosen by the curators - all of them contributed equally to the debate on graphic design and its many possibilities in the context of the contemporary metropolis.

Itaú Cultural

Website

Exhibition

Itaú Cultural has made all efforts to find the holders of the copyright over the images/photographic works herein published and the persons appearing in the photographs as well. Should anyone recognize himself/herself or identify any image/photographic work of his/her authorship, please contact us by writing to the e-mail atendimento@itaucultural.org.br.

Itaú Cultural and the curators wish to acknowledge all artists and photographers who have furnished their images to this publication and everyone who contributed to the research.