Film Posters From Ghana. The exhibition shows hand-painted posters advertising action films produced in Africa since the 1980s and Hollywood blockbusters. The large-format works by the poster painters reveal a unique graphic language in which local myths are included as well as stylistic devices found in the commercial advertising strategies of western industrial countries.
Graphic design from West Africa: This exhibition of the Neue Sammlung shows hand-painted posters advertising action films produced in Africa since the 1980s and Hollywood blockbusters. The large-format works by the poster painters reveal a wholely unique, drastic, and occasionally shocking graphic language in which local myths are included as well as stylistic devices found in the commercial advertising strategies of western industrial countries. As a result, the posters go way beyond the allure of pure exoticism. This form of African graphic design poses questions about “political correctness”, about visual habits and pictorial traditions, about cultural constitutions and cultural transfer.
Since the 1980s, hand-painted posters have been used in Ghana to advertise local,
West African video film productions as well as American blockbusters or martial arts
films from the Far East: drastic, occasionally shocking pictures - 'politically
incorrect' from our point of view. Stylistic devices found in commercial advertising
strategies in Hollywood or Hong Kong are integrated in the graphic design, as are
local myths and the religious beliefs of the influential Pentecostal Churches.
As a result, the posters go way beyond the allure of pure exoticism. This form of
African graphic design poses questions about visual habits and pictorial traditions,
about cultural constitutions and cultural transfer. Exchange back and forth between
individual countries and continents in a globalised world is not just restricted to
goods, technologies or consumer habits, but also includes adaptions of aesthetic
notions considered alien to date as well as concepts that can permanently alter
societies.
When the first video recorders reached Ghana in the 1980s, a large number of simple
cinemas, most of them known as 'video clubs', were set up in the urban centres of
Accra and Kumasi. Garishly bright posters were and still are used to advertise films
being shown. The reverse of old canvas flour sacks is used as a painting surface,
their dimensions generally dictating the format. The posters are painted in small
studios which also work on commissions such as portraits or pictures of football
stars or popular political figures as well as other billboards - graphic design from
West Africa.
With this exhibition of posters from the Dr. Wolfgang Staebler Collection,
Rosenheim, Die Neue Sammlung - The International Design Museum Munich, housed in the
Pinakothek der Moderne - welcomes its latest neighbour, the HFF (University of
Television and Film Munich), whose new building in the Kunstareal cultural area is
opening in 2011.
Further information and pictorial material: Dr. Corinna Rösner
Die Neue Sammlung - The International Design Museum Munich
T +49 (0)89 272725-0
presse@die-neue-sammlung.de
Image: Bad Woman – Marred To a Witch, Film Poster, Ghana 2000. Collection Dr. Wolfgang Staebler
Opening: Thursday, March 31.2011, 19
Pinakothek der Moderne - Die Neue Sammlung
Barerstrasse 40, - Munich