From Ogaki to the World

The Ogaki Poster Museum, Japan is celebrating the 20th anniversary this year, and this is the 10th exhibition of international and invitational show with the opening of every other year. We have spun the bond with the world top artists and now possess over 10 thousand posters with us thanks to them.

The management of art museum has been quite stern in this area. There is an example of Boston Museum in Nagoya City that opened in the same year as ours is now closing in the spring of next year. In such a circumstance Ogaki, a small town, has received a devoted enthusiasm of local enterprises, a group of young businessmen, generous support of Ogaki citizens and museum staffs. Also we have produced three university professors plus young curators from the staff members. Now we are proceeding with the certification of Gifu prefecture based NPO.

We have done our utmost for the functional improvement of collection, safekeeping, display, and study as a poster museum, and accumulated more than 10,000 masterpieces including Lautrec, Chéret, and Musha, that are the artists featuring the end of the century. We are confident this is very significant as a base station of dispatch and reception of poster art. We yet simultaneously have wondered what are short for the site of Ogaki. Fortunately the local people are united in the city of Ogaki of Gifu prefecture with the history of 400 years of Ogaki Festival which will be registered as one of the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages as of November 29 this year specialized as an event of floats, halberds, and street wagons. We wanted to stress the significance of Ogaki Festival as a world cultural heritage and promote it to a poster show.

The poster is “visual language” and evaluated as the art that transcends the wall of language and culture and is printed on the “paper” which symbolizes the rich local culture and originality. We earnestly wish to continue the activities of museum to send the world the charm of posters from this museum. As we asked the designers in the world to pursue this theme of Ogaki Festival in full context, 27 accepted and sent posters.

We had all the presented designs printed on the Genuine Mino Paper (hand-made paper created in Mino City and registered as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2014) individually and heartily utilizing the silkscreen method that is said to have been invented in the City of Gujo of Gifu Prefecture. The quality of print on the genuine paper with fine translucency was so vivid and original like a living creature and as impressive as floating on the paper. It is our greatest pleasure to have the big support from many artists, to dispatch the theme to the world, and to expand further our activities to the globe.

With a variety of designers in the world who have widely expressed the culture of locality of Ogaki Festival in many senses of values and originalities and with the addition of particular printing method of silkscreen on Genuine Mino Paper, we now feel you will be able to enjoy the charm of posters in a slight different flavor. We would like to contribute to the poster art more and to send messages from this place of Ogaki. We expect to have your further cooperation for future.

With my best regards and wishes.

Fujio Hori
Junior Director Ogaki Poster Museum, Japan