MoCA CT is excited to introduce ColleCTomania: The Outsized Influence of Swiss Posters, an exhilarating exhibition displaying over 130 ‘world format’ posters from the renowned collector Tom Strong. Strong is a New Haven, Connecticut-based graphic designer and photographer who has spent sixty years amassing, displaying, sharing, and living amongst his archive. The primary focus of the exhibition is the vast collection of posters
spanning the 1950s to the present. The show also includes a short documentary video and a gallery devoted to local designers whose work is informed by Swiss design. The exhibition is curated by Pamela Hovland and Karen Salsgiver.
Switzerland’s design culture has had a significant influence on the discipline of graphic design. Swiss posters in particular, especially those designed during the 1950s and 60s, have attained iconic status and are part of design education in schools across the globe. Created at uniform scale to be displayed in the streets of Swiss cities, these posters are now highly collectible, preserved in the archives of major museums and reproduced in art and design books.
Yale University’s graphic design program, the first in this country, was critical in disseminating the work and ideas of Swiss designers. Several influential practitioners were invited to New Haven to teach courses and workshops to students, including Tom Strong, eager to experiment with typography, form and craft. When Yale’s design graduates scattered around Connecticut and the country as both practicing and teaching designers, the visual language and ideology of the ‘Swiss International Style’ spread far and wide.
The poster as a large, public, graphic form has held its prominent place throughout the history of design. Tom Strong’s vast collection of Swiss posters, accumulated over six decades, spans the mid-century to today. His archive includes diverse and boundary-breaking visual strategies employed through the inventive use of type and typography, image-making, layering and collage. The posters illustrate myriad expressions in style, subject matter and ever-evolving technologies. Strong’s posters showcase both the outsized influence of Swiss design as well as the contemporary experimentation that builds on that legacy. Seeing the posters fill the gallery
walls is pure visual delight.
ColleCTomania invites the viewer to interact with the posters in a way that references how we interact with social content; the fast pace consumption of images and text. The act of swiping as we encounter screen-based content is similar to how we view art in a gallery. We tend to pause only for the works that render us speechless and with ColleCTomania, the sheer number of posters displayed serves as a compelling contrast to this belief.
“Why do I continue to collect Swiss posters? I guess you like Beethoven and then Stravinsky comes along with different principles, blows your head off. And then you go further, and you find more composers who you never knew anything about. The body and the brain and the ear are accustomed to surprise and difference and beauty. Other than that, I can’t defend it or describe it. These posters have power. You can’t deny it.”- Tom Strong
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