Exhibitions
 

The exhibition presents the body of work by prominent graphic designer Mihajlo Arsovski in graphic design of books and scholarly journals, and includes issues designed in the time period from the early 1960s to today. Curators: Dejan Kršić and Marko Golub.

CONCEPT BY: MIHAJLO ARSOVSKI – Graphic Design in Books and Journals from 1960s to Today

11 - 31 July 2019

Croatian Chamber of Commerce

Croatian Association of Interdisciplinary Artists in Pula - Partnership and programme exchange with the Croatian Designers Association in Zagreb

CONCEPT AUTHORS AND EXHIBITION CURATORS Dejan Kršić and Marko Golub

“Mihajlo Arsovski is undoubtedly one of the most significant figures of Croatian graphic design in general. Moreover, some parts of his body of work, as larger units or individual fragments - primarily posters, book and magazine covers or fascinating compositions of text, alphanumeric characters, textures and pictures - have gained their own myth-like status, loved by those whose eyes glimmer when seeing them, adored by all those who read their nuanced visual vocabulary in more detail. As has been said many times, as opposed to most other designers of the said period, Arsovskidid not come into design from painting or illustration or architecture. His designer approach is thus more grounded in typography, in letter design. In Arsovski’s work, the letter is not primarily understood as a field of the literary or the poetic, but of the visual. Letters and words is where space, volume and similar spring up as visual fact, form and counterform (always extremely important in typography). All designers use typography, but nobody uses typography and its expressive possibilities in quite the same way as he does. He did not invent the collage principle either (even though he was the strongest influence in making it popular in our area), but he has internalised it in such a specific way that even his contemporaries and later generations knew clearly that they could follow him without falling int o a trap they would have difficulty getting out of. This is one of the issues with the perception of Arsovski in the domestic cultural surroundings, as somebody who has left a deep mark and has touched its important elements, but has nevertheless been left uprooted from it.” (from the foreword by Marko Golub and Dejan Kršić)