Opening At Poster House This Month: Chinese History And The Triumph Of The Swiss

On February 27, Poster House is proud to debut two new exhibitions The Sleeping Giant: Posters & The Chinese Economy and The Swiss Grid.

True to the spirit of the young museum, these two shows explore the full scope of the poster's role in society-as a window into social, political, and economic history on the one hand, and the evolution of mass communication and graphic design on the other.

Both exhibitions will be on view through August 23, 2020.

The Sleeping Giant documents China's evolution over the course of the 20th century, from a fractured state dominated by foreign trade interests before the Second World War, to an insular Communist stronghold during the leadership of Mao Zedong, to an economic powerhouse and growing world power under Deng Xiaoping.

Spanning a century of extraordinary change, the posters on view reflect China's economic relationship with the world through visual culture. In the 1920s and '30s, as foreign powers wedged themselves into China, yuefenpai, or "calendar posters," combined both imported Western and domestic Chinese design elements to advertise everything from cigarettes to medicine. Following the Chinese Civil War and establishment of the People's Republic of China under Chairman Mao, advertising was subsumed by the state's propaganda apparatus. Domestic economic programs were promoted en mass through posters displayed in public spaces, schools, government buildings, and sold for display in the home. Soviet economic assistance, and a formal alliance signed in 1950, led to the adoption of Soviet Realism in Chinese poster design, a style that persisted even after the Sino-Soviet split, through the Cultural Revolution and Mao's death. With the ascension of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, and the economic reforms and opening to the West that followed, the resumption of international product advertising led to a rapid evolution of Chinese design. In Shenzhen, a "Special Economic Zone" where foreign trade was encouraged, a design hotbed emerged, blending cutting-edge international design principles with the creativity of a newly emergent community of Chinese designers and consumers. Through 53 posters spanning the full breadth of this evolution, The Sleeping Giant charts the story of China's emergence as an economic powerhouse through a century of tectonic political, economic, and social upheaval.

Where The Sleeping Giant explores the emergence of an economic power, The Swiss Grid documents the rise of a dominant aesthetic. Since its birth in the early 1950s, no other graphic design tool has had a greater impact than the Swiss grid. Whether adhering to it, playing with it, or decrying it, all styles and movements since then have been responding or reacting to this system. Born out of a necessity for clarity in a country with four official languages, the grid became a simple way to efficiently manage mass communication. It also avoided referencing any stylistic trends typically associated with a single country, appearing universal, anonymous, and modern. The 20 posters featured in The Swiss Grid, along with a range of ephemera and a supplementary display outside the gallery of 17 Swiss posters from both before and after the heydey of the grid, explore how this landmark design tool was developed - who's used it, what its actual rules are, and how it became a lasting global phenomenon. The first museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to the global history of posters, Poster House opened its doors for the first time in June, 2019. Its current exhibitions, Baptized by Beefcake, an exhibition of hyperbolic, hand-painted Ghanian film posters, and 20/20 InSight, a collection of posters from the historic 2017 Women's March, are on view through February 16, 2020. About Poster House

An exciting new addition to New York's cultural landscape, Poster House draws out hidden histories of poster art as never before, maps their continued role in today's media landscape, and encourages future design as the medium is reclaimed and reworked by successive generations in order to communicate quickly, effectively, and seductively to an audience constantly on the move.