"Art Now / Gendai no Bijutsu", Original Japanese Promotional Poster 1975, B2 Size (51 × 73 cm) Q178
This is an original Japanese B2 promotional poster printed in 1975 for Kodansha’s important multi-volume encyclopedia series Art Now / Gendai no Bijutsu (現代の美術), designed by the celebrated graphic designer and visual theorist Kohei Sugiura (杉浦康平). Far more than a conventional advertisement, this sheet stands as a superb independent work of 1970s Japanese graphic design, using pure optical form rather than text-heavy promotion to communicate the radical energy of contemporary art.
Background
During the 1970s, Japanese publishers and cultural institutions increasingly embraced advanced graphic design as part of their public identity, and few figures were more influential in this field than Kohei Sugiura. Known internationally for his intellectually rigorous and visually experimental work, Sugiura brought together typography, systems thinking, traditional patterning, and modernist abstraction in a way that helped define postwar Japanese design culture.
This poster was commissioned by Kodansha to promote Art Now / Gendai no Bijutsu, a major publishing project devoted to contemporary art. Rather than relying on explanatory copy or conventional sales messaging, the design adopts an intentionally minimal, textless approach, allowing the poster itself to function as a kind of visual manifesto. In that sense, it occupies an especially interesting position for collectors: it is both a promotional artifact and a gallery-worthy design object in its own right.
Poster design
The design is a remarkable example of Op Art-inflected Japanese avant-garde graphics. The entire composition is built from densely controlled black and cream-white linear bands that expand, contract, and bend across the sheet in a mesmerising system of optical distortions. These lines form a complex, flowing structure that appears to ripple, pulse, and fold in on itself, creating a strong illusion of movement across an otherwise flat surface.
A particularly striking quality of the piece is its carefully balanced symmetry. The warped bands mirror and counter-mirror one another, generating biomorphic, almost cellular or wing-like forms where the lines converge and separate. The result is at once mathematical and organic: precise in construction, yet fluid in appearance. Because the poster contains no visible title text, logo, or marketing copy on the front, the visual field is left completely uninterrupted, giving the sheet an unusually pure and uncompromising graphic force.
This absence of typography is central to the poster’s significance. Rather than “illustrating” contemporary art, Sugiura created a poster that behaves like contemporary art. For collectors of Japanese design, that is exactly what makes this example so important: it is a rare surviving period print that embodies the visual ambitions of 1970s Japanese publishing and exhibition culture.
Condition
Excellent. Please review the photos—they show the exact poster for sale.
It is over 51 years old!
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.
Certificate of Authenticity included.
