FTN BLOG for ftn-books.com

During thethe 1960s and 70s, curator Celia Ascher orchestrated a singular endeavor under the aegis of magnate Meshulam Riklis, the sovereign of the Rapid-American Corporation. Across a span of fifteen years, they meticulously curated an assembly of fine art within the rigid architecture of a retail conglomerate—a collection that eventually burgeoned into a phalanx of one thousand works. It was not the sheer magnitude of the hoard that stirred the art world’s pulse, but rather its intellectual rigor. While contemporary corporate archives often resembled eclectic galleries of wall-dressing, Ascher and Riklis championed a austere, monochromatic thesis centered on Constructivism, Minimalist austerity, and the geometric sublime. Their vision traced a scholarly arc, spanning from the nascent tremors of the Russian avant-garde to the disciplined precision of postwar geometric abstraction. Before this repository found its final sanctuary, a curated procession of these masterworks embarked on an … Read more

The artistic practice of Ram Katzir—a Tel Aviv native currently situated in Amsterdam—is defined by an investigation into the dichotomies of the public versus the private, the remembrance of history versus physical location, and the tension between intimacy and detachment. His creative output serves as a continuous pursuit of a sense of rootedness, encompassing both … Read more

More than a simple craftsman, Paul Van Hoeydonck operated as a mapper of the firmament, moving far beyond the ordinary. On the stark, expansive terrain of the Sea of Imbrium rests *Fallen Astronaut*, his greatest achievement—a lonely aluminum figure that stands as a miniature testament to human fragility within the lunar silence. Left behind by … Read more

“Jaja de oerknal hoor ik mezelf zeggen. Hoe is het mogelijk dat dit in mijn mond past? Het ontstaan een klont op mijn tong.” Thus commence the opening stanzas of *Jaja de oerknal*, the titular odyssey by Maria Barnas (born 1973, Hoorn). Barnas operates at the precipice of dual aesthetics, weaving her craft as both a practitioner of the plastic arts and an architect of prose. Her creative inquiry interrogates the malleability of existence—how descriptions and ocular portrayals perpetually distort the bedrock of reality. Does language possess the requisite elasticity to colonize the seen? And in … Read more

Dark Matter (White Cube, Hoxton Square, 7 July – 9 September 2006), curated by Annushka Shani A tightly conceived group show built around a deceptively simple premise: black, or the idea of darkness, as a starting point for radically different art-making practices. Its title nodded to the astronomical term for the invisible matter between points … Read more

Born in Milan in 1925, Giancarlo Sangregorio first explored his affinity for sculpture as a youth, working with stone in the Val d’Ossola quarries near Lago Maggiore. Following his classical secondary education, he honed his craft at Milan’s Brera Academy under the tutelage of Marino Marini. By 1952, he had launched his debut solo exhibition, … Read more

Kloosterboer operates as a visual alchemist, perpetually erecting bridges between the ethereal realm of abstraction and the visceral theater of kinetics. His oeuvre functions less as a stagnant reflection of intellect and more as a kinetic mandate—a raw, pulsatile enactment where the canvas becomes a sacrificial altar for techniques involving tectonic shearing, cascading pigment, and the structural suturing of fabric. He interrogates the very marrow of painterly existence, dissecting the foundational elements of the medium alongside the performative modalities of its presentation. To engage with his work is to find oneself tethered to the crucible of creation; the spectator is not merely an observer, but a witness to a forensic exploration of the act itself. His repertoire is a kaleidoscope of material rebellion. One moment, a gargantuan, hand-stitched linen effigy dominates the spatial void; the next, a squadron of chromatic containers demands attention. Or perhaps, a celluloid capture reveals the surreal choreography of twin monoliths being dragged across an asphalt artery, viewed through the distorted lens of an automotive rear window. Kloosterboer’s output defies the gravitational pull of convention; it remains a lucid, mercurial, and defiantly idiosyncratic manifesto of the unvarnished creative impulse. www.ftn-books.com has … Read more

Ever since the genesis of his craft, Bogaers has transmuted the raw ore of association and suggestion into the very scaffolding of his visual lexicon. He curates a phantasmagoria—a deliberate assemblage of photographic *objets trouvés*—where discarded amateur snapshots and dog-eared fragments from antiquated tomes collide. In this space, the observer is summoned to excavate latent synchronicities, unearthing meaning from the wreckage of the mundane. Photography, for many, serves as a mirror held to the cold, observable exterior; yet, this static fidelity has remained an insufficient vessel for Bogaers’ ambition. Like a cartographer mapping the shifting topography of a fever dream, he eschews the mundane reflection of the tangible to pursue the elusive, nebulous contours of the human psyche. By forcing disparate media into a volatile marriage, he relentlessly destabilizes the medium, pushing the skeletal boundaries of the lens until they groan under the strain of an expansive, interior reality. It is a metamorphosis of the seen into the felt, an alchemy where the rigid … Read more

Throughout her brief career, Francesca Woodman’s artistic output functioned as an inward-facing investigation, transforming her own persona into the central, spectral figure of her work. Photography served as an instrument for psychological excavation; she occupied the dual roles of subject and lens, haunting the private spaces she inhabited. With a maturity that transcended her years, … Read more

On May 22, 1932, Carlo Alfano was born in Naples. Following his education at the local Academy of Fine Arts, he developed into a painter and a notable figure in intermedial art. His artistic inquiry was driven by a rigorous effort to visualize the unrepresentable through fragmentation and decomposition, a pursuit that earned him a … Read more

Allan Kaprow dismantled the ivory tower of static aesthetics, catalyzing a seismic shift through the epochal emergence of ‘Happenings’ and ‘Environments.’ He treated the canvas not as a sanctuary, but as a restless, site-specific beast that perpetually evaded the suffocating grip of the marketplace. His 1959 debut, *18 Happenings in 6 parts*, functioned less like a static portrait and more like a fever dream intricately woven from orchestrated spontaneity; here, the spectator transformed into a marrow-deep accomplice. To Kaprow, art was a permeable membrane, a gossamer scrim blurred by the relentless humidity of existence. He famously posited that life’s chaotic vibrancy rendered traditional art trivial. Within the labyrinth of his philosophy, the act of ‘reinvention’ served as the bedrock. Forget the ossified tradition of the museum—that mausoleum of fixed icons. Kaprow discarded the mandate of permanence, favoring a metamorphosis that acted like a chrysalis shedding its shell with every iteration. His … Read more

The sculptor Jacques Lipchitz is best known for the Cubist works he made in Paris during the early 1900s. As a collector he was mainly interested in African art, which had a profound influence on his work, but he also acquired modern works from artist friends, particularly Pablo Picasso. Lipchitz moved to Paris from his … Read more