Last night around 8:00 Matt took off to attend some sort of ambient, experimental concert in Friedrichshain. It was chilly and wet outside so I chose to stay in. I remembered that earlier that day, on our daily walk around the kiez, I stopped in front of a newspaper shop to read some of the magazine covers. Remembering how much I liked reading Monopol in the past, I made a mental note to go to their website. So there I was reading the homepage article on Monopol covering this weekend's Miss Read, an art book exhibition with related discussions going on at Kunst-Werke. I took a short trip to KW, where I found a list of other art-book and independent publishing events going on this weekend, one of which was a 12-hour self-publishing event at Motto near Schlesisches Tor. To Motto I went. There I learned about a presentation and conversation with critical graphic designer and theorist Zak Kyes at the art bookshop Pro qm in Mitte, starting in just five minutes. Yowza. So I threw on about four layers of clothing, jumped on my bike and started pedaling.
One of the most basic points discussed, but that I found the most relevant, concerned the politicization of graphic design. Apparently Daniel Birnbaum, the director of this year's Venice Biennale, described national flags as capable of “being broken down to basic visual shapes that display unexpected painterly qualities." National flags -- purely graphic interpretations of a country's culture, history, politics and identity -- as painterly? So the question that was posed to Kyes was approximately whether or not graphic design was losing its political power in the face of (excessive) formalism.
Kyes answered No, of course not. Certainly I agree with him. The meaning behind any given design is malleable, constantly evolving to fit its context and (previous and present) associations, of which new ones can also develop. For an example we can choose any iconic image. Consider how it was viewed when it was designed, first presented, when a generation changes favor, when a government changes favor, after being reworked by other artists. After being maneuvered through post-modernist dialogue like pulled taffy, an image only gains meaning. That most laden with allusion wins friends and influences people. Isn't that how any art essentially works?
