20 official “art posters” revealed for Tokyo 2020 Olympics

A new poster exhibition for the 2020 Olympic Games showcases a range of Japanese culture, including design, art and photography.

An exhibition featuring 20 “art posters” for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has been unveiled.

Tokyo 2020 Official Art Posters Exhibition features work from international graphic designers, photographers and artists who have created posters for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

According to the organisers of the Olympics, it is intended to increase the “momentum” ahead of the 2020 games, which take place in July and August.

The exhibition — hosted at Tokyo’s Museum of Contemporary Art — has 12 posters for the Olympics and eight for the Paralympics.

Design by Taku Satoh

Graphic designer Daijiro Ohara’s entry, flow line, features “lines of vision” such as parabola, boundaries and “threads of narrative foreshadowing”. The chalk drawing is supposed to evoke the movement of the Olympic torch, and the 800 municipalities that the torch passed through on its journey to Japan.

Another graphic designer, Taku Satoh, has created a similarly abstract image which draws on classic imagery from the games. The five Olympics rings have been randomly arranged, each with an individual trail made up of shapes, in a playfully hand-drawn image.

Design by Shoko Kanazawa

Satoh says that the design, entitled Olympic Cloud, aims to express “a future where each athlete, from whichever part of the world, competes by bringing their own unique talents, culminating in a sum greater than its parts”.

Shoko Kanazawa, a calligrapher, has created a bold typeface-focused design called Fly High! With its gold background and black calligraphy, the poster seeks to represent the “energy of athletes”.

Design by Goo Choki Par

Design collective Goo Choki Par has contributed a poster based on a Paralympic athlete, which pays “homage to what each and every athlete has achieved” and also their “determination”.

This is the second time that the Japanese capital has held the Olympics; its first games took place in 1964. It is also the first city in Asia to host the summer Olympic Games twice.

The Tokyo 2020 identity will also be on display — the emblems are made up of rectangular shapes, which “represent different countries, cultures and ways of thinking”.

Design by Vivane Sassen

The exhibition is available to view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo from 7 January — 16 February 2020.

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