Conceptual artist Caspar Berger has a penchant for infusing contemporary issues and the art historical canon into his works. His self-portrait and personal body often serve as the starting point for pieces that delve into themes of freedom, mortality, and political (belief) systems. To bring these ideas to life, Berger employs a diverse range of materials such as bronze, silver, gold, silicone, epoxy, wood, and felt, as well as video and multimedia, or a combination thereof. His body of work is divided into a series of extensive collections, including Skin, Skeleton, Universe, and Spirit.
Skin focuses on the human skin as its point of departure. The skin defines the boundary between the internal body of the individual self and the impersonal external world. In Skeleton, Berger created an exact 3D replica of his own skeleton in 2012, using a CT scan. The concept of our “eternal” identity, one that continues to speak of us even after death, serves as the basis for this series. In Universe, Berger explores the space that humans occupy in social and political situations. Who are we in relation to our physical, social, and political space, and how does our unique identity align with the collective fantasies that shape us? As for Spirit, his most recent ongoing project, Berger delves into the theme of the mindset and life questions that arise from the human condition. Here, the notion of Spirit encompasses not only a superior meaning but also the mental stance individuals can adopt in our social, political, and societal environment.
Known for his unique relief paintings, Enrico Castellani rose to fame as a member of the renowned mid-century Group Zero. His unconventional approach involved stretching canvas over protruding nailheads, creating a striking interplay of light, shade, and positive and negative space. Throughout his career, Castellani continued to incorporate innovative techniques, such as inlaid patterns, tensile surfaces, and varied textures, to push the boundaries of his art. He also experimented with different materials and colors, diversifying his creative repertoire.
Apart from his iconic paintings, Castellani also dabbled in the production of partly ready-made installations and sculptures, further solidifying his reputation as a trailblazer in the art world. His bold spirit extended beyond his art, as seen in his influential Galleria Azimut exhibition space and journal, Azimuth. This publication featured avant-garde painting and showcased works by prominent artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Heinz Mack, Jean Tinguely, and Yves Klein.
Castellani’s captivating art has been displayed at prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Centre Pompidou, the Stedelijk Museum, and the Fondazione Prada. On the secondary market, his pieces have sold for seven figures, a testament to his enduring legacy. In 1964, 1966, and 1984, Castellani proudly represented Italy at the esteemed Venice Biennale.
You may be familiar with the phrase “money for old rope.” Perhaps you’ve had the good fortune of selling some of your old belongings at a car boot sale and making a surprisingly profitable sum. I know I have – who could have guessed that there would still be a demand for dusty old VHS tapes? But today, we will delve into the tale of a man who took this concept to a whole new level, selling his own excrement as art and raking in a hefty profit, I might add.
In 1961, an Italian artist by the name of Piero Manzoni jumped on the bandwagon of contemporary abstract and conceptual art by collecting his bowel movements in steel cans. Now, one can may seem absurd, but a collection of movements preserved in multiple cans – well, that can only be the work of a true genius.
The project was aptly titled “Artist’s Shit” and consisted of 90 numbered cans filled with sewage. Each can was ironically labeled in English, German, and French, mimicking the packaging of a food product, with the statement: “Artist’s Shit, contents 30 gr net freshly preserved, produced and tinned in May 1961.”
Modern art enthusiasts and eccentric individuals of the time praised Manzoni for his sociopolitical statement (or dirty protest, some would say). They also admired him for infusing a deeply personal element into his work. One such individual, Alberto Lucia, even exchanged 30 grams of 18-karat gold for one of Manzoni’s limited edition cans. While Manzoni only made around $37 from the sale due to the price of gold at the time, the same amount today would be worth approximately $1,400.
Manzoni’s bizarre idea is said to have originated from a conversation with his father, who owned a cannery and disapproved of his son’s artistic pursuits, telling him, “Your work is shit.” In a strange turn of events, Manzoni seemingly took his father’s criticism as inspiration and set out on his rather unpleasant business venture. One can only hope that he took precautions to ensure his cans were stored far away from his father’s factory or that he thoroughly cleaned any machinery used in the process.
The actual increment of gold’s value within the timeframe of 2000 to 2016 remains a mystery to me, but I am confident that Manzoni’s unconventional project has exceeded its worth.
Amidst skepticism surrounding Manzoni’s work, doubts arise over the contents of his cans, allegedly filled with excrement. Alas, the steel cans prevent the use of X-rays to ascertain their contents. However, one can did burst, revealing only plaster, much to the chagrin of its owner and the relief of the cleaner.
Manzoni’s artistic endeavors also included signed hard-boiled eggs with his unique thumb impression, a collection of inflated balloons containing his breath, and a colossal block of concrete with a meticulously etched 7,200-meter line. As a true Dadaist, Manzoni favored absurd ideas over traditional artistic talent. As he famously declared in reference to his work “Artist’s Shit,” “I sell an idea, an idea in a can.”
Tragically, Manzoni’s untimely death in 1963 at the young age of 29 due to a heart attack. However, his legacy lives on, preserved in 89 steel cans worth $300,000 each, a massive concrete block, and a collection of boiled eggs.
In 2000, the Tate museum in London purchased one of Manzoni’s cans for $30,000 – a reasonable price compared to the record-breaking sale of $300,000 at an auction in Milan in 2016.
During the early 1960s, the renowned Ad Dekkers (1938-1974) was known for his extensive research on plane, form, and line. Dekkers often began his works with a circle, square, or triangle, connecting his art to pre-war artists such as Piet Mondriaan. Like Mondriaan, Dekkers shared the belief that the most universal concepts could be expressed through the purest visual means. From 1965, he began creating reliefs in editions, often cast in polyester but also in various other materials like wood and aluminum. By painting his reliefs monochromatically and usually in white, Dekkers was able to fully utilize the effect of light on his work. Additionally, he significantly reduced the number of compositional elements and emphasized the distinctive nature of each geometric basic shape through a single systematic intervention.
Dekkers was represented by Riekje Swart, the Amsterdam gallery owner who also worked with international artists such as Lucio Fontana, Sol Lewitt, Agnes Martin, François Morellet, Peter Struycken, and Gerhard von Graevenitz. With the support of Jean Leering, director of the Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, his work was also featured in groundbreaking exhibitions such as the 1967 São Paolo Biennale alongside Jan Schoonhoven and Peter Struycken, as well as Documenta 4 in Kassel in 1968, in a gallery space shared with Elsworth Kelly.
Emmett Williams, an artist and American poet , was a prominent figure in the Fluxus and concrete poetry movements of the mid-20th century. He is most renowned for his iconic compilation, “Anthology of Concrete Poetry,” featuring works from poets and artists around the globe. Williams described this form of poetry as “direct,” utilizing the raw elements of language: its meaning, visual aspect, and phonetics.
From 1957 to 1959, Williams collaborated closely with Daniel Spoerri and Claus Bremer at the epicenter of dynamic theatre and concrete poetry in Darmstadt. In the early 1960s, he served as the European coordinator for Fluxus and played a crucial role in establishing the Domaine Poetique in Paris.
During his tenure as editor (1966-1970), Williams, along with Dick Higgins, oversaw the publication of several books by artists associated with the Fluxus movement through Something Else Press. Their philosophy, viewing life as a work of art and vice versa, sparked controversy but remained the defining characteristic of Fluxus. Williams expressed this belief, stating, “Fluxus sees life as a musical composition, a continuous process. The true scandal was not in our various actions, but in the philosophy that drove us. The notion that everything can be music defines Fluxus in a unique and convincing manner.”
Emmett Williams, an artist and American poet , was a prominent figure in the Fluxus and concrete poetry movements of the mid-20th century. He is most renowned for his iconic compilation, “Anthology of Concrete Poetry,” featuring works from poets and artists around the globe. Williams described this form of poetry as “direct,” utilizing the raw elements of language: its meaning, visual aspect, and phonetics.
From 1957 to 1959, Williams collaborated closely with Daniel Spoerri and Claus Bremer at the epicenter of dynamic theatre and concrete poetry in Darmstadt. In the early 1960s, he served as the European coordinator for Fluxus and played a crucial role in establishing the Domaine Poetique in Paris.
During his tenure as editor (1966-1970), Williams, along with Dick Higgins, oversaw the publication of several books by artists associated with the Fluxus movement through Something Else Press. Their philosophy, viewing life as a work of art and vice versa, sparked controversy but remained the defining characteristic of Fluxus. Williams expressed this belief, stating, “Fluxus sees life as a musical composition, a continuous process. The true scandal was not in our various actions, but in the philosophy that drove us. The notion that everything can be music defines Fluxus in a unique and convincing manner.”
Emmett Williams, an artist and American poet , was a prominent figure in the Fluxus and concrete poetry movements of the mid-20th century. He is most renowned for his iconic compilation, “Anthology of Concrete Poetry,” featuring works from poets and artists around the globe. Williams described this form of poetry as “direct,” utilizing the raw elements of language: its meaning, visual aspect, and phonetics.
From 1957 to 1959, Williams collaborated closely with Daniel Spoerri and Claus Bremer at the epicenter of dynamic theatre and concrete poetry in Darmstadt. In the early 1960s, he served as the European coordinator for Fluxus and played a crucial role in establishing the Domaine Poetique in Paris.
During his tenure as editor (1966-1970), Williams, along with Dick Higgins, oversaw the publication of several books by artists associated with the Fluxus movement through Something Else Press. Their philosophy, viewing life as a work of art and vice versa, sparked controversy but remained the defining characteristic of Fluxus. Williams expressed this belief, stating, “Fluxus sees life as a musical composition, a continuous process. The true scandal was not in our various actions, but in the philosophy that drove us. The notion that everything can be music defines Fluxus in a unique and convincing manner.”
Stanley Brouwn is renowned as the most prominent representative of conceptual art in the Netherlands. The underlying concept always takes precedence over the formally austere aesthetics of his works. Brouwn began as a self-taught artist and, akin to the artists of the Zero movement, worked in a monochromatic and geometrically abstract style. However, he quickly outgrew the specific aesthetic of Zero. From 1960 onwards, he built a remarkable and consistent body of work. Through it, he explored the interplay between movement and distance. He used his own body as the measure of all things and developed his own system of measurement (the sb-foot, sb-el and sb-step). Using this standard, the artist delved into the tension between subjective experience of distance and its objective register.
Because of his growing importance to Conceptual Art www.ftn-books.com has focussed on Brouwn for some years now and fortunately has still some important publications available.
Walter de Maria, an American artist, was a pivotal figure in both Minimalism and Land Art. Fascinated by conveying phenomenological experiences including time, geology, and weather, De Maria often utilized elemental materials like dirt or steel, exemplified in The Lightning Field (1977). “Natural disasters are a particular area of interest for me and I believe they represent the highest form of art one can experience,” he once commented. Born on October 1, 1935 in Albany, CA, he attended the University of California, Berkeley, earning his MFA in 1959. Relocating to New York in 1960, he began creating sculptures rooted in Dadaist ideals, immersing himself in the circle of Minimalist artists such as Sol LeWitt and Carl Andre. Through the decades that followed, the artist continuously challenged the boundaries of art, operating out of his expansive studio in the East Village neighborhood of New York. He passed away on July 25, 2013 while visiting his mother in Los Angeles, CA. To this day, De Maria’s creations are held in the esteemed collections of the Dia Center for the Arts in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among other institutions.
We are relocating! In the coming weeks we will be occupied with packing and moving our internet store inventory. The entire collection needs to be transferred from Leidschendam to Oegstgeest, and this will take some time. If all goes according to plan, we will be fully operational again on November 21st, but until then, it may happen that we are unable to immediately assist you with your order. We ask for your understanding, but as soon as possible, your order will be fulfilled with the utmost speed.
Yves Klein imitation The French painter Yves Klein was one of the founders of the artists’ movement Nouveau Réalisme, which was founded in his house. Yves Klein did not receive any art education. He became famous for his blue monochrome paintings, which he first exhibited in galleries in Milan and Paris in 1957. International Klein Blue In 1956 he exhibited a number of monochrome paintings. At this time he decided to only use the color blue from then on. This color was called ‘International Klein Blue’ (IKB) by Klein. The artist is said to have been searching for this color for years. He would eventually find it by adding the fixative Rhodopas to ultramarine blue. This blue became his trademark. He first showed these works in 1957 at Galerie Apollinaire in Milan and Galerie Iris Clert in Paris. Education Yves Klein was born on April 28, 1928 in Nice. He was the son of the artist couple Fred Klein and Marie Raymond. After high school, he briefly attended the National Maritime School. He then studied at the School of Oriental Languages from 1944 to 1946. Klein did a bit of everything. He viewed his life as a work of art in itself. During these years he met Arman and Claude Pascal. Happenings In the early sixties, he used blue-painted models to make prints on the canvas. This ‘painting’ took place during happenings, with a band playing music. Yves Klein exhibited in Paris, Düsseldorf, London, and the United States. In 1957, he released 1001 blue balloons at the opening of an exhibition.
Bij een andere opening kregen de bezoekers aan de galerie een drankje, waardoor na afloop hun urine blauw kleurde.
Op 21 januari 1962 trouwde Yves Klein met de kunstenares Rotraut Uecker, de zus van kunstenaar Günther Uecker, die lid was van de kunstenaarsgroep Zero. Klein kreeg in mei 1962 een hartaanval tijdens het filmfestival van Cannes. Later werd hij nog twee keer door een aanval getroffen. Yves Klein overleed op 6 juni 1962 op 34-jarige leeftijd in Parijs aan de gevolgen van deze hartproblemen. Enkele maanden later werd zijn zoon Yves Armand geboren.
We are relocating! In the coming weeks we will be occupied with packing and moving our internet store inventory. The entire collection needs to be transferred from Leidschendam to Oegstgeest, and this will take some time. If all goes according to plan, we will be fully operational again on November 21st, but until then, it may happen that we are unable to immediately assist you with your order. We ask for your understanding, but as soon as possible, your order will be fulfilled with the utmost speed.
He is the artist who invented OUTRENOIR
The artist, who prefers to work in a flat manner, relocated to ‘outrenoir’ in 1979. While toiling away on a piece completely covered in thick black, Soulages realizes that he has just taken a step forward by striating it. It was simply pure black pigment, yet it was able to bring forth light.
“My paint can is black. I found myself in an atmosphere beyond darkness. But what matters is the light, which is scattered by reflections, it is about how the reflections modify the light.” Pierre Soulages
www.ftn-books.com is fortunate to have some great titles on Soulages available.
We are relocating! In the coming weeks we will be occupied with packing and moving our internet store inventory. The entire collection needs to be transferred from Leidschendam to Oegstgeest, and this will take some time. If all goes according to plan, we will be fully operational again on November 21st, but until then, it may happen that we are unable to immediately assist you with your order. We ask for your understanding, but as soon as possible, your order will be fulfilled with the utmost speed.
Upon completing his education in the arts, James Rosenquist made a living by painting billboards. This seems to have been a crucial source of inspiration for his artistry. Rosenquist’s main focus was on large-scale paintings, which combined images from popular culture, such as advertising and pop music. As a result, his work is established as one of the key components in the evolution of Pop Art in the 1960s in the United States. However, unlike other Pop Art artists, Rosenquist’s creations often possess a deeper, political significance.
Artist/ Author: Oliver Boberg
Title : Memorial
Publisher: Oliver Boberg
Measurements: Frame measures 51 x 42 cm. original C print is 35 x 25 cm.
Condition: mint
signed by Oliver Boberg in pen and numbered 14/20 from an edition of 20
