Vernissage: exhibition of POSTERS by LI XU

Exhibition: Li Xu - Posters

21 October – 16 November 2016

An exhibition of contemporary posters showcasing sinograms – characters used in Chinese writing.

Li Xu – Assistant Professor at Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication, creator of posters specialising in typography, recipient of numerous awards; his works have been shown in galleries throughout Asia, Europe, and North America.

Co-organised in partnership with Maria Curie Skłodowska University's Faculty of Arts

Li Xu, “Playing a Character”

Li Xu, “Posters” – 2016 Chinese typographic poster exhibition

The character is a silent language which soundlessly expresses its ideas;
The characters are lively graphics which narrate their story in every corner of our life;
The character constitutes a form of visible communication which builds a bridge among people.
Travelling through time and space, the character plays a vital role as far as dissemination of information and exchange of ideas are concerned.

As an important information dissemination media and cultural symbol, the character is one of the most important element in graphic design field. Due to the cultural differences among countries, there are many unique characteristics to be considered while designing signs. Hence, characters from different cultural backgrounds are always full of mystery, make people curious and engaged. In my work so far, I have always been very interested in character design. During recent years, I have created a lot of typography works. From the perspective of visual forms of Chinese characters, I never stop exploring and I am constantly experimenting with graphic design.

This exhibition is a retrospective of my exploration and research of the visual design of Chinese characters. The exhibition introduces the Chinese culture's respective use of typography while at the same time it has been created to help people better understand Chinese culture and inspire new typographic approaches. I hope you will enjoy it.

Li Xu, 6 April 2016