People Pictures Universal

At the turn of the 20^th century, a globalized world view is establishing itself, creating the new images and new information paths that are the focus of this project. Whether the world language Esperanto or the pictogram as a building block of a global language: the complexity of social processes is countered by a search for simple orders and orientation, which also creates a new world of pictures in design and composition. The pictogram, which is concise in form and colour, quickly decodable and language-independent, is gaining momentum and is leading an internationalised world of images in the wake of a growing middle-class public's increasing need for information.

The exhibition project "People Pictures Universal" focuses on this "visualisation boost" and two specific responses of the then newly established information graphics industry to the flood of information in the new media by examining the positions of Otto Neurath and Fritz Kahn, two innovators in this field who are still significant today, and thus also makes a contribution to the current discussion about a new information economy. Funding is provided in the context of the "International Museum Fellowship Programme" initiative launched by the Federal Cultural Foundation in 2011, which aims to attract top-class young researchers and curators from abroad to museums in Germany.