Nusle

As a designer, I would feel frustrated by the uniformity of the conceptual trend, frustrated that I do not work for the cultural sector, do not do corporate style of cultural institutions, books and exhibitions and do not own a publishing house or otherwise develop my author initiating activities and do not work with people across disciplines.

Kateřina Přidalová, Biennial as a Process, Art & Antiques, 2012

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Ask why?

On the sidelines of the Brno Biennial of Graphic Design 2012

Cleaning

Perhaps you remember (or can imagine) the feeling when you first reached for really big money, or when you seduced a beautiful woman (or man) that you thought was unavailable. I believe that without these feelings or ideas, graphic (now more visual ) design cannot be sufficiently captured and understood. It would be a mistake to reduce it to the visual structuring of information, or a kind of work of art. Design is also an emotion, an emotion of a special kind.

Graphic design is not only comparing things on the table (which you probably won't consider directly as an art, but recognizing whether an artist or engineer cleaned up), but also mediating or directly shaping topics, problems and especially emotions that are literally close to the excitement of chance. spotted gestures of lolita, or pleasure from the touch of her firm ass. In addition to cleaning the table, you will also come across a package of very strange photos, or a girl leaning on the edge. Design works with information and images, but only as a tool to model our ideas, thoughts, desires and / or fears. The design produces fetishes. He plays with distance, making the mundane untouchable and vice versa. The so-called Global brands, corporations and commercial visuals in general, advertising or consumer packaging are now primarily fetish carriers and are understood as such.

At the same time, the design areas are both highly sophisticated technologies and experts, and moved to millions of living rooms with (post) computers and their graphic applications and editors. It is both dry or conceptual, as well as emotional and manipulative, just as it is a highly specialized field of IT forming a kind of metadesign (hardware, software and so-called graphical interfaces) in which it is then under the hands of complete laymen (or those who lay to explode in communication networks to billions of pages, emails and other visuals . If we are thinking about graphic design today, we should be aware of this fragmentation and contradiction. There is no single design.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with the ongoing and ending October 28th Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno. I'll try to get them closer so you can answer. It should be noted that I was among those who stood at the beginning of preparations for this year's biennial, but I left very soon and no longer participated in the concept of the event. Four years ago, I published an article about the previous biennial, which can probably be considered critical ( I'm lovin 'it . On the sidelines of the Biennial of Graphic Design Brno 2008 , A2 36/2008), I promised the editors the last year, but did not add. As far as I can remember, I did not find a way to take action, write something new and, in fact, do not motivate me. At the same time, Kateřina Přidalová ( Úsporné binenále , Art & Antiques, 9/2010) formulated significant observations at that time. So the table is tidy.

Every other cultural event similar to the Brno Biennial is actually a miracle. Especially at this time, when the state and its respective institutions, the media, the majority society, and perhaps the elites have embraced the idea of the necessity of such an effort. How demanding is probably just securing the event budget or communication with the Brno City Hall. In this sense, the 25th Biennial of Graphic Design is in itself a success of the Moravian Gallery in Brno and an act worthy of admiration. However, in addition to economic (or ideological) adversity, people in the field of design and its institutions cease to understand the needs of such a traditional event format, and uncertainty is further strengthened by the role of the Internet and information sharing in general outside traditional institutions, galleries and the media. In short, if you are interested in graphic design, you will learn very little from the event itself. The biennial is no longer the only way to see world design in a once closed and later linguistically isolated country. Today, trends are being followed online, and publications and blogs (more or less) that critically reflect design and visuality are growing literally every day. In such a situation, it could be assumed that the emphasis on biennials such as events, meetings, places for interpretation and formulation of common problems will increase. On the liveliness of the event and the change of format.

Tradition

How is this biennial different from the previous ones, what has changed? The question only makes sense if there was a demand for some change. However, the responses to previous years do not show anything like that. So why was the biennial supposed to change? When you read this year's press releases (www.bienalebrno.org), interviews with organizers and curators, or responses in the media, the grateful story of change, significant rejuvenation, winning the event and emphasis on the creative process is repeated in unison. The main connecting idea of this year's biennial is process. It is mainly the process of creating graphic projects, but also the process of creating the entire biennial , says one of the curators of the event Marta Sylvestrová. This can also be documented on the most obvious formal change, the abolition of all restrictions in the competition section. This year, for the first time, it was possible to submit a book, font or poster, as well as a company logo or website. Furthermore, the format of the event remained unchanged. The show again consists of several exhibitions in all buildings of the Moravian Gallery, one of which is a competition with a selection and international jury (this year carefully mentioned as a choir of curators ) with the traditional Grand Prix and several other awards. The opening was again accompanied by a so-called symposium, three days of lectures by participants and jurors or curators, this time only one day longer. It is therefore understandable and media-desirable to talk about change, and for several reasons mentioned, it is justified, but in fact it would be far more interesting and bolder to subscribe to the tradition and duration of the event. Despite all the emphasis on change, timeliness and the creative process , this event is primarily an effort to continue the biennial, and in a way a tribute to its history. Enthusiastically, this time the main role is not graphic design, its trends, topics or current issues, but the Biennial in Brno itself.

This (semi-) denied tendency has something interesting and probably characteristic for the operation of institutions such as the Moravian Gallery (with all the buildings and the scale of attendance), as well as for the designers themselves with an unsatisfied desire to confirm their social status and the importance of graphic design itself. The question is whether the stone status of the organizer is no longer a burden at the biennial. Looking at similar events, it is clear how anachronistic it is in several respects and, in fact, it cannot even be meaningfully classified or compared with contemporary art events, such as art biennials, or theater, film and music festivals. The Brno event is more reminiscent of a trade fair stand with the best pumps than, for example, exhibits of Kassel documents, arousing fans of emotions, questions and doubts. I may be wrong, but that is also the reason why it is so difficult to write something sensible about a biennial than just listing individual exhibitions and authors. If they raise any questions at all, they are unexciting and purely particular. Surrounded by more pressing questions about the meaning of the relationship between an institution such as the Moravian Gallery and the world of design, or the deepening hibernation of the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague.

Oasis

A visit to the biennial exhibitions is a special experience. The city will not remind you of the ongoing biennial, it is almost invisible, perhaps even just suffering. You will then more or less wander by the expositions in several buildings. I couldn't resist the urge to at least open the windows, breathe in the fresh air, or ask for a glass of water (instead of the canceled bookstore coffee shop). Of course, I describe subjective feelings, but this is a framework that you enter into, which is simply not pleasant and difficult to understand. But let's leave aside the idea of the current gallery or museum. You can also read more about the selection of works, their installation and the visual identity of the event (ie a poster, caption, or catalog) on the biennial's website and in newspaper articles, to which there is actually nothing to add. The organizers continue the tradition of creating a kind of exemplary oasis of the right graphic design. Posters, books, magazines and smaller publications, several LPs, author's fonts and all this almost exclusively for cultural institutions or as author's projects. As you browse through the books on display *, you are inevitably wondering why you should not go to a well-stocked bookstore or browse amazon.com. Such a concept puts the issue of graphic design in the position of elitist pseudo-artistic practice detached from everyday reality , adds Kateřina Přidalová ( Biennial as a Process ). Which is in such a striking and characteristic contrast to, for example, the aforementioned events of contemporary visual art, obsessively crowded with self-reflection, experimentation, exploration of various areas, work with problematic phenomena of the present, explicit criticism, or commercial and declining aesthetics. Here, design is actually presented as a non-reflective, non-problematic field. We don't see any ugly ads, billboards, no visual manipulations or suggestions. We will also not find critical, problematic or controversial artifacts here, which can unfortunately be downloaded at the otherwise deviant exhibition Two or Three Things I Know About Provo by Dutch designers Experimantal Jetset. The story of the anarchist movement of the 1960s and its events and publications would be an interesting topic for a book or film, but it's hard to say whether the format of a type exhibition with dozens of panels full of text, lists and several reproductions is more than incredibly boring and beating document.

I have not directed the previous ones to condemn the action in the spirit that it should have been done completely differently , but, I hope, to more general issues. How to present or work with design in the gallery? What sense, and for whom, do these shows have today? Or how and why to actually exhibit prints, copies as original works? The present with all-pervading advertising, visual manipulation and suggestion, with design as the dominant marketing tool, or with a visuality that we just do not like, can not only be ignored, not chosen, but above all thematized and try to interpret it. Focusing on elite graphic design, production for cultural institutions, or directly the concept of design as part of the art world, is probably a reaction to its ever-increasing commercialization and clear demarcation from it. However, this view also hides an intention, the question is whether conscious, presenting the exhibited works as the top, the most interesting and the most progressive in the world of design. But then it is not possible to ignore the commercial sphere, which primarily creates trends, IT technologies or social networks. In a sense, however, the show of current design was stolen by the Internet several years ago, and it is an attempt at a live interpretation that may be the one that returns meaning or importance to the event. I imagine an airy space, a park, a square or a terrace with a view of Brno, with a well-run ( curated ) bookstore and a café. With girls, students of marketing, design or media studies, with whom you are happy to talk about the biennial , yesterday's discussion, or just have a book on the topic that interests you. Enough dreaming.

Reflection

Although it can be assumed that this is no longer possible , I understand the effort to maintain the tradition and the fears that apparently prevented the organizers from stepping into uncertain projects. It's definitely nice and honest to just show a few things we like in one place. The traditional format of the entire show is an almost titanic effort to save graphic design from marketing or lay people and firmly squeeze it into the context of fine arts and its institutions. At the same time, however, I follow the awakening critical reflection of the biennial, which does not mean that the event is only getting worse and worse, but that it is important to think about it and write that something can still be expected. Paradoxically, the most interesting texts come from the authors who participated in the biennial itself, or prepared an annex to the interviews with the organizers and some participants. The text of Kateřina Přidalová ( Biennial as a Process ), which explains the clear positives of this year's show, or the more radical view of Jakub Kovařík ( Careful Transformations of the Brno Biennial , Flash Art 25/2012), which mainly questions the role of the gallery institution in relation to the presentation of graphic design. This shift can be seen as a happy hand of the organizers in the selection of collaborators and also as a promise of future changes and strengthening the role of reflection throughout the event. It is not on the table today how and whether the event should be changed carefully or more significantly. Biennials must always be re-invented , even if the halls of the Moravian Gallery remain empty for one summer.

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* At the request of the Guest editors, I am adding a few lines about the published publications as a note. It goes without saying that they primarily correspond to the taste and current view of the book design of the jurors themselves, the active designers. Most of the time, however, it is really the most interesting of the current production, although it is clear how unusually strong the influence of trends is today thanks to their online spread. Even from some books and their authors, you feel the helplessness, bondage and weight with which trends fall on them. They become boring and multiplied and ridiculous in the exhibition side by side. But you will also find solitary creators and their author's books, such as the one by the remarkable young artist Martin Kubát, whose poster is, if I'm not mistaken, the only hand-painted artifact and therefore the original of the entire Biennial. (This double-sided, perforated and almost illegible poster was also a work I would like to use in the text about the Biennial if I were not tied to it.) But I cannot help feeling that these designers and their work in fact found themselves misunderstood in Brno.

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Host, 2012