BEIRUT: “I invite you to put aside your prejudices,” said celebrated Spanish designer America Sanchez. “Allow yourself to get carried away by the desire to renew your own visual repertoires.” Sanchez made his plea during a lecture on Wednesday to inaugurate “Tutti Frutti,” an exhibition at the American University of Beirut’s Dar al-Handassah Building, organized in collaboration with the Spanish Embassy. Running until November 20, the exhibition aims to show how “popular graphics” can maintain “cultural diversity.” 

Curated by Sanchez, the exhibition comprises more than 200 photographs of what he terms “popular graphics.” These form a hodge-podge collection of hand-painted pieces, from murals to shop signs to graffiti. 

The selection takes in photographs from most parts of the Spanish-speaking world, as well as locations such as Brazil, India and Egypt. 

Sanchez, born in Argentina and winner of Spain’s prestigious National Design Prize in 1992, is perhaps most well-known for his 2002 book “Barcelona Grafica,” a collection of almost 2000 photographs of graphic art from the northern Spanish city. 

Many of the photographs on display in “Tutti Frutti” are from Sanchez’s own collection. 

“These images were considered worthless, like trash,” he said on Wednesday. “I had a huge collection, but no one ever asked to see them. When I was asked to curate an exhibition on the theme of cultural diversity, I had a treasure-trove available.” 

The jaunty name of the exhibition corresponds to an aim on the part of Sanchez to celebrate diversity. “‘Tutti Frutti’ is on this occasion synonymous with mixture, variety and fusion,” he said. 

Thematically arranged on boards, the photographs sit on easels that dot the exhibition space. One board displays a collection of barber-shop signs. The internationally recognized combination of comb and scissors, depicted with varying degrees of care, is snapped in locations such as Brazil, Mexico and Tenerife. 

Another board deals with the signage for chicken restaurants. One shows a chirpy little chick with a golden crown hovering above his head, the legend “Polleria Real” (Genuine Poultry indicating that this bird is bound for the pot. 

A Nigerian fish-seller, an advert for Ayurvedic massage, a New York dodgem and a series of spectacles painted to advertise opticians’ stores are also on display. A segment that deals with what Sanchez terms “extreme calligraphy” shows messages of love and hate carved onto the leaves of a fleshy aloe. 

What do these diverse doodlers have in common? 

“The majority of them are free from the contamination of artistic culture,” says Sanchez. “They have little or limited training, they’re self taught and genuinely unaware of fashions, trends and styles.” 

Another common denominator of these artists and designers is their ­limited access to materials, making them innovate to achieve their desired end – advertise a store, impart a political message or simply express themselves. 

It is this innovation that Sanchez cherishes. He believes this enforced originality has the power to rejuvenate contemporary design practices in the face of what he sees as the increasing blandness of computer-based design. 

The artists on display at “Tutti Frutti,” trained outside the dogma of art schools and without any stylistic expectations placed on their work, appeal to Sanchez due their similarities with the outsider artists beloved of Jean Dubuffet. 

“It’s something personal, these pictures fit with my personality,” he said Wednesday. 

Despite the trumpeted diversity of the images on show, one striking aspect of the exhibition is the similarities that exist across cultures with this type of graphic art. The groups of images share common symbols and a colorful, chunky, primitive aesthetic that defines this segment of graphic art as a genre of its own. 

Sanchez exhorted his audience to look for examples of popular graphics in their own environment. “I guarantee that you won’t be able to avoid seeing these images wherever you go,” he said. “Once you begin to notice popular graphics, you’ll see them everywhere.”