September 2 – October 16, 2022
Gallery 3, Culture Factory
Cheongju, Republic of Korea

Introduction

The Klingspor Museum in Offenbach, one of the most renowned museums of typography and book art, presented itself in Cheongju - the city where the Jikji, the oldest surviving book printed by movable metal types, was published. In 2021, the city of Cheongju invited the members of the International Association of Printing Museums (IAPM) to submit proposals for a special exhibition for the 2022 JIKJI Festival. The Klingpor Museum was selected as the finalist and worked closely with the Cheongju Early Printing Museum on the joint organization of the exhibition.

To express its gratitude and friendship with Korea, the Klingspor Museum presented some of its nest collections in the arrangement of the Korean flag. As a guest in Cheongju, the Klingspor Museum expressed its great respect for the special tradition of the city, which, with the Book of Jikji (created in 1377), can claim world significance for the history of the art of printing. The Klingspor Museum, for its part, is an internationally renowned address for this very subject. It is based on the type foundry Gebrüder (Brothers) Klingspor, which gave impetus to the promotion of the art of lettering in the first half of the 20th century.

The invitation to this exhibition was extended by the International Association of Printing Museums (IAPM) together with the Early Printing Museum in Cheongju. The aim is to stimulate international exchange on the history and future of the art of writing and printing. Museums and libraries around the world are working to preserve the knowledge of the historical art of graphic communication and offer themselves as forums for today's protagonists, old and young alike, who still practice the use of original graphic techniques as a current quality of manifestation and reproduction of artistic message and information. This special exhibition showcased various facets of graphic art, especially the art of printing, using typefaces, and in the basic form of the bound book.

Sections

The exhibition was divided into four sections :

1. Type Specimens
2. Art Nouveau, Expressionism and Abstraction 1900-1940
3. Exceptional Form after the Second World War : Roll and Leporello
4. Artist's Books until Today