Exhibition of Work by Graphic Design Artist Victor Moscoso Opens 3/15

Instituto Cervantes of Chicago (31 W. Ohio St.), the city’s leading not-for-profit center for Spanish language and cultural exchange, presents a new curated exhibition March 15-June 15 featuring more than 80 works of Spanish-American graphic design artist and AIGA Medalist Victor Moscoso There will be a free opening public reception Friday, March 15 beginning at 6 p.m. Speaking at the reception will be exhibition curator David Carballal.

Moscoso is best known for his psychedelic rock posters, advertisements and underground comix in San Francisco during the '60s and ‘70s. The New York Times observes, “Moscoso’s riotous, perceptually and conceptually confounding works advanced a countercultural ethos of imaginative and instinctual freedom whose effects continue to reverberate in today’s artistic culture.”

“Moscoso Cosmos: The Visual Universe of Victor Moscoso” brings a wide selection of the work of one of the most original and influential graphic designers of the 20th century, showcasing Moscoso’s famous psychedelic rock posters made in just eight months from 1966 until 1967, and 14 issues of the underground magazine Zap Comix published from 1968 for more than 40 years.

Also included in the exhibition are a selection of posters, record covers, comic strips, illustrations for books and magazines and animation and biographic photographs that complete a journey marked by iconic images of the second half of the 20th century. Moscoso's work comes mainly from the collection of the City Council of A Coruña, the largest public collection of the artist in Europe.

Moscoso was born in the Coruña town Vilaboa (A Coruña, España) in 1936. In 1940, he traveled with his family to New York and settled down in Brooklyn. He trained as a designer and an artist at the Industrial Art Institute in Manhattan, at the Cooper Union School and at the Yale University School of Art, where he was a student of Bauhausmaster Josef Albers, whose teachings about color interaction would become a fundamental cornerstone in his work as a graphist.

In 2017, Moscoso received the Augustus Saint-Gauden award from the Cooper Union and in 2018 the AIGA medal, one of the most recognized awards in the graphic design field. He is considered the most original and ingenious within the genre and his work is constantly reviewed in new exhibitions, anthologies and essays. Currently, Victor Moscoso continues drawing, making collages and painting in his studio in San Jerónimo Valley, Calif.

Instituto Cervantes of Chicago presents “Moscoso Cosmos: The Visual Universe of Victor Moscoso” March 15-June 15. Gallery hours are as follows: Monday to Thursday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.; Friday 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. Closed on Sunday. For more information on “Moscoso Cosmos: The Visual Universe of Victor Moscoso,” visit chicago.cervantes.es.