Czechoslovak Film Posters on display at the National Museum of Contemporary Art

An exhibition of 101 Czechoslovak Film Posters curated by Pavel Rajčan, and spanning from 1960 to the 1980s will go on display between November 15 and January 15 at the National Museum of Contemporary Art. The exhibition is meant to expose a unique era of non-commercial film advertising under a politically restrained regime.

The items in the exhibition were designed in the period preceding and immediately following the Soviet invasion and tell colorful and layered stories. The exhibition does not have a dominating style: while some designers adopted a powerful style of minimalism others freely borrowed art historical styles and typography from classical painting to surrealism and pop-art.

Film posters were not constrained by the commercial expectations normally demanded of advertising since film was very much seen as an educational tool under state command. This gave the designers a historic window of nearly unlimited artistic freedom which started ebbing in the early 1980s (with the onset of ideological censorship) and disappeared entirely in 1989. The arrival of market economy in the former communist countries came with its well known set of restrictions which reduced the film poster to a commercial advertising tool- as we know it today.

Also, the curator prepared a series of 20 posters of Romanian movies that were distributed in cinemas between the 70s and 80s.

The exhibition is part of the Terry Posters Collection that contains more than 60.000 posters and will present 20 posters for Romanian movies, 20 posters for Czech movies and 61 posters for classic movies.