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Gerco de Ruijter ( 1961 )

Gerco de Ruijter is a Rotterdam-based visual artist working in the field of photography and film. In the late 1980s he started using kites, balloons and fishing poles to create images of situations far removed from our own vantage point. Since 2012 he has been mining Google Earth as a source, resulting in films like CROPS (2012) and Playground (2014). His art explores how far presentation of the landscape can be reduced and yet still remain recognisable.

De Ruijter studied at the Academy for Visual Arts in Rotterdam, graduating with honours in 1993. Since then he has had numerous solo and group exhibitions both in the Netherlands and elsewhere, including at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC, and The Harnett Museum of Art in Richmond. His work features in several important private and public collections.

www.ftn-books.com has the ALMOST NATURE now available .

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K.R.H. Sonderborg (1921-2008)

German Informel is closely associated with K.R.H. Sonderborg. Inspired by the gestural painting of American Abstract Expressionism, his paintings and drawings reveal a fascination with technical constructions and their traces of movement. It shows the form in its process of creation. In doing so, Sonderborg used a spontaneous application of paint. He thus created a dynamic structural system. His brushstrokes were rather strokes with the painting tool, executed in a quick gesture. His preferred colours were black and white with red elements, which he applied with a rubbing or wiping technique. From the 1970s onwards, his work increasingly approached a controlled, almost representational formal language. He limited himself to a few high-contrast colour tones, usually black on white. He distilled motifs from private and press photographs, isolating them from their narrative context and using them as a basic optical structure to inspire him. He remained true to his preference for technical constructions, whereby the graphic structure of car windscreen wipers and overhead cables inspired him just as much as harbour cranes or gas tanks. 

www.ftn-books.com has multiple Sonderborg publications available.

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Phil Bloom (1947)

Phil Bloom for the HOEPLA TV program

The year 1967 and half of the dutch population spoke about the nude appearance of Phil Bloom on national Television. Phil Bloom lowered the newspaper and showed her nude upper body. It was a dutch first and raised a scandal. Later on one understood that this was not just nudity , but more a kind of Avant Garde kind of art initiated by Wim T. Schippers, who made 4 Hoepla programs of which the last one was withdawn by VPRO. You can see the actual appearance of Phil Bloom here:

https://archief.ntr.nl/jarenzestig/#/artikel/avant-garde-op-televisie

Since that appearance Phil Bloom wrote history and her name became  a household among my genaration, but Phil Bloom is still active as an artist, but now on the creating site. She makes and creates what is called Synthetic realism. Scenes in which realism is combined with a fairytale like surroundings. A colorful figure and one of those that wrote not only history but creates better world with her art.

http://www.ftn-books.com has a nice signed print by Phil Bloom available

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A Willem Sandberg Xmas card

I found this picture at the Herb Lubalin center who has this in its collection. A very nice and typical Willem Sandberg card to wish you a Merry Christmas in 1958.

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an old wish, but a new one from me….. a Merry Christmas 2021

 

Many Sandberg and Lubalin items are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Kurt Kocherscheidt (1943-1992)

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Kurt Kocherscheidt was born on the 6th of July 1943 in Klagenfurt, Austria to Friedrich and Elisabeth Mayer. After the divorce of his parents in 1946 and the move of his father back to Germany, the most formative person in his youth became his grandfather August Mayer (1885–1958) whose deep friendship with Hugo Adolf Bernatzik, a famous ethnographer and explorer, awakened Kocherscheidt’s interest in geography, zoology and art in general.

In 1961, after completion of his school years in Klagenfurt and Friesach (his mother’s hometown), Kocherscheidt moved to Vienna to study painting at the Academy of Fine Arts under Professor Sergius Pauser. As a way of supplementing his income, during the summers he would restore gothic frescos, in his words: “the thought of financial stability” led him to move to Zagreb (then Yugoslavia, now Croatia) for two years (1963–1964) to study mural painting under professor Ivo Rezek at the Akademija Likovnih Umjetnosti, before returning to Vienna and completing his academic studies in 1965.  In 1967 he married and divorced his long-time partner Andjelka Feuer.

In 1968 Kocherscheidt became a founding member of the artist group “Wirklichkeiten” (Realities). At a moment when the prevailing trend in art leaned towards conceptual art, these artists were bound by their interest in traditional modes of production, such as painting and drawing, and the representational qualities they favored. During this period, Kocherscheidt was predominantly painting highly saturated imagined landscapes that included both homages to real horticulture and surreal futuristic elements rendered in a palette that recalled the Fauves. The group included several painters who were of his generation and active in Vienna at the time, including: Wolfgang Herzig, Franz Ringel, Robert Zeppel-Sperl, Martha Jungwirth (who joined in 1969), and Peter Pongratz. The Kocherscheidt exhibition pposter for the JOsef Albersmuseum is now available at www.ftn-books.com

kocherscheidt bottrop a

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Martijn Sandberg (1967)

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Just a simple blog on a great artist and his ideas . I admire Martijn Sandberg for his art. Every few month i look at his site and find some new works that fascinate me . Just take a dive into Martijn’s ideas and visit the link below. An internet related project by Martijn Sandberg. An art work he exclusively made available on the internet

http://www.msandberg.nl/noimageavailable/

Martijn Sandberg ‘Image Messages’The work of Amsterdam based visual artist Martijn Sandberg (1967) constantly explores border areas, such as the tension between text and image, illegible into legible, the private and the public domain. ”I make Image Messages, image is message is image.” The image hides the message.
In the cut paintings, such as ‘Sorry No Image Yet’ and ‘Im Westen Nichts Neues’, there is a subtle play between the language of the image and the significance of the image, and this gives rise to questions. Here, even the lack of image seems to be elevated to an image by the artist.


The direct relationship between the image, the material bearing the image and the environment is also expressed in his site-specific works in public space and architecture. As in the ‘De Oude Weg Naar De Nieuwe Tijd’ artwork, integrated as a brick relief in the walls of the gates and the pavement of the Spaarndammerhart building, Amsterdam. Or in the sculpture ‘I Will Survive’ located at the border of a burial ground in Hardenberg, The Netherlands.

BTW. For those interested in the editions by Martijn Sandberg please visit his shop at :

http://www.msandberg.nl/shop.php?shop=yes

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Centraal Museum Utrecht , 1979

 

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It is not the book itself, condition is fair+, but the realisation that all artists included in the book have become highly collectable artist, who’s works you can only acquire at steep prices nowadays. It shows the importance of collecting at an early stage by the museums. It is not difficult to pay millions for a work of art, but when you can see the quality at an early stage you can build a great collection…well done Centraal Museum.

the book is now available at www.ftn-books.com

abstract keus utrecht

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Who is Who ….in Modern Art, version 1995

For those who want a crash course in Modern Art it is sufficient to study the english/ Japanese catalogue RIPPLE ACROSS THE WATER . A  publication  with over 350 pages, published on the occasion of the exhibition with the same name  in 1995. Some names: Francis Bacon, Jan Fabre, Marlene Dumas, de Cordier, Nauman, Pistoletto etc……..

Not only very worth collecting, but also published as an artist book. This makes the publication an absolute ” must have ” for those that take an interest in Modern Art of the last 50 years.

 

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Henk Peeters and Paul Signac

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On first observation there is no relationship between Paul Signac and Henk Peeters, but after i had included a book on Paul Signac from the library of Henk Peeters to my inventory it was clear to me that Peeters must have had a great admiration for Signac and his Neo Impressionist friends.. The placing of the dots i compare to the placing of the cotton pads or feathers by Peeters on the Canvas.

I can be sure that this book comes from the library of Peeters , since it is signed in ink on the title page and has 2 stamps. The oldest being with his address Fahrenheitstraat 671 in Den Haag, the second his Arnhem address at the Hoogstedelaan 12. Just to illustrate:

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On the left signac’s enlarge part of the sky above Rotterdam and on the right a canvas by Peeters. The Signac book is now available at http://www.ftn-books.com

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Klaus Staeck (1938)

 

I always thought that Klaus Staeck was just a publisher, but now i have learned him not only being an art publisher but also a graphic artist and lawyer. His bond with Joseph Beuys and a political engagemnet is well know, but him being an artist by himself not. It is always nice to encounter a Staeck publiction. Always on the border of being an artist multiple. http://www.ftn-books.com has several Klaus Staeck publications available

Klaus Staeck grew up in the East German city of Bitterfeld. After passing the abitur in 1956 he moved to the West German city of Heidelberg where he lives down to the present day.

From 1957 until 1962 Mr Staeck studied law at Heidelberg, Hamburg, and Berlin before taking both state exams. He was admitted to the German bar in 1969.

Klaus Staeck is probably best known for his political poster art. He began to teach himself how to work as a graphic designer while pursuing his legal studies, creating posters, postcards, and flyers. In 1960, Mr Staeck became a member of Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). In the late 1960s he took part in local politics in Heidelberg. Over the years he created three hundred different motifs, drawing from current political discussions. He took sides for the poor, the environment, and for peace, urging his countrymen to join him and to interfere in political affairs. In his campaigns he employed claims such as, e.g., Deutsche Arbeiter – die SPD will euch eure Villen im Tessin wegnehmen (“German workers: the SPD seeks to take away your villas in Tessin from you”), or Die Reichen müssen noch reicher werden – deshalb CDU (“The rich must become richer yet, therefore vote CDU”).

First he made woodcut prints, while from 1967 onward he changed to screen printing. Mr Staeck managed to finance his political actions by selling his artwork in Edition Tangente publishing house which later came to be known as Edition Staeck. He worked together with other political artists and writers, most notably Joseph Beuys, Panamarenko, Dieter Roth, Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Daniel Spoerri, Günter Grass, Walter Jens, and Heinrich Böll who publicly spoke out in his favour. At the beginning of the 1970´s Staeck began his long time collaboration with Gerhard Steidl. So far, Klaus Staeck was sued in 41 cases for his artwork to be banned from public, to no avail.[2]

Since 1986 Mr Staeck has been visiting professor at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. In April 2006 he was elected president of Berlin Akademie der Künste, succeeding to Adolf Muschg who had stepped down from this position late in 2005.

Klaus Staeck was awarded the first Zille prize for political graphic design in 1970, and the Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz in 2007.