Past Exhibitions

Date: November 15 (Tue), 2016 – January 29 (Sun), 2017

Location: Exhibition Gallery (7th floor)

Hours: 11:00am-6:30pm (admission until 6:00pm)

Closed: Mondays, Dec. 26, 2016 - Jan. 3, 2017

Admission: Single Ticket 210(Group Admission 100)/ University & College Students, Seniors (age 65 or over) 70(Group Admission 40)
*Free for High School Students and under 18; Persons with disability and one person accompanying each of them are admitted free or charge.

For more detailed information, please see the following page (in Japanese).

 After World War II, political confrontation caused the division of Germany into East and West until reunification in 1990. In the forefront of the Cold War, the German film world also took two separate paths. In West Germany, domestic film production underwent a revival at the same time as many films were actively imported from the US and elsewhere in Western Europe, but in the East, a film culture peculiar to the socialist country was cultivated by the national company, Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA). 

 Such a divergence in film culture had an influence on movie posters, too. In West Germany, distribution companies specializing in art films spiritedly commissioned graphic designers from the new generation, such as Hans Hillmann or Fischer-Nosbisch, and this often made it possible to produce impressive posters with effective use of typography. On the other hand, in East Germany, under the control of DEFA, Erhard Grüttner or Otto Kummert created introspective, yet freely expressive work that broke free of the constrictions of advertising style. 

 Jointly hosted by National Film Center, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, this exhibition introduces two different graphic styles that flowered on either side of the Iron Curtain, through 85 posters (45 from West Germany and 40 from East Germany) produced from the late 1950s to the 1990s.

 Lastly, we would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt am Main and Suntory Holdings Limited for their generosity in lending us invaluable works, and to the Embassy and the General Consulate of the Federal Republic of Germany and Goethe-Institut for their full support and cooperation, and to all the parties involved.