Books are hard to display
Books are hard to exhibit VIII - Oldřich Hlavsa
17. 5.-30. 6. 2018
Exhibition corridor of the National Library of the Czech Republic
Did you know that we have our own Elpida Antiquarian Bookshop? At Elpida, we collect unused books and support the operation of our senior center by selling them. From the donated books we also supplement the typographic collection of the Archive of Fine Arts and we exhibit selected books together as part of the Books are Hard to Display series , which gradually presents Czech post-war book graphics. The current one focuses on Oldřich Hlavs, who is undoubtedly one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century Czech book design.
Oldřich Hlavsa (1909-1995) often walked the line between type and illustration in his graphic designs, experimenting with formats and classical fonts in new contexts. His distinctive handwriting gave an unforgettable form to many volumes and entire editions (Club of Friends of Poetry, Slunovrat, Bohemia), or magazines (Plamen, Typografia). He also strove to raise the profile and awareness of typography, his theoretical works, such as. His theoretical works, such as the extensive three-volume Typographie, are among the key works of Czech graphic design. He has received many international awards, including the prestigious Gutenberg Prize of the City of Leipzig for a lifetime of outstanding work in the field of book art.
The exhibition is curated by graphic designer, musician and book collector Martin Hůla. The exhibition is organized for the eighth time by the Elpida Antiquarian Bookshop and the Archive of Fine Arts in cooperation with the National Library of the Czech Republic.
The series Books are Hard to Exhibit gradually presents Czech post-war book graphics. The aim of the series is not only to present the work of exceptional artists, but also to disrupt the majority perceptionperception that considers a book to be no more than a somewhat conservative medium for textual or pictorial information. But a book is not just a story or an illustration; it is a complex work of applied art, each component of which has a significant impact on how the reader will perceive the words the author has written. The front and back cover, binding, frontispiece, title page, title page, type of font and its size or interleaving, headings and chapter divisions, type and weight of paper, width andheight of the rate mirror, pagination, even blank unprinted spaceall shape the atmosphere in a book, which influences the way we perceive the text. Two diametrically different editions of the same text are two different books, two different experiences.