If there is one photographer who has become famous in the last 2 decades it is Rineke Dijkstra. She started as a freelance photographer for magazines like Avenue and Quote, but became famous with her series if you men and women on the beaches of the US, Poland, Belgium and Croatia. This series has become iconic in the world of photography and the star of Rineke Dijkstra has risen ever since. The series shows in artificial light young adolescent boys and girls on the shore. These photographs have are typical Dijkstra “signature” and can be recognized immediately. The strength in these photographs of young people and also the series of bullfighters and soldiers, is that they show the emotion of the portrayed. Large sized in many cases make these not the standard photograph for at home, but you can seen many of her works depicted in the books on Dijkstra of which some are available at www.ftn-books.com
Question….who is Damien Hirst…a serious artist or a vulpine charlatan. In my opinion he is both. When Hirst started his career, his approach to art was highly original, finding an art form in which he commented on society and the world around him. In the past 2 decades his art was a hype and he made a tremendous amount of money creating and selling art to please his admirers and collectors. This is the moment I gladly forget Damien Hirst as a serious artist, but now there is his new show, The first in almost 10 years.
TREASURESFROMTHEWRECKOFTHEUNBELIEVABLE
in Venice in the Palazzo Grassi / http://www.palazzograssi.it and i must say, it fascinates. Perhaps it is a little overdone and because of the scale too much, but this world he creates is totally artificial but includes the icons Hirst loves so much and fascinates from beginning to end. Disney figures combined with Kate Moss can de recognized in many objects, making this the Pop Art show of 2017.
A world created by Hirst as if it is real discovery , but totally artificial and in no way to be kept together as one art object, because i am convinced that after the show in Venice all object will be sold to collectors for very serious money. For a much smaller amount you can find some Damien Hirst publications at www.ftn-books.com 😉
Because there was some nice response on the blog i wrote some months ago about Henk Tas. I would like my followers to know that i acquired a new work by Henk Tas. Great staged photography in a popular size which means it can be hung or placed almost everywhere at home. A deers head, guitar and figure and clapping hands are the elements which form a ” classic” Henk Tas photograph / “FIRE” . For more information please inquire: at www.ftn-books.com or wvdelshout@ziggo.nl
This what you first think of when you think of Arnulf Rainer…. he was the first to make ….übermalungen/overpaintings.
And has become world famous with them. Because of this fame and entrance to many collections and art dealers he has become probably the most important collector of Outsider art.
Ever since the early 1960s, he has been collecting Outsider Art: work by people on the fringes of society, including psychopaths, schizophrenics and other mentally ill people.
Arnulf Rainer was still very young when he first encountered Surrealism (an art movement in which madness is regarded as the ultimate expression of creativity). The experience motivated him to collect documents and photographs relating to art and mental illness. Rainer decided to train at the Academy of Art in Vienna, but abandoned the course almost instantly when he found that the teaching staff regarded his art as degenerate. An encounter with Breton, the founding father of Surrealism, also proved disappointing. These experiences in the early 1950s confirmed his belief that he needed to seek inspiration far outside the walls of the established art world. He developed his well-known ‘übermalungen’ (overpaintings), in which he reworked the surface of paintings or drawings by himself or by fellow artists.
In the 1960s he began purchasing works of what would later be dubbed Outsider Art or Art Brut. Via his Czech wife, a psychiatrist, he bought works of art from psychiatric institutions in Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In Vienna, he became friendly with psychiatrist Dr Leo Navratil, who was working at the Klosterneuburg Hospital (now known as Guggin) and offering talented patients, such as Hauser, the chance to concentrate on their art full-time. Rainer bought drawings and paintings by Guggin artists. Navratil in his turn held exhibitions and produced publications and invited Rainer to speak at international medical conferences.
In the early 1960s, Rainer made various drawings while experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs and alcohol to produce a state of mental confusion. He also became interested in the ‘catatonic phenomena’ – the voluntary adoption of bizarre and inappropriate attitudes – sometimes associated with schizophrenia. In 1968 he made his first ‘Face Farces’: black-and-white photographs showing himself in all sorts of uncomfortable positions, with his face contorted into a variety of grimaces, the contours and lines of the image being accentuated with felt-tip and chalk. If you consider the influence of outsider art to the works of Rainer himself , you must conclude that the influence is very strong, but that the Rainer art stands on its own.
There are some very nice Arnulf Rainer titles to be found on www.ftn-books.com
A lyrical abstract artist and related to other abstract French painters like Manessier and Bazaine, Admired by Willem Sandberg , Bissiere received his first Stedelijk Museum exhibition in 1958 and in the early sixties another followed , this time with a spectacular catalogue designed by Wim Crouwel and for me this catalogue is the reason to write this blog, because i find this catalogie one of the very best Wim Crouwel ever made.
Clean, bright with some highly original details, the early smaller size and great typography makes this a Crouwel classic and the art…..well not bad either!
Outside the Netherlands Pieter Ouborg is hardly know, but compare this artists to his contemporaries he stand out with a “language” which is original and imaginative. Strange, sometimes surreal and even cildlike ( Yes, he befriended Appel and other Cobra artist). STill he did not become the great name people who admired him hoped for. Still he was admired by his fellow artists and during his life he received some very nice retrospectives in the Stedelijk Museum and the Haags Gemeentemuseum. It si hard to describe his art, but if i must make a comparison it must be Wols ( i wrote a short blog on Wols some weeks ago). For those visiting in the near future , here is the list of collections that has Ouborg works in them: ( and of course the books on www.ftn-books.com)
One of the dutch pioneers in dutch video and film art is certainly Frans Zwartjes. He is known for his experimental form of movie making. Somewhat psychedelic and always with a different camera point of view. Let his art speak for himself and look at SPECTATOR from 1970
https://youtu.be/64ARnFi3DuQ
There is a nice book available at www.ftn-books.com which was published on the occasion of Zwartjes receiving the Ouborg price.
Yesterday i stumbled upon a short note included in one of the catalogues that i have in my collection that the former owner wanted to see the exhibition La GRANDE PARADE in the Stedelijk Museum. I remembered visiting that exhibition and now almost 3 decades ago i realized that this was one of the first blockbuster exhibitions held in the Stedelijk . A great overview of Modern Art from the 20th century curated by Edy de Wilde who showed his special qualities as a collector with this exhibition and said goodbye to this collection as the director of the SM . It has probably the nicest Leger ever made in it and….Willem de Kooning….many many Willem de Kooning paintings ,who is still one of the key artists within te collection of the Stedelijk. Leafing through the catalogue one can only be amazed that so many great art was once in one place. There are not many of these exhibitions any more, because these are far too expensive to organize , but if there is one….go stand in line for a couple of hours and remember in 30 years the exhibition you visited. If it is as good as LE GRANDE PARADE it was well worth the wait. For the catalogues please visit www.ftn-books.com
The importance of Muybridge is not the artistic way he made his photographs, but because he recognized that he could catalogue motion and movement by placing photographs in sequence. This find was important because in detail one could study all movements. From athletes to birds….everything was photographed ,recorded and placed in sequence, making this in the 19th century the reference guide for all movement. The quality of his studies and photographs is shown in this excellent animation
Conclusion must be that not only serious art lovers, but also directors and animators are tributary to Eadward Muybridge.
And of course www.ftn-books.com has some nice books available on the subject.
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
