Last week i found at the local bookmarket a special artist book by Hendri van der Putten. The book was made for the exhibition of Hendri in the Apollohuis in 1988.The artist book consists of 16 pages of which 5 are silkscreened with lines across the pages and on the edges…. a very delicate yellow. an exquisite book which is now available at www.ftn-books.com
Beppe Kessler is one of those artists who grows on you. Educated on the Rietveld Academy , she soon found her way into the Gallery circuit with frequent exhibitions all over the Netherlands in the Eighties. What makes her work special is the use of materials which are not commonly used for jewelry. For example she uses nylon tissues and balsa wood within her jewelry. This really makes her jewelry stand out from other designers, ………but there is more to Beppe Kessler. She is also a painter and this is where my interest originated . If you look at her paintings you might think you are looking to a child of a Constructivist father and an organic hairy mother.
These paintings are exceptional. Their sizes differ, but even in the smallest of paintings you can see the personal “signature’ of Beppe Kessler. The book that www.ftn-books.com has in its inventory is from a special edition of 500, signed and numbered but what makes it really special is the cover. All 500 covers are different and this one is one with 4 pins sticking out, making it a true Kessler painting.
Born in Amsterdam but living for the most part of his life in Friesland near Hallum. His works reflect the presence of the rural country side nearby. Abstract forms tumbling in an empty space. Etchings with dark thin forms in an empty white space give me the feeling of ZERO art, but it certainly is not. They fascinate and deserve to be known much better. Peeter has had some exhibitions in the 70’s in prestigious museums like the Kroller Muller Museum. The first encounter with a small work by Zoltin Peeter was his multiple he made for his 1971 exhibition in the Lakenhal. The multiple is available at www.ftn-books.com and shows directly the directions he was taking with his works. decades later you can see where is ended for now. Abstract forms, sparce use of color and in many compositions a realistic form or subject appears. I love his work and his studio…..
His studio is something different. Housed in an old shed he creates his works in the vicinity of the Friesland landscape. I found some beautiful photo’s on Google and want to share these with you , because i find them very special and they give the best impression possible of the surroundings in which Zoltin Peeter creates.
Her are the items which are for sale at www.ftn-books.com and ftn art
The art world will probably not know about Jan Sobecki and his Tribeca Restaurant in Heeze, but the culinary world does certainly know Jan Sobecki. After starting his career at Chapeau and Boreas restaurants, he finally has a place of his own for 2 years now in Heeze. The former restaurant of Nico Boreas was turned into the TRIBECA restaurant run by Jan Sobecki and his wife Claudia. Why a blog on this restaurant and not a blog on art like always. Two reasons. The first is to commemorate that the day before yesterday it was Linda’s birthday and we visited Tribeca restaurant for lunch to celebrate and secondly, although there is no art in the TRIBECA restaurant on the walls, to show that there is a strong connection and influence of all kinds of art on the plates that Tribeca serves. The first thing we noticed were the similarities between the sculpture LA MUSE ENDORMIE by Brancusi and the little plate with butter which was served.
I had the very strong impression that this great chef is inspired by art. Not the taste of course ( which is by the way exquisite), but the plates look all like small pieces of art and go way beyond the regular way in making up a plate. another example is the “amuse” of mackerel which reminded me of a very small painting by Fiona Rae which is available at www.ftn-books.com.
I only know of one other chef in the Netherlands who still draws his inspiration from art and that is Jannis Brevet from the Inter Scaldes restaurant who matches his courses with the paintings he has hanging on the wall.
Of both, Sobecki is my favorite. Not just because i think the service at the table was far better and relaxed than at Inter Scaldes, but because he focusses on his beautiful and very impressive tasting menus and wine pairing in a way that i am convinced that in the long run he proves to be the better chef…..go there, admire and enjoy Sobecki’s art on a plate and the “art” of Jan Sobecki will convince you that there is certainly (culinary) ART in his Tribeca restaurant.
An earlier blog on Fulton told the story i met Fulton and he graciously signed 20 copies of his book “100 walks” to be sold in the shop of the Gemeentemuseum, but this time i want to tell you about the special publications Fulton has made in the Netherlands. As far as i know there are 4 publications that are worth mentioning of which 3 are available at www.ftn-books.com.
These publications are real finds when you find one and true artist books which are highly collectable Fulton items. Hamish Fulton is becoming more an more important, s as long as these publications are available add them to your collection.
A few years ago i devoted a blog to Paul Kooiker of whom i have several publications available. Among these is the Hotel New York publication, but this time i publish this blog to announce the sale of an original photograph by Paul Kooiker.
Kooiker is one of the leading photographers in the Netherlands these days and it is a rare opportunity to sell anoriginal signed photograph. One from the series i keep for my own collection but the one below is for sale:
It is a great Paul Kooiker photograph. The setting and the models are typical for Kooiker and used in many series oof which some of the books are available at www.ftn-books.com
Today i added to my inventory a book by Auke de Vries for his Museum Wiesbaden exhibition from 1990. i knew the title and had sold copies before, but what made this one special is that on ca. 10 of the pages yellow post-it’s were fixed with gallery prices in guilders. I leafed through the book and was surprised to find the prices to be as steep as 50.000 guilders. It was not long ago that i attended 2 auctions where several small and larger sculptures by Auke de Vries were sold , fetching prices between euro 2500 and 4000 for a larger sculpture.
I compared these with the 1990 gallery prices within the Wiesbaden catalogue and found that prices had devaluated with over 60% when compared with the actual auction prices including premium in 2017. Of course the gallery fees are between 40 and 50%, but when you consider that money has devaluated too in these past two and a half decades the devaluation of Modern Art of a very good artist like Auke de Vries is over 80% compared with the original gallery price. Should i then still buy art?……YES! because you can have tremendous pleasure from it. You search for and find good art and enjoy it at home when you bought or rent it and yes… you support the artist with your buy, but if you ask me , should i buy art as an investment? my advise would be …be careful for the artist you select, because most of them will not be worth very much after a few decades.
But when you are patient, that means a period of 20+ years, you will discover that works by the artist you admire start to appear at auction and are much more affordable and even can be bought by most collectors for as little as a few hundred euro. I can give you an example of a great Arie van Geest which recently was added to our collection for an extremely fair amount.
You only learn of the auction records by artist like Warhol, Koons and Hirst, but you can ask yourself…are these works by these artists really that special or are they a marketing product… a true hype? if i did not know who the artist is and did not know the value of a work …would i buy it ? In the case of Auke de Vries i personally would do so at the price level that i recently experienced at auction, but for the prices in the Wiesbaden catalogue i would “pass”. Art should not be bought as an investment and i dare say that the great collectors in the world never have bought art for its value, but because they admire the artist and his or her works and you should do the same, because there is still some great art to be found and bought at fair prices. www.ftn-blog.com and www.ftn-books.com have art for sale which is published in edition and is still affordable.
Some combinations are hard to beat and this one is surely a classic. Wim Crouwel was not yet promoted to the position of designer of the catalogues of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and had just left the van Abbemuseum with his designs. In the in between period he did some free lance works and one of these was the catalogue he designed for the H.N.Werkman exhibition of 1964 in the Groninger Museum and this catalogue became the standard for all his future designs. He chose a slim sized catalogue, but within the book he used some of the papers which he had used in the van Abbemuseum catalogues and would use again for the Stedelijk Museum catalogues. Making it simple but still complex.
On the cover a bold and typical Werkman print which emphasized the graphic quality of the catalogue. The back…. a typical red with clear black and white lettering. This is in my opinion one of the very best graphic designs ever made in the Netherlands and i am proud to still have a copy for sale of this beautiful and splendid Wim Crouwel catalogue.
For this catalogue please visit www.ftn-books.com
There different artists, 3 different backgrounds, 3 different era’s, but somehow their works have a resemblance with each other. The source is with all three an old photographs, which is worked over in a way the scene becomes surreal.
Above are some of the examples i found in my inventory of www.ftn-books.com , which has pubications of all three artists available.
From left to right: Ossip, Julie Winter and right Chezhin.
Chronologically and artistically there is for me no doubt who is the most original of these three……by far it is my friend OSSIP, who’s art is still developing . His “sculptures”are literally on the move nowadays.
Some of the galleries are out there for ages. For example Denise Rene in Paris and Willy Schoots in Antwerp but there is also Deweer gallery who have a presence in the gallery world since 1979. When you visit the gallery it is more like a small sized museum than a typical gallery. A huge surface, situated in an old factory with separate rooms, make it suitable to present a diversified collection. Artists from the gallery range from Jan Fabre to Mark Wallinger. www.ftn-books.com carries some sold out Deweer publications from the last decades.
The Deweer site gives the following information on the history of the gallery:
Deweer Gallery (est. 1979) is a leading second-generation gallery specialized in national and international contemporary art. Gerald and Bart Deweer are its owners and directors. The gallery is located in a building with approximately 1,200 m² of exhibition spaces in the rural town of Otegem, in Belgium. Deweer Gallery, representing more than twenty artists, focuses exclusively on work that evinces a combination of critical and poetic qualities. Well-known for its representation of artists such as Stephan Balkenhol, Jan Fabre, Günther Förg, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov and Panamarenko, the gallery has a reputation for building artists. Deweer Gallery has been working together with these artists for more than two/three decades. The early detection of talent is its trademark. It is evident in, among other things, their current supporting of artists such as Melissa Gordon, George Little, Enrique Marty, Benjamin Moravec, Nasan Tur, Anna Vogel and Andy Wauman.
HISTORY
From father to sons
Mark Deweer’s passion for collecting art led to the creation of Deweer Gallery in 1979. Mark was the driving force and the initiator. His nose for artistic talent and his business acumen, along with the unconditional support of his wife Marleen Deweer, made for an ideal combination that would make the realization of his dream possible.
Raised surrounded by art, their two sons, Gerald and Bart Deweer, know the world of art from within. Gradually, they took over the management of the gallery. Gerald and Bart want the gallery to continue to play a dynamic, ambitious and leading role on the international contemporary art scene. They aim to continue to promote artists on the basis of strong internal/external exhibitions and participations in international art fairs such as Art Cologne (since 1995), ARCO Madrid (since 2001) and recently also miart (Fiera Milano).
Building
Since the middle of the 1980s, Deweer Gallery is located in an unusually spacious building that once housed a small industrial enterprise. In 2011-2012, the spaces of the gallery were thoroughly renovated. Far-reaching architectural interventions were carried out, such as a doubling of the publicly accessible spaces (the lobby and three exhibition rooms) to a total area of approximately 1200m². In September 2012, the new gallery opened with the group exhibition ‘Re-Opening’, which clearly showcased the rejuvenation and renewal of the gallery program.
