im Graphik-Kabinett
For the first time in the nearly forty years since its exhibition “The Exotic Poster” (1987) the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart is presenting a highlight of its extensive poster collection: the political posters of Klaus Staeck.
It was in the 1970s that the graphic artist, lawyer, and activist Klaus Staeck has been exploring themes such as the environment, consumerism, war, migration, exploitation, identity and social imbalance in his collages. By means of irony and exaggeration, the provocative text-image combinations of these works appeal to the public’s critical consciousness as a way of calling attention to grievances in our western society.
The exhibition “Careful, Art!” in the Graphik- Kabinett will feature a selection of his works from the 1970s to the 1990s and examines their topicality against the backdrop of today’s social discourse. For the first time, the exhibition focuses on the posters, in which Staeck reinterprets classics of art history from Dürer to Manet and reassesses the function, impact and social role of art by transferring it to the mass medium of offset printing. Since the late 1960s, Klaus Staeck, together with other artists, including Joseph Beuys, has campaigned for freedom and the democratisation of art in various actions under the credo “Art doesn’t happen in the museum”.
Credit: Klaus Staeck, Schöne Aussichten, 1987, Offsetdruck, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Graphische Sammlung, erworben 1987 Land Baden-Württemberg, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024.