The jury: Wladyslaw Pluta, Andrei Logvin, Frieder Mellinghoff, David Tartakover
The exhibition at the Poster Museum in Wilanow
Well, as they say, "Everything gets better, but Warsaw stays good", i.e. there were lots of beautiful posters and interesting people, young hotshots and old legends. I must confess that I understand less and less of the posters, which worried me a bit until I read the article by Dorota Folga-Januszewska in the catalogue which I can highly recommend. I think the poster is at a crossroads (as always) and she sheds some light on where we might be going, and where we come from, and especially where we are.
All in all, I like the courageous choices of the jury, although there were discussions about them (as always). In particular, Alain Le Quernec's touching picture of Toulouse-Lautrec on the cross was not appreciated by everybody in catholic Poland, and for someone who is not familiar with the admirable social engagement of the french group "Nous Travaillons Ensemble", the gold medal poster for cleaner streets in Dieppe maybe lacks intellectual, esthetic or technical refinement. That's one of it's strong points.
A Biennale would only be half the fun without the accompanying exhibitions: The french railway poster competition, organized by Thierry Sarfis, a personal show for Tapani Aartoma and Pekka Loiri which should be seen by everybody who thinks you need at least 50'000 US$ to organize a poster exhibition, and of course the Laureate and Jury exhibitions, not to forget the galleries in the streets.
And please visit the official site !
The award ceremony
After dark: Ryszard Kajzer, Tomasz Walenta, Yang Liu, Melk Imboden