An exhibition of the work of design-great Karel Martens is on display in The Hague, the Netherlands: it’s one to get to by any means possible.
The Royal Academy of Art in The Hague has a show of era-defining graphic designer Karel Marten’s work on until the 2 April. The exhibition is in honour of the fact Martens was the previous winner of the Gerrit Noordzij Prize for typography and typeface design, the tri-yearly award which was recently presented to its most recent winner, American typeface designer Cyrus Highsmith.
In addition to his well known experimental monoprints, Martens has designed magazines, books, stamps, coins and typographic installations. He has also taught at the Jan van Eyck Academie and Yale, and established the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem.
The exhibition aims to convey the feeling of being in Martens’ studio by bringing together objects, personal work, photographs and monoprints, alongside his commissioned work. The central feature of the exhibition is architecture magazine OASE, which Martens designed with students of the TypeMedia programme at the Royal Academy of Art. A new book from Roma Publications accompanies the exhibition which reflects on Martens’ self-initiated works and his approach to teaching graphic design, with essays from Robin Kinross and David Bennewith.
Reprint – Karel Martens
Until 2 April, 2015
Royal Academy of Fine Arts,
Prinsessegracht 4, The Hague
