Klaus Wittkugel and Anton Stankowski “OST UND oder WEST”
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Curated by Prem Krishnamurthy and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz
An exhibition in two parts, OST UND oder WEST: Klaus Wittkugel and Anton Stankowski explores the ideologies and forms of Modernist graphic design. Presenting the work of Klaus Wittkugel in East Germany and Anton Stankowski in West Germany, this exhibition contrasts the production of image and meaning within competing social and economic systems.
Wittkugel (1910–1985) and Stankowski (1906–1998) led remarkably parallel careers: both studied under the same teacher in Essen and achieved notable careers in advertising in the 1930s. In the postwar period, each became a leading design figure, who worked with prestigious and powerful clients of his respective country. In East Germany, Wittkugel communicated socialist ideals and aspirations through his posters, book covers, and propaganda exhibitions in the service of the state. His design approach employed modernist abstraction and photomontage, while adapting its formal palette to a given commission. In an idiosyncratic manner, graphics often appear self-reflexively within his staged photographs. In West Germany, Stankowski’s individualized aesthetic was guided by a constructivist approach that privileged clarity, conciseness, and symmetry. He used photography to capture dynamic forms and processes from life, which provided the basis for graphic forms he developed into paintings, posters, advertisements, and especially corporate logos, which remain some of the most recognized visual identities in circulation.
Featuring a wide range of materials including vintage photography, posters, books, prints, and ephemera, the exhibition makes a case for further comparative study of these two figures. Twenty-five years after the reunification of East and West Germany, significant issues surrounding the dialogues of design and art within the divided state remain under-explored. This exhibition seeks to retrace this trajectory in a material and timely manner.
also at
OSMOS Address
50 East 1st Street
New York, NY 10003
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Schedule
from January 14, 2016 to February 21, 2016
Opening Reception on 2016-01-14 from 18:00 to 20:00