Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter (eds.)

The Hand / Die Hand

Poster Collection 27

Gestures and facial expressions are our foremost non-linguistic means of interpersonal communication. It is thus no coincidence that the face and hand are also popular motifs in visual communication.

The history of posters is particularly rich in variations on the hand. In consumer posters and billboards, a hand presents desirable products or demonstrates how certain items are used. But the hand can also take the form of a symbolically charged gesture in the political poster: as fist held high, admonishing pointer finger, or violent paw. In cultural posters, the hand then becomes the emblem of the creative and artistic individual. Just as versatile as the rhetoric of the hand are its diverse uses as a design element. Photographic, illustrative and abstract graphic images add up to a small cultural history of the hand as an eloquent conveyor of messages.

Gestures and facial expressions are our foremost non-linguistic means of interpersonal communication. It is thus no coincidence that the face and hand are also popular motifs in visual communication.

The history of posters is particularly rich in variations on the hand. In consumer posters and billboards, a hand presents desirable products or demonstrates how certain items are used. But the hand can also take the form of a symbolically charged gesture in the political poster: as fist held high, admonishing pointer finger, or violent paw. In cultural posters, the hand then becomes the emblem of the creative and artistic individual. Just as versatile as the rhetoric of the hand are its diverse uses as a design element. Photographic, illustrative and abstract graphic images add up to a small cultural history of the hand as an eloquent conveyor of messages.

This book is part of the Poster Collection series. Get the complete series here

Edited by Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Bettina Richter

With an essay by Arne Scheuermann

16,5 x 24 cm, 6 ½ x 9 ½ in

96 pages, 120 illustrations

paperback

978-3-03778-477-8, German
English
CHF 25.00

Bettina Richter

Bettina Richter studied art history in Heidelberg, Paris and Zurich and obtained her doctorate in 1996 with a thesis on the antiwar graphics of Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. From 1997 to 2006, she served as a research associate at the Poster Collection of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, and in 2006 became its curator. Bettina Richter lectures at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and works as a freelance writer. She is the editor of the publication series "Poster Collection" and has published articles and essays on art history, literature, and the subject of posters.

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