The International Biennial of Graphic Design will not take place this year in Brno

Brno - The International Biennale of Graphic Design will not take place this year in Brno, and its future is uncertain. The reason for the cancellation of the 29th edition, already postponed from 2020, is primarily the economic impacts of the war in Ukraine. Another factor was the resignation of curator Rick Poynor, Moravian Gallery director Jan Press told ČTK. The gallery has organized the biennale for decades. The decision to cancel the current edition has faced criticism from people in the field.

"The realization in the classic format is unfeasible this year. After a long pandemic, the war in Ukraine has erupted, we have completely paralyzed budgets, the entire operation of the Moravian Gallery must adapt to a new situation where we actually do not have resources for exhibitions, we have a very minimal budget and we must maintain what we have painstakingly built," Press stated.

The future of the biennale is a matter for further discussions; according to Press, the community of graphic designers should consider for themselves in what form the biennale should continue and what exhibition the people in the field expect and need. They could, for example, create their own industry platform that would ensure funding and preparation. The gallery or another institution could then merely host the biennale, rather than organizing it directly.

On its website, the gallery explicitly states that it has decided to abandon regular exhibitions of Biennale Brno and is preparing to transition the biennale to an online environment. According to the reactions of art school educators, the "decline in momentum" of the Moravian Gallery regarding the biennale has been apparent for several years, and the real cause is allegedly neither the pandemic nor the war in Ukraine. According to educators, the transition to an online environment would deprive the event of its most essential elements - symposiums and other opportunities for meetings.

"Higher education institutions agree on the current need to convene an academic and professional forum, the central point of which should be the question of reevaluating the Moravian Gallery's stance on organizing the current edition of Biennale Brno and a meaningful discussion regarding its concept and organization for the future involving all parties," the educators stated in their declaration.

The 29th biennale of graphic design was originally scheduled for 2020. Due to the reconstruction of the Museum of Applied Arts and also insufficient financial security, the gallery decided back in 2019 to postpone the biennale to this year, and ultimately it will not take place this time either.

The Brno biennale is one of the oldest and most significant events in the field of visual communication in the world. The best years of the exhibition are linked to its founder Jan Rajlich Sr. The most recent edition took place in 2018, where the Grand Prize was awarded to the British studio OK-RM. The award for contribution to the field was given posthumously to Rajlich, a painter and graphic designer who died in 2016 at the age of 96.

For the last edition that took place, the gallery received over two million crowns from the Ministry of Culture, and the city of Brno provided 750,000 crowns. The budget for the biennale exceeded five million crowns. The gallery at that time stated that for a full-fledged preparation of the biennale amidst rising prices, it would need several times higher support from the ministry.