Posted on Leave a comment

MAGNUM photography

There are many publications of Magnum associated photographers to be found at www.ftn-books.com, but there is one very special one which i would like to emphasize in this blog. There is the publication from 1963. One of the last to be designed by Willem Sandberg and a catalogue for the first of the many MAGNUM exhibitions to be held in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. The SM has a long history with Magnum photography, but this was one of the first to be held in a major museum and because of its design and simplicity it has become a highly desirable and collectable catalogue. The Stedelijk Museum continued to present the Magnum photographers throughout the decades to come , resulting in the 2008 exhibition to commemorate the 60 years of the Magnum agency, but the 1963 is the first and most important one within the series of publications on Magnum and the Stedelijk Museum. Next year the agency will celebrate its 70 years of existence, perhaps a new exhibition in the Stedelijk………..?

Posted on Leave a comment

Eva Besnyö (1910-2003)

Schermafbeelding 2017-04-20 om 12.20.07

Eva Besnyö has reached a very high age and stayed active in photography for almost her entire life. It was not until her children had left the house, she took up photography again and started to make a name for herself with photographing the feminist movement of ” DOLLE MINA” in the early seventies. This made her quit famous in the Netherlands and with this recognition her older photographs of portraits and architecture were appreciated again too. Since she has had multiple exhibitions in the Netherlands and abroad and is now considered with Oorthuys, Andriesse, Diepraam and van der Elsken to be the photographers that photographed the Netherlands and its society after WWII.

There are some Eva Besnyö publications available at www.ftn-books.com 

Posted on Leave a comment

Anton Corbijn (1955)

Schermafbeelding 2017-04-09 om 10.56.49

Rightfully world famous now. An excellent photographer and film maker. I am less enthusiastic about his abilities as a designer, but stil his photographs deserve some extra attention by  this blog on art. Because these are not only great photographs, but they also reflect music and their performers through the last 4 decades. Bowie, Jagger, Cobain, Davis and of course U2, name them all and all of them have been before the lens of Anton Corbijn.

 ( all photographs by Anton Corbijn )

Black and white being his favorite way to portray these great artists. As of late he made some movies during the last decade ( the American and A Most wanted man) However, he made his feature film debut with Control, a film about the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. It premiered to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2007. Curtis was a personal friend and it shows in the respectful way he portrayed the singer of Joy Divisison. Because his acquired celebrity status as a photographer, Corbijn has had retrospective exhibitions all over the world and 2 years ago there was a large retrospective on Corbijn in the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. Since a few years Corbijn took up the art of design. Personally i do not think he is a strong designer, but this is my personal opinion on his designs. There is a new logo by the Municipality of DEN HAAG which was designed by Corbijn and judge for your self.

Schermafbeelding 2017-04-09 om 10.56.16

Better focus on his photographs….they are very personal, intriguing portraits and they are great!

for some Corbijn titles visit www.ftn-books.com ( stripping girls is made  together with Marlene Dumas)

Posted on Leave a comment

Inez van Lamsweerde (1963)

Schermafbeelding 2017-04-03 om 12.22.28

Is she an art photographer, fashion photographer or staged photographer? I really do not know, but between these 3 there is not much difference in the works of Inez van Lamsweerde. Fashion or personal art photography blend perfectly. You can see many of her latest examples on her site https://www.inezandvinoodh.com/news/saint-laurent-fw-2017/ On this site her project together wth her “partner in crime” Vinood Mathadin are depicted. Here is one example from the series of photos they made for Yves Saint Laurent.

Schermafbeelding 2017-04-03 om 12.15.04

Arguably she is one of the best fashion photographers in the world , but for me personally she is the best. Just because of the arty way she depicts her models and still shows the best qualities of the Fashion they wear. For more titles on van Lamsweerde, please visit www.ftn-books.com

Posted on Leave a comment

Dennis Hopper (1932-2010)

hopper inv a

First time i saw Dennis Hopper in a movie was in Easy Rider. Together with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson he made this movie stand out from the rest in those days. A first class road movie which has become a cult classic since. I saw this movie in the Leidseplein Movie theatre in Amsterdam and the fact that i still can remember the theater in which i saw this movie, makes this one stand out for me . It makes a part of my cultural youth together with the Dali exhibition in the Boymans van Beuningen and the movies MORE and IF. I forgot about Hopper, but as soon as i saw his maniac appearance in BLUE VELVET, i was impressed again and started to read about him and saw his Photographs for the first time and noticed that he was a a painter / sculptor too. This man is a multi talented person in which his photographs stand out for me and are even more interesting than his acting. Highly personal photographs, a unique way of seeing things and the reason why an exhibition of his photographs was brought to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam ( catalogue available at www.ftn-books.com).

hopper keen a

 

In 2010 , to early, advanced prostate cancer was diagnosed and soon after he died at the age of 78 and left us some great movies and art works which can be admired up to the length of days.

A great interview ( 45 min) on his career can be found on Youtube .

https://youtu.be/hZkC05HUzt0

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Ren Hang (1987-2017)

schermafbeelding-2017-02-26-om-12-04-48

It is sad to learn that the Chinese photographer Ren Hang ended his life yesterday at the age of only 29 years.

A very promising young photographer, a talent like Araki and Ryan McGinley, who dared to be different in his approach to contemporary (nude) photography. As FOAM remembered in a short blog. Provoking and poetic at the same time and totally different from his Chinese colleagues. A talent which can be recognized immediately.

The exhibition in the FOAM museum in Amsterdam is well worth visiting and lasts until the 12th of March

https://www.foam.org/nl/museum/programma/ren-hang

and to get a great overview of his works, please visit chose the year and click on the photograph for some highly original and great photographs by Ren Hang.

http://renhang.orghttp://renhang.org

schermafbeelding-2017-02-26-om-12-03-08

Posted on Leave a comment

Ossip at gallery Ramakers 8/1/17-5/2/17

 

 

The follow up on the blog of yesterday is a logic one , since today a new exhibition on Ossip, yes…. he is the son of Jan Snoeck, will open at Gallery Ramakers. I really admire Ossip now for a period of almost 25 years and have been following his artistic career during these years. Saw his exhibitions in museums, art galleries and visited his studio numerous times and have seen his works developing from 2D into static 3D and now into kinetic 3D works. This latest show at gallery Ramakers will show his most recent ones.

The show will run from the 8th of January until the 5th of February.

When you are in the neighbourhood of Galerie Ramakers, Toussainkade 51 in Den Haag do not hesitate to enter the gallery …..and visit OSSIP. www.galerieramakers.nl

Later this year I will write a blog on the studio of Ossip….. a micro universe of strange and highly original art.

Only one publication on Ossip available at www.ftn-art.com , but ….it is an important one. Designed by Gracia Lebbink and in a very small edition of only 1000 copies.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Posted on Leave a comment

Rodin at the Groninger Museum

schermafbeelding-2016-10-05-om-09-11-09

August Rodin…. a legend among sculptors and a sculptor who is appreciated by young and old. The Musee Rodin in Paris receives over 700.000 visitors each year and now some great works from their collection are on loan at the Groninger Museum. In total 140 sculptures and 20 works on paper are in the Rodin exhibition, which makes it the largest Rodin exhibition in the Netherlands ever. So this is a great opportunity to visit the Mendini designed museum in the north of the Netherlands and visit the Rodin exhibition ( until the 30th of April 2017).

Groninger Museum, Museumeiland 1
9711 ME Groningen

What makes me look really forward to this exhibition, is the special part by Erwin Olaf. I know the sculptures by Rodin quit well, because i have visited the Musee Rodin and saw his exhibition in the Museum Het Paleis ( 1995) in The Hague multiple times. But these Olaf photographs are a first. Olaf photographed dancers of the National Ballet in typical Rodin poses, creating an atmosphere as if these photographs are taken in the Rodin studio. Spectacular photographs of these talented dancers with bodies like they were sculpted by Rodin himself.

For more information on Rodin look at these available books at www.ftn-books.com and the site of the Groninger Museum….www.groningermuseum.nl

Posted on Leave a comment

Suzy Embo and Louise Nevelson(1899-1988)

The next 3 days will be with short blogs on female artists that i admire very much. Today’s one is on Louise Nevelson who’s portrait by Suzy Embo is for sale at www.ftn-books.com.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Next year , starting at 23rd of june 2017 a large retrospective on Embo’s photographs will be organized at the FOMU /FotoMuseum Antwerpen. The photograph i have for sale was a lucky find , because it was hidden in one of the great Nevelson catalogues i bought years ago. Excellent condition of the photograph and the strong image of Louise Nevelson makes this one of my favorite artists photographs i have ever seen.

Louise Nevelson is in European undervalued artist, who made assemblages from left over materials and who was not that well known some 30 years ago. She had her exhibitions and retrospectives, but only since a few decades her works appear at auctions and in group exhibitions by Abstract expressionists. Stil she had a loyal following of admirers in the Netherlands and Belgium. In Belgium she even had a solo exhibition in the Paleis voor Schone Kunsten in 197 and you can visit one of the large works at the Centre Pompidou museum in Metz, but for the most of us in Europe this artist was a mystery….(and still is). The case in the US was a total different one. She was recognized as one of the most important sculptors from the 20th century from the early 60’s and onwards.

Major museums began purchasing Nevelson’s wall sculptures in the late 1950s, and she was included in the landmark “Sixteen Americans” exhibition at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1959. In the following decades she earned commissions for large-scale sculptures from institutions such as Princeton University (Atmosphere and Environment X, 1969), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Transparent Horizon, 1975), and the Philadelphia Federal Courthouse (Bicentennial Dawn, 1976). In 1967 the first major retrospective of her work was presented at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. During the 1970s and ’80s Nevelson expanded the variety of materials used in her sculptures, incorporating objects made of aluminum, Plexiglas, and Lucite. Not until she was in her 60s did Nevelson win recognition as one of the foremost sculptors of the 20th century.

Posted on Leave a comment

Jan Groover (1943-2012) and the Tabletop still life

schermafbeelding-2016-12-18-om-11-46-13

Jan Groover, one of those photographers that have a cult following but are hardly known with the large public. The post of some months ago on Henk Tas and his staged photography reminded me of Jan Groover and her still life photography. The Smithsonian made a wonderful catalogue on the subject of her Tabletop photo’s and it deserves to be better known. That is the reason for this blog, because Groover is a great photographer.

Pictures tell a far better story than i can, but there is a great short biography over here:

www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/arts/design/jan-groover-postmodern-photographer-dies-at-68.html

Groover publications that are available at www.ftn-books.com