Rene Wanner's Poster Page

BOOK REVIEW
by Leo Favier

book cover book cover Comment, tu ne connais pas Grapus? / What, you don't know Grapus?

by Leo Favier, published by and available from Spector Books, Leipzig (DE) (2014); 256 pages, 13 x 18 cm, numerous black&white and coloured illustrations ; softcover; available in an english and a french edition, ISBN (EN) 9-783944-669496, ISBN (FR) 9-783944-669489; EUR 19.00 (about US$ 24)

Grapus was a french graphic design collective active between 1970 and 1991, pioneering both in graphic style, content and philosophy. As it is now fading into history, as the title implies, the book attempts to capture the spirit and the ideas by interviewing its former members, and experts interested in the group.




Comment, tu ne connais pas Grapus? / What, you don't know Grapus?

Grapus is a French graphic design collective founded in Paris immediately following the student protests of May 1968. The group saw life as a field for experimentation, putting the new political, social, and cultural debates into graphic form for public discussion. At first Grapus designed posters for local chapters of the Communist Party; twenty years on, they were chosen to design the corporate identity of the Louvre in Paris. By the late 1980s, the collective’s productive days were over. In its heyday it had attracted many highly committed graphic artists both from France and abroad. After receiving the Grand Prix National des Arts Graphiques, the group decided to disband in 1990. Léo Favier set out in search of the former members of the collective. The twenty-six interviews in his book tell of the utopian working methods and heated disputes that were at the heart of this collective way of life.

With interviews with Alain Le Quernec, Pierre-Laurent Thève, Anne Gallet, François Fabrizi, Pierre di Sciullo, Thierry Sarfis, Jacques Dupont, Malte Martin, Vincent Perrottet, Thomas Hirschhorn, Anette Lenz, François Mairey, François Miehe, Dirk Behage, Évelyne Deltombe, Gildas Bourdet, François Barré, Martine Loyau, Pierre Bernard, Jean-Louis Cohen, Maria Arnold, Gérard Paris-Clavel, Simone Christ, Nadia Monteggia, Alain Weill, Alex Jordan and Marc Dumas.



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