“One Fukuda Unit” – Japanese poster in the USSR and contemporary Russia

Abstract

Japanese poster is an integral element of modern graphic culture, which has become famous due to the professional skills of its authors and recognisable visual appearance. This is also how it is perceived in Russia, where since the mid-1960s Japanese poster art and its creators have occupied a special place. The article reconstructs the historiographical trajectory of the description of Japanese posters in the USSR on the basis of reviews of international graphic biennales in the socialist republics. Based on archival materials and periodicals, the author reconstructs the event field of representation of Japanese contemporary posters in the USSR and Russia, including all the main exhibitions of local and international significance, as well as the key features of the Soviet and post-Soviet periods of perception of this phenomenon. The appendix to the article contains a list of exhibitions of Japanese poster art in the USSR and Russia from 1974 to 2021.

Keywords

• ussr
• japan
• japanese poster
• japanese graphic design
• exhibitions of japanese poster in the ussr and russia
• japanese poster at the biennales in the socialist republics
• fukuda shigeo