Spring 2005
Revolutionary Material in the Flesh [extract]
Avant-Garde Graphics 1918-1934
Touring exhibition. Exhibition curated by Lutz Becker.Catalogue by Lutz Becker, Richard Hollis, Hayward Gallery, £14.95
Glasgow’s Hunterian Gallery is home to a collection of James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s portraits, yet his subjects have been keeping dangerous company lately. The chatter of his elegant ladies has been hushed by the klaxon call of urgent typography, fine porcelain trembling as the gallery fizzes and cracks with shards of primary colour. For the organisers of this exhibition, the setting may well be perfect.
This travelling exhibition – organised by the Hayward Gallery, London – features posters, flyers, books and film from all the leading strands of twentieth-century Modernism. There are nearly 150 pieces, borrowed from the vast collection of the American Merrill C. Berman. It also provides a sort of homecoming as it is the first time that many of these works have been shown in Europe. The show is curated by filmmaker Lutz Becker and accompanied by a brightly illustrated catalogue with informed essays by Becker and designer and design historian Richard Hollis. [...]