Grapus Movement
An offspring of the May ‘68 student revolt, Grapus design collective was founded in 1970 by Pierre Bernard, Gerard Paris-Clavel and Francois Miehe. They were joined in 1974-5 by Jean-Paul Bachollet and Alex Jordan; with Miehe’s departure in 1978, the main core was set. All members of the French Communist Party (PCF), they concentrated their early efforts on the new society visions of the Left, producing cultural and political posters for experimental theatre groups, progressive town councils, the PCF itself, the CGT (Communist trade union), educational causes and social institutions. At the same time, they rejected the commercial advertising sphere...
For 20 years they provided inspiration to graphic design students all over the world, with their idealistic principles (of bringing culture to politics, and politics to culture), and their highly distinctive form of image-making: an accessible and unpredictable mixture of child-like scrawl, bright colors, sensual forms and high-spirited visual pranks. Throughout their history, Grapus remained Communists and idealists and continued to operated collectively: all work left the studio signed ‘Grapus’ even when their studio numbers had grown to around 20, operating in three separate collectives. They finally disbanded in January 1991, splitting into three independent design groups.”
Modern Movement in America
The Modern Movement in America- America was introduced to modernism at the 1913 Armory Show, but it was met by public protest and initially rejected. The same reaction awaited Jan Tschichold's "elementare typographie". A small number of American typographers and designers, such as:
William Addison Dwiggins, S. A. Jacobs, Merle Armitage, and Lester Beall. They recognized the value of the new ideas, and modernism slowly gained ground in book design, editorial design for fashion and business magazines catering to affluent audiences, and promotional and corporate graphics. By the 1930s, modernist European design had become a significant influence in America. An important phase in the development of American graphic design resulted from the migration of many European artist and designers who fled the rise of Nazism in Europe. Alexey Brodovitch was one of those people who who brought European modernism to American graphic design.
William Addison Dwiggins, S. A. Jacobs, Merle Armitage, and Lester Beall. They recognized the value of the new ideas, and modernism slowly gained ground in book design, editorial design for fashion and business magazines catering to affluent audiences, and promotional and corporate graphics. By the 1930s, modernist European design had become a significant influence in America. An important phase in the development of American graphic design resulted from the migration of many European artist and designers who fled the rise of Nazism in Europe. Alexey Brodovitch was one of those people who who brought European modernism to American graphic design.
The idea that individual human beings can define themselves through their own inner resources and create their own vision of existence without help from family, fellow citizens, or tradition is a large trend. The general term covers many political, cultural and artistic movements rooted in the changes in Western society at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.
Modernism, in general, evolved from Enlightenment philosophies, yet rejected all historical reference. “Modernity”, writes Harvey, “can have no respect even for its own past...”, it must embrace a meaning collected and defined “within the maelstrom of change”. Enlightenment thinkers collectively gathered the individual efforts working “freely and creatively for the pursuit of human emancipation and the enrichment of daily life”. Early modernists married to the Enlightenment ideal, the progressiveness, the break with history, the embrace of the “transitory”, the “fleeting”, and the “maelstrom of change”, yet, with the lacuna of war, these optimistic views were abandoned.
Op Art (optical art)
The origins of Op art can be traced from both the art-historical tradition and from popular art, in particular from ornament, trompe l’oeil and anamorphosis. The antecedents of Op art in terms of graphic effects and coloured interaction may be found in the works of the Post-Impressionists, Futurists, Constructivists, Dadaists and above all in the artistic and didactic statements of the masters of the Bauhaus. Links with psychological research can also be established, in particular with Gestalt theory and with discoveries in psychophysiology. Op artists thus managed to exploit various phenomena: the after-image and consecutive movement; line interference; the effect of dazzle; ambiguous figures and reversible perspective; successive colour contrasts and chromatic vibration; and in three-dimensional works different viewpoints and the superimposition of elements in space. Op art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions.
Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made in black and white. When the viewer looks at them, the impression is given of movement, hidden images, flashing and vibration, patterns, or alternatively, of swelling or warping. Op art is derived from the constructivist practices of the Bauhaus. This German school, founded by Walter Gropius, stressed the relationship of form and function within a framework of analysis and rationality. Students were taught to focus on the overall design, or entire composition, in order to present unified works. When the Bauhaus was forced to close in 1933, many of its instructors fled to the United States where the movement took root in Chicago and eventually at the Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, where Anni and Josef Albers would come to teach.