For the month of October, the ginza graphic gallery (ggg) will introduce the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), an international group of graphic designers founded in 1952.
AGI is "a club of the world's leading and renowned graphic designers, established to exchange constructive and useful ideas in a disinterested way, without religious, ideological, ethnical, or political bias, based on amicability and mutual respect" (as defined by Ikko Tanaka, the former President of AGI Japan, in the "Heibonsha Dictionary of Today's Design").
AGI is composed of eminent graphic designers who have shaped the history of graphic design, including Cassandre, Raymond Savignac, and Bruno Munari. It has been carrying on the tradition until today as a group of designers on the cutting edge of an era. A number of Japan's most emblematic and now deceased masters who had gained international recognition for their talent joined AGI, for the first time in 1955 by Yusaku Kamekura and Hiroshi Ohchi, and later by Yoshio Hayakawa, Takashi Kono, Kiyoshi Awazu, Ikko Tanaka, and Shigeo Fukuda. At present, the number of Japanese members is 27, which is the world's sixth largest following the US, UK, Switzerland, Germany, and France.
The Exhibition offers an international collection of works centering on self-selections of AGI Japan members, as well as those created by overseas AGI members recommended by Japanese members.