Category: stedelijk museum amsterdam

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Antonio Saura (continued)

Antonio Saura (b. 1930 in Huesca, d. 1998 in Cuenca) was a Spanish artist known for his surrealist style. Drawing inspiration from the works of Arp and Tanguy, Saura developed a highly personal approach to his art. His initial experiments with pictorial invention resulted in numerous drawings and paintings featuring a dreamlike, surreal quality.

In the 1950s, Saura was associated with the Surrealist group. Later, he turned to the technique of grattage and, through his gestural style, found his way to a radically abstract, always colorful form of painting rooted in an organic, aleatoric conception.

Using formal, highly specific structural elements, he eventually created the first forms that would evolve into the archetypal model of the female body or the human head, themes that would come to define Saura’s work.

From 1957 to 1960, Saura led the artists’ group El Paso in Madrid. He had his first solo exhibition with Rodolphe Stadler in Paris, followed by shows with Otto van de Loo in Munich and Pierre Matisse in New York. Saura remained essentially independent from the artistic movements and trends of his generation, although his unique style can be seen in the spirit of Velázquez and Goya.

Starting in 1977, he also wrote and designed sets for theater, ballet, and opera. Saura’s work is featured in numerous public collections, including the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the Folkwang Museum in Essen, and the Pinakothek der Moderne.

www.ftn-books.com has some great saura titles available.

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William N. Copley (continued)

American painter William Copley (1919–1996), known by his alias CPLY, was a maverick storyteller, whose paintings, drawings, and installations defied the conventions of the art world. A connoisseur and benefactor, Copley forged connections with prominent 20th century artists, particularly Surrealists from Europe and Pop artists from America. In collaboration with Milan’s Prada Foundation, roughly 100 of Copley’s pieces, including paintings and works on paper, comprise the pioneering exhibition, William N. Copley: The World According to CPLY, marking the first extensive showcasing of his work in an American institution. This presentation, accompanied by a corresponding book, explores Copley’s artistic trajectory, from the 1950s to the 1990s, tracing his evolution of painterly techniques and his consistent exploration of line, color, design, symbolism, and wit.

In the early 1950s, while living in Paris, Copley honed his distinct and risqué figurative style, bucking the prevailing trends of abstraction. Developing a naive, unfiltered storytelling voice, he drew inspiration from Surrealist compositions, Mexican folk art, and American cartoons and silent films, as seen in his works from the 1950s and 1960s, created primarily in France. Throughout his career, Copley continuously revisited themes of nudity, automobiles, patriotism, and the playful poetry of Robert W. Service, also known as the “Bard of the Yukon.” Later pieces demonstrate Copley’s ongoing evolution as an artist, showcasing his sustained interest in political and psychosexual themes, surreal visual wordplay, and vaudevillian Americana. Diverse in style, these works also exhibit Copley’s keen awareness of contemporary artistic movements and his role as a bridge between the Surrealist and Pop realms.

www.ftn-books.com has some great Copley titles available.

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Pinot Gallizio (continued)

In 1955, at the ripe age of 51, Pinot Gallizio turned his attention to painting after previously immersing himself in archaeology, botany, and studying popular cultures and the phenomenon of nomadism. This particular exhibition showcased a curated selection of his entire body of work, spanning less than a decade. His paintings boast an abstract foundation, executed in a gesture-heavy style that layers thick brushstrokes of oil paint onto the canvas. At times, these clusters of paint coalesce into perplexing symbols, resembling small round eyes or mouths twisted into menacing grins. Many of the pieces feature surreal and ironic titles such as “Death of a Common Traveler” (1955) and “Elliptical Paranoia” (1956).

Gallizio’s bold use of colors and thick, childlike forms were heavily influenced by his collaboration and friendship with Asger Jorn, a prominent member of the CoBrA group. Both men worked in the experimental workshop in Gallizio’s hometown of Alba, where the Italian artist conceptualized and produced his “Industrial Paintings” (1958-59), consisting of canvases over 40 feet in length with heavy impasto and tumultuous colors. Rather than being confined to a frame, each of these canvases could be rolled out in an exhibition space, creating an immersive environment. In fact, some pieces could even be entered as a tunnel, such as “Cavern of the Antimatter” (1958). Gallizio’s search for an alternative to traditional painting and the limitations of the canvas mirrors the works of Lucio Fontana’s “Spatial Environments” (1948-1950) and Yves Klein’s “Architecture of the Air” (1958-1959). As described by Mirella Bandini in a catalogue for Gallizio’s 1974 exhibition in Turin, his art embodied the “ideation of a new culture, in opposition to institutionalized and compartmentalized art.” This movement slowly began to infiltrate the artistic landscape of Turin, aligning with the ideas of the pioneering Arte Povera artists like Mario Merz and Marisa Merz.

www.ftn-books.com has the Gallizio catalog published by the Stedelijk Museum available.

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Roger Bissiere (continued)

Roger Bissière, a French artist renowned for his unique contribution to the realm of Cubism, also produced a series of stained-glass windows for a cathedral in Metz. He once stated that “the mark of a skilled painter is the ability to bury a color each day.” On September 22, 1886, Bissière was born in Villeréal, France, and eventually settled in Bordeaux in 1901. He pursued formal education at the École des Beaux-Arts, and later relocated to Paris in 1910, where he formed friendships with André Lhote and Georges Braque. In the bustling artistic hub of Paris, his paintings began to showcase a Cubist style, heavily influenced by his admiration for Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Pablo Picasso’s Neoclassical work. However, as the 1950s dawned, Bissière’s artistic vision had transformed into a highly abstract approach, incorporating bold splashes of color to create each piece, rather than utilizing traditional representational forms. He passed away on December 2, 1964, in Marminiac, France, leaving a lasting legacy in the art world. His works can now be found in esteemed collections, such as the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., among others.

www.ftn-books.com has some interesting Bissier titles available.

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Kho Liang Ie (continued)

Born in 1927 in Magelang and passing away on January 1st, 1975 in Amsterdam, Kho Liang le was the child of Chinese parents and a Dutch industrial designer. He is renowned for his design of the interior of Schiphol Airport. After arriving in the Netherlands in approximately 1949, he was educated at the Rietveld Academy, where he studied interior design and design. In 1958, he was appointed as Artifort’s aesthetic advisor and designer, shifting the company’s focus towards the top of the international market due to his contributions. Kho Liang le attracted foreign designers such as Pierre Paulin and Geoffrey Harcourt. His influence is still evident to this day. As an interior designer, Kho Liang le gained recognition for his work on the Schiphol Airport design in the 1960s. His creations exude purity, warmth, and a sense of liberty.

www.ftn-books.com has some Kho Liang Ie items available.

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Inez van Lamsweerde (continued)

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.

Inez van Lamsweerde, born on September 25, 1963 in Amsterdam, is a Dutch art photographer, renowned for her digitally manipulated photos. Together with her husband Vinoodh Matadin, she creates numerous art pieces that blend fashion photography and art. The two met at the Akademie Vogue, where they both studied clothing design. However, after two years, Inez van Lamsweerde left the school to pursue further studies at the Rietveld Academie, focusing on photography. But she still had a passion for fashion and incorporated it into her photography. Her photos are razor-sharp and can be described as perfect. Every aspect of the photo is precisely crafted and carefully thought out. Inez van Lamsweerde’s current photos include a combination of fashion and art photography. She works with many well-known brands and photographs models in the traditional style seen in fashion magazines, which is the fashion photography element. However, the use of light and contours in her work makes it appreciated by lovers of art photography as well.

www.ftn-books.com has some Inez van Lamsweerde items available.

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Sigmar Polke (continued)

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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.
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Sigmar Polke (Oleśnica, February 13, 1941 – Cologne, June 11, 2010) was a prolific German painter and photographer. His oeuvre gained renown in the early 1960s as a form of capitalist realism, often considered the European counterpart of pop art. He repeatedly topped the list of best-selling artists.

Polke taught himself to master cameras and employed a multitude of colorants, varnishes, and exotic chemicals in his paintings. His subject matter often includes images from antiquated books and modern magazines, as well as advertisements from the consumerist society. Within his work, he employs elements of irony, as seen in titles such as: “Higher beings commanded me to paint the upper right corner black” (German: “Höhere Wesen befahlen: Rechte obere Ecke schwarz malen!”). Sigmar Polke was the brother of Wilfrid Polke, also a painter.

www.ftn-books.com has some good Polke titles available.

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Lucio Fontana (continued)

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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.

Human Writer Action.

In the realm of art, enigmatic complexity and linguistic dynamism reign supreme. This can be seen in the works of Lucio Fontana, a pioneer of environments and abstract art. His famous “Concetto spaziale” works, in which he cut and pierced the canvas, are considered to be part of the conceptual art movement. However, Fontana did not limit himself to painting, as he also dabbled in jewelry design.

Fontana’s influence in the art world was significant, particularly in the 1960s. His return to Milan in 1947 marked the beginning of his “Movimento spaziale,” based on his theories as expressed in his 1946 manifesto, “Manifiesto blanco.”

Fontana’s work as a sculptor showcased his desire to merge form and space, evident in his “Tagli” and “Bucchi” pieces, where he sliced and punctured his usually monochromatic canvases in a precise, cool, and refined manner. The colors he used, much like the works of Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni, were bold, solid, and flawless.

Incorporating new materials and ideas into his art, Fontana also aimed to emphasize the growth of technology. He experimented with techniques such as adorning his canvases with precious gemstones. For Fontana, the act of creating the artwork was just as important as the final result; each stroke and gesture spoke for itself, forming a unique and mesmerizing piece.

Contrastingly, Jackson Pollock’s action painting creates a frozen memory of the action itself – the rhythmic dripping of paint over large canvases on the ground. However, by cutting into the canvas, the painting becomes a spatial image; light is then able to come from both the front and behind simultaneously, transforming the canvas from a flat surface to a dynamic element within the space. The tagli (slashes) of Lucio Fontana are arguably even more transformative than Kasimir Malewitsj’s black square. With Fontana’s work, one can no longer speak of different art disciplines such as painting and sculpture, but rather an integrated work that consists of elements from installation, performance, happening, and environment. He blurs the boundaries between flat and spatial art forms in their entirety.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice Fontana titles available.

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David Robilliard (continued)

Born in Guernsey (GB), passed away in London (GB).

David Robilliard skillfully traversed the line between art and comedy. The self-taught, Guernsey-born artist relocated to London in the late 1970s and forged his own brand of visual poetry, intertwining clever phrases, stylized figures, poignant contemplations on sexuality, companionship, and the urban experience onto blank canvases.

Robilliard was a prominent figure during a pivotal time in both London’s art culture and the emergence of the city’s LGBTQ+ community. Gilbert & George praised their protege and assistant as “the new master of the Modern individual. Observing, pondering, sensing, perceiving, sarcastically commenting – he brilliantly captures the “Existers” ethos of our era.” However, he never took himself too seriously.

David Robilliard contracted AIDS, ultimately leading to his passing at the young age of 36.

www.ftn-books.com has the most important publications now available.

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Agoes & Otto Djaya

In the midst of the Indonesian War of Independence in 1947, director Willem Sandberg organized the first exhibition of Indonesian brothers Agus and Otto Djaya at the Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands. This marked the first time that non-Western contemporary artists were given a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk. The Djaya brothers’ work was fueled by their involvement in the Indonesian struggle for independence after the proclamation of the Republic of Indonesia in 1945. The Stedelijk Museum’s research over the past year into the presence of the two brothers in the Netherlands sheds new light on their accomplishments. These new insights will be featured this summer at the Stedelijk in a thought-provoking exhibition spanning two rooms, a symposium, and other activities.

New research by independent curator and researcher Kerstin Winking into the work of the Djaya brothers in the Stedelijk’s collection reveals that there is a wealth of information about the brothers in Dutch archives. Agus and Otto Djaya were in Europe from 1947-1950, mostly in the Netherlands, where they secretly worked to promote Indonesian independence. The Stedelijk will showcase a selection of paintings from this period. In addition to works from the collections of the Stedelijk, the National Museum of World Cultures, and Leiden University Library, the exhibition will include revealing archival material demonstrating the entanglement of art and politics, as well as the brothers’ surveillance by the Dutch secret service and support from Dutch intellectuals for their efforts in the struggle for independence.

www.ftn-books.com has now the Willem Sandberg designed catalog from 1947 available.