BRATISLAVA - JUNEK - BRNO | My topography |
50 POSTERS - 50 TYPOGRAPHICS - 30 SYMBOLS AND LOGOTYPES
by Slovak graphic designer Dusan Junek from Bratislava
45th exhibition of the Brno - the Capital of Graphic Design cycle
15. 03. - 28. 04. 2008, Opening on 15 March, 2008 at 4 p.m.
HaDivadlo Brno Gallery,
ALFA passage, 8d Postovska Str., Brno, Czech Republic
Dusan Junek in Brno
An exhibition from a cycle "Brno - the capital of graphic design" is being organized by the Brno Biennale Association at the HaDivadlo (HaTheatre) Gallery in Brno. It is presenting 50 posters, 50 typographies and 30 logographers created by the leading figure of Slovak graphic design, and internationally reputable artist Dusan Junek from Bratislava.The name of the exhibition implies the artistīs close relation to 2 cities - Bratislava (the capital of Slovakia) and Brno (the capital of graphic design ). Dusan Junek has spent most of his life in Bratislava. Many important events concerning both his personal and working life are connected to this city. He still lives and works there. At the beginning of the 70īs, during the communist regime, he was banished to the northeast peripheria of Slovakia due to his anti-totalitarian attitude and his work.
After 14 years of prohibition and persecution, and after the fall of the totalitarian regime he returned to Bratislava and has become the leading figure on the national art scene, and an internationally recognized artist. At the beginning of the 90īs he took part in the world-known International Biennale of graphic design Brno where he was awarded a bronze medal (1990) for a series of his play-bills. These and many others he successfully exhibited throughout the world: Biennale Lahti, Biennale Mexico, Biennale Fort Collins, Biennale Warszawa, Triennial Toyama, Biennale Rzeszow, Biennale Sofia, Triennial Trnava, Paris, Osaka, etc. The Brno Biennale organizers invited him to participate and in 1991 he was appointed a vice president of the Bienalle. In this position he stayed consecutively for a decade- until 2000. In cooperation with Jan Rajlich senior, he partook in forming this oldest exhibition of graphic design in the world. Dusan Junek is not only a unique poster designer,but also a big friend of posters.He became an initiator and co-founder of the International Trnava Poster Triennial and up to the present he has been its president. Every three years thanks to him a small Slovak town Trnava becomes the mecca of the world-known poster designers, and talented young generationīs designers. Professor Dusan Junek is the Head of the department of Graphics of visual communication at the Design School in Bratislava. His longtime creative work along with his pedagogical activities has a great influence on forming and work of young graphics and designers.
In 1994 Shigeo Fukudo already said: "One of graphic design purposes is to bring pleasure to people, to enchant them. And among other things to evoke thinking. Dusan Junek has achieved this in his work. An intelligent metaphor coming from the intellectual basis leading to funny exaggeration in the works of our Slovak colleague is exceptional. It is the dominant feature of his art." The extensive exhibition in Brno also proves that "the artist is a master at solving the difficult process which from the creative chaos of forms, lines and prints, signs and symbols is able to create a perfectly organized system. A warm, positive energy seems to shine through his works - graphic playfulness. We feel that their creation was a really joyful human activity!" (Vladislav Rostoka, 2003)
Dusan Junek gained more than 30 awards and earned a worldwide recognition for his work. He also won 15 first prizes in competitions for logo and corporate identity of firms and institutions. In 2002 he got a prestigious award for lifetime achievements and a remarkable personal contribution in raising the visual communication standards in the world. 50 exhibited posters and a series of 50 typographies at the Brno exhibit are a typical example of Junekīs poetics about which Professor Lex Drewinski from Berlin wrote: "Dusan Junek belongs to a very few artists who not only says, that the function of a poster is to be economic in graphic form though rich in expression, but consequently does it. The style of his posters is not some Polish, Czech, Slovak, or Japanese school but a school of thinking and ideological contraction.
Simultaneously it is a school forcing oneself to iron discipline which permanently requires to be in form in the sphere of vision and imagination. It doesnīt allow momentary indisposition in the space of thinking, and any creative tattle or ideological banality.
This is a way in which Dusan Junek, despite indisputable creative accomplishments, is constantly developing in an apparent direction."
Brno Biennale Association
Contact to Dusan Junek: djunek@azet.sk
