INTERNATIONAL
TRIENNIAL OF STAGE POSTER - SOFIA
GRAPHIC DESIGN
156 th GINZA GRAPHIC
GALLERY EXHIBITION
May 1999, Tokyo, Japan
organized by
THE GINZA GRAPHIC GALLERY,
TOKYO, and
THE INTERNATIONAL TRIENNIAL
OF THE STAGE POSTER, SOFIA
with the assistance
of THE EMBASSY
OF THE REPUBLIC
OF BULGARIA IN JAPAN
The Exhibition is made up of works by eight artists belonging to different generations (the difference between the oldest and the youngest is thirty years). These artists are leading figures in the various genres of graphic design in Bulgaria, each with his own distinctive style and temperament. Part of the works in the collection were created during the 1970s and 1980s and are characterized by the “Aesopean language” typical of the totalitarian period: implied meanings, pointed jokes, and a limited gamut of colours (due to the poor state of the printing industry). This was the time when Bulgarian artists began to win their first awards at prestigious international shows and biennials. The remaining works in the exhibition date from more recent years and bear the characteristic features of the 1990s, when the computer “entered” the artist’s studio, polygraphic quality improved, and censorship practically disappeared. In 1955, a small group of artists in Sofia founded the International Triennial of the Stage Poster. It set itself the task to revive interest in this most attractive of poster forms, which was experiencing a crisis worldwide. The present Exhibition lays no claim to give an exhaustive picture of graphic design in Bulgaria. It is rather an attempt to show, through the works of artists active in this field to the present day, a more or less representative image of a living contemporary art, which surrounds us in our everyday life, an art invested with unusual and forceful ideas and keeping alive the memory of its time.
Curator
BOJIDAR IKONOMOV
President of the Organizational Comittee
of the International Triennial of the Stage Poster
