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Rene Wanner's Poster Blog

The poster collection at Les Silos in Chaumont, France, has grown over the last 20 years from the annual poster competitions of the Chaumont International Poster and Graphic Design Festival, by about 2000 posters per year. When the city decided some time ago to make the collection public through an internet poster database, they soon found out that they had to obtain the permission of all the poster designers to publish the pictures, or risk copyright problems. They then realized that this was very time consuming, i.e. expensive, and drafted a standard contract that they planned to send to everybody who had ever participated in a Chaumont competition, asking to hand over the copyrights in exchange for the privilege to be shown in all future Chaumont publications.

Not unexpectedly, this caused an outcry of protest, and 3400 graphic designers signed a petition to the city of Chaumont to reconsider these plans. A meeting took place in Chaumont on March 23, 2009, between 13 lawyers, politicians, administrators, copyright specialists and 3 graphic designers (Alain Le Quernec, Francois Caspar and Jean Paul Bachollet) to resolve the problem.

I am not sure of the outcome, but find it sad that you now need a lawyer to read the fine print in a Call for entries to defend your interests. I also need a lawyer to advise me if the winning posters of the Chaumont competition can be shown on Posterpage with a resolution of more than 300 pixels.

Current copyright legislation, if it is enforced to the letter, will seriously damage poster competitions, exhibitions, publications, web sites, poster research, documentation and the free exchange of ideas. The absurd court case of the Associated Press vs. Shepard Fairey about his Obama poster is just an example. Copyrights will not make the poster designers rich however, as many are made to believe, because every publisher will avoid those designers or their descendants that make life difficult for him. When was the last time you saw a Roman Cieslewicz poster?

Also, the tide may be turning, and a designer has to pay for his posters to be shown, instead of receiving copyright compensation. It has already turned in the art business. Ask any painter (except Picasso etc.) how much he has to pay his gallery, and how much he receives from the copyright institutions.

There will be a discussion of copyright questions at the opening weekend of the Chaumont Festival, on Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 10:00 at the Theatre le Nouveau Relax, 15 bis Rue Levy Alphandery, F-52000 Chaumont.

The two documents linked to above were kindly provided by Jean Paul Bachollet.

Labels: Chaumont, posters

Karl D. Geissbuehler has an exhibition of his theater posters for the Opernhaus Zuerich, Switzerland, from February 2 to July 9, 2005 at the Hochschule fuer Musik und Theater, Florhofgasse 6, 8001 Zuerich (CH).

The poster on the cover of the catalogue is for the opera "The silent woman" by Richard Strauss.

Ronald Curchod's web site has a new address http://www.ronald-curchod.net, and this is one of his newest posters, for a street festival in Ramonville (FR).

Krzysztof Dydo, the well know polish poster collector, dealer, author and exhibition organizer has an eye for new talents, and also supports the young designers by giving them comissions for posters for his Galeria Plakatu in the center of Cracow, Poland. He writes "My last posters were made almost exclusively by young students of Roman Kalarus, also this one by Aleksandra Naparlo "Ksana" from Katowice."

Kalarus, a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, is a master of erotic posters and art, but also a close collaborator of the Archdiocesan Museum in Katowice, and has painted sacred pictures in several polish churches. He too was one of the artists discovered and pushed by Dydo.

I'm glad Roman Kalarus has obviously communicated his joy of life so well to his students and am looking forward to see more of their work. The lady in the picture is one of Krzysztof's customers looking for posters in his shop (I think).

Miroslaw Adamczyk made the poster at left for an exhibition of danish posters from the collection of the National Museum in Poznan (PL) Gniezno Encounters with the Poster - Denmark that runs from November 5, 2004 until February 27, 2005, at the Muzeum Poczatkow Panstwa Polskiego w Gnieznie, in Gniezno, Poland.

The new russian book "Moscow Conceptual Posters from the 1990's" will be presented at the cultural center "Dom" on December 28 at 1900. It is a catalogue of an exhibition at the State Tretiakov Gallery, and includes posters by Iurii Bokser, Aleksandr Chantsev, Erik Belousov, Igor Gulitov, Anna Naumova, Boris Trofimov, Evgenii Dobrovinskii, Erken Kagarov, Elena Kitaeva, Andrei Logvin, Vladimir Chaika and many others. Book design is by Iurii Surkov, with texts by Sergei Serov.

The cultural center "Dom" is on Bolshoi Ovchinnikovskii Pereulok 24, Stroenie 4, next to Novokuznetskaia metro station.

The poster at left was designed by Erik Belousov for a concert and exhibition of Vladimir Tarasov. The news is from KAK magazine, where you find more images.

The swiss mountain resort St.Moritz has just opened the "St. Moritz Design Gallery" in the underground parking Serletta. The gallery consists of 31 illuminated showcases and is open 24 hours on 365 days of the year.

The first exhibition from December 18, 2004 till mid March 2005 is called "75 Jahre Marke St. Moritz. Plakate" and celebrates the 75th anniversary of the famous logo created by graphic designer Walter Herdeg in 1930, on the initiative of his friend Walter Amstutz who was St. Moritz's publicity manager (Kurdirektor) at that time.

Amstutz and Herdeg are well know to graphic designers as the authors of "Who's Who in Graphic Art", and so is the curator of the first exhibition, Karl Wobmann, the longtime head of the poster collection of the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Zuerich. The Gallery is sponsored by Credit Suisse. Emile Cardinaux designed the poster on the cover of the catalogue in 1917.