B250 – Beethoven 250 Years

For Ludwig van Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, Negra40 opened an open call for posters on the theme Beethoven – 250 Years. We received work from prestigious designers across our Americas and the world. Special thanks to Felipe Taborda, Alfredo Saavedra and Fabián Carreras for helping us amplify the call.

Thank you all for taking part!

International poster exhibition

For the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth, the experimental and contemporary music group Negra40 opened an open call for posters on the theme Beethoven – 250 Years. The idea came from composer Martín Virgili and graphic designers Mariano Losi and Mario Gemin — active members of Negra40 — and was shared among notable designers across the Americas and the world.

Why a poster call to celebrate Beethoven’s 250th birthday? Negra40 is a heterogeneous group of artists, many of them composers and performers of contemporary music, but also graphic designers: graphic design stands as a fundamental creative-synthesis activity for contemporary artistic practice.

Beethoven is a paradigmatic figure holding together two seemingly opposed forces: universality and subjectivity, both in his music and in his person. Commonplaces like “brotherhood,” “freedom,” “joy” or “struggle” orbit his sonic legacy — the “Ode to Joy” from his Ninth Symphony was once part of the official Copa Libertadores soundtrack, the theme of “El Chavo del 8,” and today is the anthem of the European Union — in paradoxical tension with the efforts of a composer to carry out the most subjective, individual project in the field of musical composition.

In the media

Participating posters (designer — country)

Mariana Campo and Gabriel Mahia (Argentina), Jaime de Albarracín (Peru), Machi Fulquet (Argentina), Helmut Langer (Germany), Lucas Lamarche (Argentina), Alfredo Saavedra (Argentina), María Mercedes Salgado (Ecuador), Felipe Taborda (Brazil), Alain Le Quernec (France), Jacques Demierre (Switzerland), Mariano Núñez (Argentina), Claudia Mercado (Mexico), José Alberto Hernández (Costa Rica), John Gravdahl (USA), Fabián Carreras (Argentina), Pedro Pablo Ghergo (Argentina), Roberto Muntoreanu (Brazil/USA), Gabriel Martínez Meave (Mexico), Augusto Erthal (Brazil), Simon Tschachtli (Switzerland), Taber Calderón (USA), Claudio Rocha (Brazil), María Helena Pereira da Silva (Brazil), Slavimir Stojanovic (Serbia), Leo Eyer (Brazil), Eduardo Barrera Arambarri (Mexico), Lonnie Ruiz Gómez (Nicaragua), Martín Glas (Argentina), Domingo Noé Martínez (Mexico), Xavier Peña (Ecuador), Lautaro Hourcade (Uruguay), Lucho Blau (Uruguay), Faldin family (Russia), Guto Lacaz (Brazil), Adali Faiçal (Morocco), Lili Gelman (Argentina), Jorge Luis Ihlenfeld (Argentina), José Manuel Morelos (Mexico), Alejandro Magallanes (Mexico), Peter Eliáš (Slovakia), Elmer Sosa (Mexico), Julián Teubal (Argentina), Pedro Cendoya (Argentina), Javier Romanczuk (Argentina), Mariano Losi (Argentina), Natalia Volpe (France), José Isaac Cortéz López (Mexico), Nelu Wolfensohn (Canada), Claudio Sotolongo (Cuba), Ivette Valenzuela (Mexico), Antonio Castro (Mexico/USA), Ivana Vollaro (Argentina), Susana Machicao (Bolivia), Fernando Pimenta (Brazil), Álvaro Caldeas (Argentina), Diego Bermúdez (Colombia), Marcela Rivera Prudencio (Bolivia), Daniel Sánchez (Mexico), Fidel Sclavo (Uruguay), Estudio La Fe Ciega (Mexico), Antonio Pérez González “Ñiko” (Mexico/Cuba), Eric Boelts (USA), Mario Gemin (Argentina), Verónica Majluf (Peru), Frank Arbelo (Cuba), Alicia Caboblanco (Spain), Felipe Covarrubias (Mexico), Enéas Guerra (Brazil), Fernando Katz (Argentina), Pepe Serra (Spain), Jesús Del Hoyo Arjona (Catalonia, Spain), Claudio Márquez (Argentina), Diego Heras (Argentina), Guido Bressan (Argentina), Esteban Salgado (Ecuador).