Shin Matsunaga | The Graphic Appetite: Shin Matsunaga Poster Exhibition

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Shin Matsunaga, “Play Together with Details/Spring Has Come (detail),” 2001

poster design for Matsunaga’s solo exhibition; offset print. (Photo courtesy of Shin Matsunaga)

Opening Reception: Friday September 20th, 7 -10 pm

The Japanese, by their geographic disposition and aesthetic temperament, have historically demonstrated an extraordinary talent for learning and adapting from outside sources without sacrificing and compromising their centuries-old system of traditions and beliefs. This is very much evidenced in Japan’s contemporary visual/new media arts, architecture and, particularly, in design. For the Japanese, design has served – through development and application of symbolic vocabulary – as a quiet and personal expression of the elegant as well as the ordinary. In addition, the Japanese have had a specific ability to reduce complicated representational ideas to simple forms and patterns that are visually tantalizing.

Art by Shin Matsunaga, Japan’s leading contemporary graphic designer, reflects these philosophical and formal principles. From the basic energies of visual form to a continuing and fresh exploration of the relationships of plane in space, of volume, elements of typography, and of visual ‘sounds’, Matsunaga has constructed a language of graphic art which is expressed through symbols rather than descriptive statements. Embracing a creed that “everything in our lives involves design”, through the years Matsunaga has cast a sharp critical eye on all ambient design, defined stereotypes, and completely recast the design environment around us. He has defined his stance toward design as “artistic invention within a 3-meter radius”. He believes that it is within ordinary daily life that universality transcending the ages lurks, and his own artistic invention comes from his real experiences and his perspicaciously critical mind. Clear typography, bright colours, and a wide range of pictorial inventions and compositions that are something between illustrations and photography determine designs of his posters. His work, some of it in the fields of corporate design, editorial and packaging design, have received numerous awards in Japan and around the globe, and have served as inspiration for several designers internationally.

Presented in partnership with the Japan Foundation in Toronto and drawn from their impressive collection of contemporary Japanese design, The Graphic Appetite: Shin Matsunaga Poster Exhibition not only showcases Matsunaga’s impressive corpus of work, but also highlights his diverse range of symbolic idioms, and discusses visual vocabulary which has been so expertly articulated through the universal themes of his poster designs. His compelling, impeccably executed, but often puzzling imagery with its wide range of formal and symbolic vocabulary and application of new techniques, entices us to contemplate his works for longer that we had planned as we attempt to unravel the symbolism that obscures the statement he wishes to make.

The specific design of his posters subverts the notion that communication consists of a passive transfer of information from one party to another. Rather, his posters seize the viewers’ attention, engaging them in a process of negotiation with the image. Through a complex association of metaphors and historical references, the viewer not only unravels but also enhances and enriches the meaning veiled by the sophisticated interplay of word and picture.  Matsunaga’s poster designs refer to an abundant palette of colour enhanced by a rich visual and conceptual dictionary and testify to imaginative and sophisticated compositions of unusual terseness of measures. The irresistible suggestiveness of his poster design, its intellectual character and the way Matsunaga treats the fundamental function of a poster (information, illustration, attraction), speaks volumes about the creative potential of their author.