FTN-blog

Benjamin Anthony Patterson, Jr., a multifaceted artist renowned for his contributions to Fluxus and Black performance art both in the United States and worldwide, maintained a modest yet remarkable international art career from 1960 to 2016. Born on May 29, 1934, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Patterson passed away on June 25, 2016, at his residence in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Throughout his artistic journey, Patterson boldly explored the realms of sound and live action, experimenting with various mediums both materially and conceptually. While he gained recognition primarily for his performances, Patterson also delved into other artistic forms such as paper works, assemblages, installations, videos, and sculptures.

In the autumn of 1962, German journalists and broadcasters brought attention to a rebellious art movement, naming it “Fluxus.” Amidst a diverse group of musicians, writers, and artists, Patterson emerged as an unexpected collaborator and co-founder of Fluxus. This marked a pivotal point in his career as a musician, entering a world that rejected the conventions of Abstract Expressionism, modernist painting, and commercialization within galleries.

Fluxus offered Patterson a critical perspective that resonated with him during his early years in Proto-Fluxus (1960-1962), throughout the first generation of Fluxus activity in the 1960s, and even during his occasional hiatus from art in a self-declared retirement period (1966-1988). Driven by the Fluxus spirit of change and the instability of meaning, Patterson embraced an anti-authoritarian and anti-establishment approach to art throughout his career.

This path, unexpected yet carefully embraced, diverged from Patterson’s initial goal of becoming a classical double bassist in a US symphony orchestra, combining his passion for music with contemporary art.

His education was fashioned in Pittsburgh and later, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, culminating in his graduation with a bachelor’s degree in 1956. His early professional endeavors took him to Canada, where he served as the principal player of the double bass with the Halifax Symphony Orchestra in 1957. Soon after, he embarked on international tours with the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra in 1958 and 1959. It was the stark reality of de facto segregation in the US that propelled him to seek employment overseas.

www.ftn-books.com has one Patterson publication available.

Enigmatic Creator. Hailing from Littleton, New Hampshire. A longstanding member of Fluxus since the mid-1960s, he has coined the moniker “cloudsmith” to represent his extensive repertoire of sky-inspired paintings, objects, installations, and performances. As a professor emeritus of art at Rutgers University, he shared his wisdom from 1956 to 2003 and collaborated with renowned artists such as Allan Kaprow, Roy Lichtenstein, and Lucas Samaras during their tenure in the 1960s.

In 2002, he curated Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University, 1958-1972, a groundbreaking compilation that chronicles the revolutionary creative endeavors and experimental works spearheaded by the university’s esteemed faculty in the 1960s. Notable contributors include Bob Watts, Allan Kaprow, George Brecht, Hendricks, and other trailblazers. He has been a prominent figure in Fluxus festivals across the globe and continues to showcase his talents internationally.

www.ftn-books.com has the MORE THAN 100 SKIES publication now vailable.

Daniel Spoerri (1930-2017) was a man of many artistic talents: dancer, choreographer, playwright, restaurateur, gallery owner, and artist.

Born Daniel Isaac Feinstein in Romania, he was the son of missionary Isaac Feinstein and Lydia Spoerri. Daniel’s father, who had converted to Christianity, was also an active evangelist. In 1941, he was captured by the Nazis, sent to a concentration camp, and killed. In 1942, Daniel and his siblings fled to Switzerland with their mother, who held a Swiss passport.

In Switzerland, he met Max Pfister-Terpis, who encouraged him to pursue a career in dance, as well as Jean Tinguely and Eva Aeppli. After a successful career as a solo dancer and director of avant-garde plays by Eugène Ionesco, Pablo Picasso, and Jean Tardieu, he also tried his hand at film directing, working as an assistant director to Gustav Rudolf llner in Darmstadt.

Upon moving to Paris in 1959, he formed relationships with numerous artists working in the city, including Pol Bury, Jesús Rafael Soto, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, and Robert Filliou. He also took a studio in the Impasse Ronsin, a well-known artist colony where Constantin Brancusi, Max Ernst, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Jean Tinguely also had studios.

In addition to his other pursuits, he founded the MAT publishing house (Multiplication d’art transformable) in Paris and began his work as a figurative artist. He created his famous “tableaux-pièges” (trapping-paintings), which involved gluing everyday objects from his hotel room onto shelves (specifically, in room 13 of the Hôtel Carcassonne on rue Mouffetard). These objects gained a new presence due to the transition from a horizontal to a vertical plane. As he explains, “I simply add a little glue to objects; I do not allow myself any creativity.”

www.ftn-books.com has several Spoerri items for sale.

After his European debut in Rotterdam (1982), Haring becomes an overnight sensation following an exhibition at Tony Shafrazi in New York, later that year. By showing Haring’s work, Beeren brings youth street culture into the Stedelijk. Things were very different under the directorate of his predecessor, Edy de Wilde. Haring achieves his much-coveted museum status, but loses none of his street credibility. He won’t compromise – for anyone or anything.

www.ftn-books.com has now the really scarce publication (2002) for the Haring exhibition at the gallery ‘t VENSTER in 1982 available.

http://www.ftn-books.com

According to Tschichold, he was a compelling force in the development of 20th century typography. Few would dispute this claim. Born to a sign painter and trained in calligraphy, Tschichold’s fascination with typography began at a young age. Growing up in Germany, he worked closely with Paul Renner (designer of Futura) and eventually sought refuge in Switzerland during the rise of the Nazi party. His focus on new typography and sans-serif typefaces was seen as a threat to Germany’s cultural heritage, as the country traditionally favored Blackletter Typography, and much of his work was confiscated by the Nazis before he could escape.

In his book, Die Neue Typographie, Tschichold established guidelines for standardizing modern type usage. He rejected all typefaces except for sans-serif types, promoted standard paper sizes, and provided direction for creating a typographic hierarchy in design. While these principles are still relevant today, Tschichold later returned to a more classical approach, favoring centered designs and roman typefaces for body text.

According to Tschichold, he was a compelling force in the development of 20th century typography. Few would dispute this claim. Born to a sign painter and trained in calligraphy, Tschichold’s fascination with typography began at a young age. Growing up in Germany, he worked closely with Paul Renner (designer of Futura) and eventually sought refuge in Switzerland during the rise of the Nazi party. His focus on new typography and sans-serif typefaces was seen as a threat to Germany’s cultural heritage, as the country traditionally favored Blackletter Typography, and much of his work was confiscated by the Nazis before he could escape.

In his book, Die Neue Typographie, Tschichold established guidelines for standardizing modern type usage. He rejected all typefaces except for sans-serif types, promoted standard paper sizes, and provided direction for creating a typographic hierarchy in design. While these principles are still relevant today, Tschichold later returned to a more classical approach, favoring centered designs and roman typefaces for body text. has several Tschichold titles now available.

www.ftn-books.com has several Tschichold titles now available.

The work of Hans Waanders, a Netherlands artist, employs and subverts conventional scientific techniques such as etymology, classification, archiving, and comparison of specimens. However, beneath these techniques lies an obsessive and controlling impulse driven by a sense of loss. This loss stems from a memorable moment that Waanders witnessed along the river Maas on October 4th, 1982 – the first sighting of a kingfisher. From that moment on, his work was consumed by a yearning to see this beautiful bird again, manifested in an all-encompassing desire to collect and document information about it.

Waanders’ dedication to his subject persisted throughout the years, resulting in an extensive body of work that intensely profiles the kingfisher. Similar to the pursuit of any great detective story, Waanders immersed himself in his prey, seeking to understand and capture it with utmost perfection. He believed that the more he knew, and the closer he identified with the kingfisher, the closer he could come to it.

As Waanders’ life came to an end in 2001, he left behind an invaluable legacy. His estate, a universe of its own, is a remarkable attempt to appropriate the life of the kingfisher. With over 200 published books, a plethora of prints, stamps, and multiples, his wish was to continue sharing and showcasing his work to the world.

www.ftn-books.com recently added 2 scarce Waanders items to its collection.

Since the onset of the 1970s, the virtuoso German artist Rebecca Horn has crafted a vast repertoire including consistent flow of performances, films, sculptures, spatial installations, drawings, and photographs. The core of her visual language emanated from impeccably precise utilization of physical and technical elements she employed to orchestrate her works within specific spaces.

Horn’s extensive collection of work was united by a cohesive logic; each new creation seemed to stem unfailingly from the one that preceded it. Elements may be revisited, but within entirely disparate and divergent contexts. In her initial performances, she delved into the delicate balance between the human form and the surrounding environment. Subsequent to her physical experiences with body extensions in her performances, Horn’s first kinetic sculptures emerged, alongside expansive, site-specific installations that paid homage to spaces imbued with political and historical significance. Through her kinetic sculptures from this period, the artist deftly redistributed the weight of the past onto physical spaces, liberating objects such as violins, suitcases, batons, ladders, pianos, feather fans, and metronomes from their material constraints, continuously transforming them into evolving metaphors that touch on mythical, historical, literary, and spiritual imagery. Each of Horn’s installations represented a step towards completely dismantling the confines of space and time, offering glimpses of a universe liberated from material boundaries.

In addition to her installations and performances, Horn was also a prolific drawer. Often, her drawings were an extension of her work in other mediums, such as documenting her sculptural proposals. Between 2003 and 2015, Horn created a series of Bodylandscape drawings, in which she explored the boundaries of the body through the medium of drawing. With their scale corresponding to the size of her own body, these larger-than-life drawings restricted Horn’s mark-making to the reach of her arm. Despite this limitation, Horn’s creative energy and ingenuity still shone through in these dynamic works.

www.ftn-books.com has several Horn publications available.

At the outset, Hans Houwing worked with stainless steel mesh with a mesh size of 1 x 1 mm. This was during the time of Orez Mobil Gallery in The Hague, where Jan Schoonhoven often exhibited. The majority of the pieces were created by cutting and unraveling the mesh, and then reassembling various pieces by sewing them together or securing them with wires wound around each other.

After primarily working with fine stainless steel mesh for nine years, Hans Houwing began using aviary mesh, specifically galvanized square mesh with a mesh size of 12 x 12 mm, between 2000-2006. After that, he worked with all types of metal mesh. One notable change was the increase in scale. In addition to the previously mentioned materials, he also used chicken wire and chick mesh, or ‘quarter mesh’; ‘dime mesh’ with larger square or hexagonal meshes of varying sizes; and the sturdy chrysanthemum mesh with a mesh size of 12 x 12 cm.

All of the pieces are variations on a basic linear and regular grid. The strict grid is distorted and manipulated, creating a three-dimensional effect. In this sense, all of the pieces are spatial drawings. Sometimes, short pieces of wire (taken from the used mesh) are bent backwards, creating a distance from the wall on which the work hangs. This results in a doubling of the line drawing of metal wires and a shadow drawing on the wall, which becomes stronger or weaker with the changing light. Light plays a significant role in bringing Hans Houwing’s work to life. Many Dutch houses are through-house homes, so the angled light works well!

The limitation in materials and techniques allows for a wealth of possible variations and leads to a tremendous abundance of forms. Each piece is a standalone work of art – although the artist prefers to call them ‘pieces’. Furthermore, all of the pieces are of a manageable size and can easily be hung on one or two nails.

www.ftn-books.com has a Houwing multiple now available.

Agfa is considered a pioneer in photography.

a trailblazer in the field of photography.

Established in 1867, AGFA (now known as Agfa-Gevaert) has emerged as a frontrunner in manufacturing and pioneering revolutionary advancements in the realm of consumer imaging on a global scale.

For numerous years, AGFA dominated over 10% of the international market share, particularly in critical categories for consumer imaging and photography.

With a history spanning more than a century and a half, AgfaPhoto stands out as a distinct and iconic brand in the photography industry.

www.ftn-books.com has now some pre WWII war series of PHOTOBLATTER available.

Benoît van Innis (25 May 1960 – 24 February 2024) was a Belgian graphic artist, painter, and cartoonist who signed his work with the name Benoît. Born in Bruges, he was raised in a family of eight children, with his father serving as a juridical advisor and aristocrat while his mother hailed from Namur.

Benoît grew up bilingual, speaking French at home and Dutch at school and on the streets. After completing his studies at Sint-Lucas School in Ghent under the guidance of Dan Van Severen, he graduated in 1984 with the highest distinction.

Van Innis was renowned for his one-panel cartoons, featuring static figures dressed in formal attire, against the backdrop of natural settings. His works were often accompanied by witty and sardonic captions. He drew inspiration from a range of artists, including Jean Bosc, H.M. Bateman, William Steig, Saul Steinberg, and Ronald Searle, as well as filmmakers like Jacques Tati and Luis Buñuel. Van Innis’ illustrations appeared in publications such as De Standaard, De Morgen, Panorama, Knack, Humo, and The New Yorker, where he had been a contributor since 1989. He also designed a bi-weekly cover for Paris Match, alongside Jean-Jacques Sempé.

In addition to his cartooning, van Innis was renowned for his large-scale public artworks, created using ceramic tiles (azulejos). These can be found in various locations, including the Maalbeek metro station in Brussels, the Jan Breydelstadion in Bruges, the Wezenberg swimming pool in Antwerp, the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, and a 160 m² mural on the Grote Markt in Deinze depicting the seasons. In his most unique project, van Innis handcrafted 40,000 ceramic tiles for a care center in Wingene, assembling them into 300 stunning tile curtains. His minimalistic and linear artistic style often depicted humorous and critical perspectives on everyday life.

Van Innis was a proud father of three daughters, one of whom, Alice van Innis, followed in her father’s footsteps and pursued a career in visual arts, specializing in textile design. Sadly, on 24 February 2024, at the age of 63, Benoît van Innis passed away in Brussels, leaving behind a legacy of creativity and inspiration.

www.ftn-books.com hat 2 BENOIT publications now available.