With the advent of the mass communication era, postwar Japan saw dramatic advancements in printing technology and increasingly close ties between art and popular culture, and much attention was focused on art created with duplicative media. The fields of printing, printmaking, and graphic design are in proximity, with both areas of overlap and decisive differences, much like tectonic plates meeting along active fault lines. During these postwar years, various “tectonic shifts” occurred in the form of endeavors to actively redefine, freely interconnect, or underscore differences among these fields.

One platform for these endeavors was the International Biennial Exhibition of Prints in Tokyo.Taking place on an international scale, this exhibition, bringing together works from around the world, was held 11 times between 1957 and 1979 at venues including the National Museums of Modern Art in Tokyo and Kyoto, providing emerging printmakers and designers of the day with valuable exposure. Tectonic Shifts in Printing, Printmaking and Graphic Design 1957-1979 focuses primarily on artists who were featured in the International Biennial Exhibition of Prints in Tokyo, and re-examines the possibilities opened up by printing technology and their significance for our current era through the intersection of printmaking and graphic design in diverse visual artworks of the era.

The exhibition includes a special exhibit which looks back on the 1977 show Masterpieces of Contemporary Japanese Crafts: Commemorative Exhibition for Opening of the Crafts Gallery and presents craft works from that era.

Location

National Crafts Museum

Date

December 19, 2023 –March 3, 2024

Closed

Mondays (except January 8 and February 12), December 28 – January 1, January 9 and February 13

Time

9:30 – 17:30
※Last admission is 30 minutes before closing.

Organizer

National Crafts Museum, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

Co-organizer

The Hokkoku Shimbun

Cooperation

National Center for Art Research

Exhibition Tours

May 30 – August 25, 2024
The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto