With the age of binary standpoints long gone, and given the complex, interconnected and multifaceted world we now inhabit, graphic designers must redefine how they react to and engage in that world. The worn out Modernist dichotomy of black or white, for or against, good or bad, gave space to a Postmodern embrace of many shades of gray, the nuanced, and the ambiguous. But what is now? When anything and everything is possible it is up to each designer as an individual to answer that question. The shades of gray have been pushed one step further and turned into an explosion of color, with each designer seeing the world through a filter of a particular hue. That filter is what we bring of ourselves when we enter a new space. It is the lining of the work we make. When combined with others, the results are surprising new harmonies and clashes that make for unique visual hybrids. The designer in community encounters violent dissonance as well as passionate reverberation within themselves and with the other.
Clash & Harmony investigates what the spectrum of the CalArts Graphic Design MFA community looks like. In an environment that highly encourages the development of one's own point of view, these different hues show a range of formal and conceptual strategies, curatorial approaches, tools and media. This exhibition highlights the designers' personal gazes as well as their hybridized encounters, each a particular response to the question of how graphic design could exist today.
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CalArts End of Year Show Dasol Jung/ Henrique Eira/ Iris Chung/ Jimin Kim/ Lu Feng
http://inform.design.calarts.edu/2016/05/clashing-and-informing/
