Persona 1965

Ginza Graphic Gallery

Finished

Artists

Kiyoshi Awazu, Shigeo Fukuda, Gan Hosoya, Toshihiro Katayama et al.

In 1955 Japan hosted the Graphic ’55 Exhibition (featuring the likes of Yusaku Kamekura and Ryuichi Yamashiro), followed by the World Design Conference 1960 in Tokyo, the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, and the Osaka World Expo in 1970. And in 1965, during this formative period for Japanese design, 11 young designers and five guest designers held the Persona Exhibition of Graphic Design in the Matsuya Ginza department store. The young designers were Kiyoshi Awazu, Shigeo Fukuda, Gan Hosoya, Toshihiro Katayama, Mitsuo Katsui, Tsunehisa Kimura, Kazumasa Nagai, Ikko Tanaka, Akira Uno, Makoto Wada, and Tadanori Yokoo. The rise of a new generation of designers born during the late 1920s and 30s and their assertion of individuality in design work created a sensation at that time, and 35,000 people visited the exhibition during the single week it was on show. The exhibition raised a whole range of questions: What is graphic design? What is the relationship between graphic design and society? What role does graphic design play in society? What were the designers of the day trying to achieve? Is graphic design industrial art or creative art? This exhibition presents many important works actually exhibited at that time to reconstruct the Persona exhibition, which was arguably one of the key events in the history of Japanese graphic design.

[Related Events]
4:00–5:30 p.m., Wednesday November 5, 2014
Speakers: Kazumasa Nagai, Mitsuo Katsui, Hiroshi Kashiwagi
Reservation required: number of people limited to 70 persons

5:00–6:30 p.m., Tuesday November 11, 2014
Speakers: Akira Uno, Gan Hosoya, Tadanori Yokoo
Reservation required: number of people limited to 70 persons

*For more details about reservation, please check the official webpage.

Schedule

Nov 5 (Wed) 2014-Nov 27 (Thu) 2014