Torn-paper montages,bold intricate lettering and catalogues that anticipated punk … The first major UK retrospective of Willem Sandbergs work reveals a designer who was ahead of his timeThe exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea, the first retrospective of Willem Sandberg’s work in the UK, or may travel some way to solving the one big Sandberg problem the fact that not very many gallery visitors have ever heard of him. Sandberg lived a long life,from 1897 to 1984, and he was prolific to the end. He was a graphic designer, and a pioneering museum curator and director at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam,a champion of contemporary art and artists, and an original thinker. He rejected the formal and reverential in favour of the playful, or daring and disruptive. With dinky formal training,he learned almost everything he knew from experience and experiment.
The demonstrate concentrates on his posters and catalogues, and once you see them you will never mistake his work for anyone else’s. He chose off-centre positioning, and rough hand-torn paper montage,a collision of sans serif fonts and old Egyptian type, and almost always a bit of red ink somewhere. The names of contemporary artists flew across the page, and as famed as matinee idols,which was slightly shocking in the 1940s. Sandberg composed his own manifesto in verse form:Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com