Icons and Ephemera. Arthur Zelger and Graphic Design in Tyrol

Opening: Mon, Jun 22, 18:30
Location: designforum Wien
Admission: 2 €, reduced 1 €
Admission free for members of designaustria

The exhibition »Icons and Ephemera – Arthur Zelger and Graphic Design in Tyrol« at the designforum Wien will be devoting itself to Tyrolean graphic design from 1900 to the present day. The focus of the show will be on Arthur Zelger, probably Tyrol’s most famous graphic designer. 

Zelger’s works retell the genesis of posters and logotypes that have become icons – although they were never meant to be more than »ephemera«, as Zelger himself put it in a later interview. Zelger’s output will be accompanied by works by a number of other prominent Tyrolean designers, such as Ernst Insam, Maria Rehm, Gustav Sonnewend, and Helmut Benko, as well as examples of outstanding contemporary graphic design.

»Icons and Ephemera« also relates Tyrolean graphic design to developments in the neighbouring countries: Swiss graphic design, the Milan design scene, and the Ulm School of Design (HfG Ulm), where graphic design arrived at an acme in the 1950s and brought forth what is still considered »modern«. What exactly renders this particular style of graphic design »modern«? And what traces of it can be detected in Tyrolean graphic design? The exhibition raises exciting questions and attempts to view graphic design from a cultural and historical perspective, thereby providing an outline of the history and current state of Tyrolean graphic design.

Curators: Anita Kern (supervision), Kurt Höretzeder

The exhibition, presented by WEISSRAUM, the Innsbruck Forum for Visual Design, was on display at aut. architektur und tirol from 5 December – 14 February 2015.
<link http: www.weissraum.at ikonen>www.weissraum.at/ikonen

<link http: www.designforum.at w>www.designforum.at/w

Image: Arthur Zelger, Tyrol, 194849, Plakat, 63x95 cm, Tirol Werbung