FTN-blog

Born in 1951 in the bustling city of Los Angeles, California, James Brown was a man of many talents. He honed his skills in painting and printmaking at the prestigious Immaculate Heart College in glamorous Hollywood, before graduating from the renowned École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1974. The following years saw him blossom in the City of Light, living and creating amidst its vibrant artistic community.

In 1978, Brown made his solo debut at the esteemed Gemeentemuseum in Arnheim, the Netherlands, and the Christiane and Eric Germain Gallery in Paris. The year 1979 brought a new chapter as Brown relocated to the bustling heart of the art world, New York City. Here, he found himself rubbing shoulders with rising talents of the Neo-Expressionism movement such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Julian Schnabel. Exhibitions in top galleries such as the Shafrazi Gallery and the Leo Castelli Gallery soon followed, cementing Brown’s stardom. He also collaborated with the famed Lucio Amelio Gallery in Naples.

Though renowned for his abstract paintings, Brown’s artistry knew no bounds. His portfolio boasted a diverse range of techniques and media, including ceramics, bronze, textiles, and printmaking. In 1995, Brown ventured south to Mexico with his young family, where he continued to redefine artistry.

A new millennium brought new horizons for Brown as he, together with his wife Alexandra, established the Carpe Diem Press in the charming city of Oaxaca, collaborating with esteemed artists and writers to produce unique, limited-edition artist books and prints. Brown’s work was sought after by leading museums in America and Europe, including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oaxaca, the Anahuacalli Museum in Mexico City, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. His art also graced the collections of prominent public and private institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum, and the Whitney Museum in New York, the Kolumba Museum in Cologne, and the Contemporary Art Centre of Malaga in Spain. Sadly, James Brown passed away in February 2020, leaving behind an irreplaceable legacy.

www.ftn-books.com has several Brown pub;lications now available.

Lauded artist Zhivago Michael Duncan (born 1980 in Indiana, USA) currently resides and creates in both Los Angeles and Mexico City. With a versatile range of skills, Duncan’s artistic endeavors encompass installation, painting, ceramics, and works on paper, all deeply rooted in his explorations of the intricate interplay between human cognizance and fabricated concepts of reality. With a blend of ancient creation myths and modern analyses of subjects ranging from physics to metaphysics, astronomy to artificial intelligence, and contemporary philosophy, Duncan’s oeuvre reveals a personal and unique mythological universe, conveyed through a hieroglyphic language and iconography that embody aspects of consciousness and emotional states.

www.ftn-books.com has the Livingstone gallery invitation nowe available.

LODE DE LEEDE THEO (1934-2004), commemorated with fond remembrance, edition 1/1, gelatin silver print, 39 x 27 cm. This photograph can be found in the photographer’s opus book: ‘The unbearable lightness of seeing’, Amphora 2001. Lode de Leede, born on Christmas Day, only came into contact with photography later in life. Initially, he captured travel and art scenes in color, but gradually he became captivated by the more expressive possibilities of black and white photography. He specialized in nude photography. In his later years, he struggled with declining eyesight. Quote: People often ask: ‘What was your most beautiful photograph?’ Answer: ‘My last one!’

www.ftnhttp://www.ftn-books.com-books.com has now the de Leede publication: The Unbearable Lightness of Seeing available.

Moshekwa Langa is an artist whose oeuvre encompasses myriad forms of creative expression, ranging from drawing and installation to video and photography. Drawing inspiration from his immediate surroundings, Langa adeptly amalgamates materials, chronicling his personal history and emotions. Influenced by his upbringing in a non-descript rural “Homeland” during the apartheid era, Langa diligently traces his own memoirs in his pieces, utilizing significant individuals, events, and locations from his life as a framework to reflect upon physical and psychological boundaries. Central to his artistic project, Langa’s large-scale works on paper possess an otherworldly quality, resulting from the accumulation of ephemeral marks and actions, and the mediation of seemingly disparate elements. Infused with poetic and sentimental elements, Langa’s work strives to visually depict experiences and emotions that elude verbal description, grappling with the ever-elusive nature of meaning.

Residing and creating in Amsterdam, Moshekwa Langa’s work is currently showcased in a group exhibition titled New New Babylon at Kunstmuseum Den Haag in The Hague, Netherlands, on view until August 31, 2025. In 2022, Langa’s work was the subject of a solo exhibition at KM21 in The Hague. In 2021, Andrew Kreps Gallery presented the first solo exhibition of Langa’s work in New York, aptly titled The Sweets of Sin. Previous solo exhibitions featuring Langa’s oeuvre have been held at esteemed institutions such as Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, and Modern Art Oxford in the United Kingdom.

www.ftn-books.com has the KM21 invitation for his exhibition now available.

Born into a Basque family in Getaria, Spain, Balenciaga founded his fashion house in San Sebastián in 1919. His work was quickly admired, leading to the opening of new stores in Madrid and Barcelona. His clientele consisted mainly of the aristocracy. However, with the decline of the Spanish monarchy, the country’s prosperity decreased, impacting Balenciaga’s clientele. He made the decision to move to Paris, where he opened his house on Avenue George V in 1939. His first couture collection was a resounding success, prompting him to reopen his three houses in Spain.

His reputation continued to grow and couturier Christian Dior referred to Balenciaga as “the master of us all.” Other fashion giants such as André Courrèges, Emanuel Ungaro, and Óscar de la Renta learned their craft under Balenciaga’s tutelage before starting their own fashion houses.

Balenciaga’s style was revolutionary: he played with proportions, volumes, and drapes of different fabrics around the shoulders and skirts. His silhouettes often featured a pronounced hourglass figure, achieved by centering his suits and flaring out the hips with a tulip skirt underneath. He used minimal prints and vibrant colors, with polka dots being a signature print in his work.

In 1960, he designed the wedding dress for doña Fabiola Mora y Aragón for her marriage to King Boudewijn of Belgium.

In 1946, Balenciaga launched his first perfume, Le Dix, named after the house number of his fashion house in Avenue George V in Paris. After the 1950s, haute couture gradually lost its importance and in 1968, Balenciaga closed his house in protest against the vulgarization brought on by the modern age. He passed away in Jávea, Alicante in 1972.

www.ftn-books.com has the invitation for his Kunstmuseum exhibition now available.

Breathable and pulsating devices replacing the human brain, a sea of children’s drawings connecting continents, and greenhouses built on container ships. In New New Babylon: Visions for Another Tomorrow, prominent and emerging artists, designers, thinkers, and activists share their perspectives from around the world. Starting from Constant Nieuwenhuys’ visionary project New Babylon (1956-1974), a key work in the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag, they shape a society of ultimate creativity and freedom to play. Today’s creators show that Constant’s quest is far from complete. New New Babylon: Visions for Another Tomorrow showcases the power, beauty, and necessity of radical imagination.

www.ftn-books.com has several pub;lications on Constant and his New Babylon project available.

Nalini Malani (born 1946 in Karachi) is a prominent artist who skillfully integrates a diverse array of media to bring attention to her political activism. Having experienced firsthand the impact of the partition of India and Pakistan as a refugee, her oeuvre is imbued with themes of migration, globalization, poverty, and the subjugation of women. These contemporary issues are often interwoven with references to classical literature and mythological tales.

www.ftn-books.com has now the invitation for her drawings exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag available

On Friday the 13th of March 2020, things took a turn for the worse: artist Nalini Malani (1946, Karachi, at the time undivided India) was forced to travel from Barcelona to Amsterdam. The magnitude and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic became increasingly clear in Europe over a short period of time, and one country after another went into lockdown. Malani saw no way to reach her hometown of Bombay in India. The Netherlands became her refuge. A temporary stay that turned into a period of over a year. Never able to stop working, Malani dedicated herself to creating drawings, now without her studio and usual materials. Every day, she worked at the kitchen table on subjects stemming from her constant stream of thoughts reflecting the socio-political circumstances in the world. At times with aggressive lines and sharp texts, then again vulnerable, colorful, and with humor.

Van Koningsbruggen demonstrates a vibrant use of color in an abstract style, often featuring elements such as circles, rectangles, and funnels. He typically works on multiple pieces simultaneously: “I begin a painting and then I see a form emerging. I then transfer that form onto a new canvas and continue working on it. I let the other painting rest for half a year. Sometimes I have ten paintings in progress at once. They’re like patients, you have to heal them. Then I suddenly have a color on my brush and I look at the other painting and think, hey. That’s how I play the paintings against each other.”

In the 1970s, Van Koningsbruggen gained notoriety for his shifted paintings. He created these by placing paint on the canvas and sliding a second canvas over it. In his recent work, he revisits these works in part.

Rob van Koningsbruggen studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Vrije Academie in The Hague. His oeuvre includes paintings, drawings, and knitted art.

www.ftn-books.com has several van Konigsbruggen publications now available.

Martens is not only an ingenious explorer, but also expertly makes the most of his budget. He avoids wastage and utilizes materials such as newspaper and old archive maps from the Stedelijk Museum. He freely deviates from traditional design laws; for instance, the text can begin on the cover or be placed in the margins. His experiments went to the extreme when designing the architecture magazine OASE: each edition is unique. He initially formed it with students from the Workshop Typography, which he co-founded, and now collaborates with his daughter, Aagje Martens.

Since 2019, when Karel Martens joined forces with his children, Klaartje and Diederik, under the name Martens & Martens, their work has expanded into fields such as textiles and collaborations. One such collaboration is with Suite702, which produces towels based on Martens’ color system for the beach cabins in Le Havre. Martens’ designs have also been incorporated into textile designs for companies like Liberty London, Maharam, Hermès, DUM, Pop Trading Company, and Pentagram.

www.ftn-books.com has many Martens designed titles now available and his Stedelijk Museum exhibition will be on view until the 26th of October 2025.

Axel van der Kraan (b. 1949) makes woodcut prints showing a densely built-up world from which the human population seems to have vanished. All that remains is a variety of desolate urban landscapes, bunkers and other fortifications.

The artist’s idiosyncratic oeuvre is composed of powerful sculptures, reliefs and woodcuts, all revolving around his fascination with heavy engineering and military motifs like soldiers, knights, horses and tanks.

www.ftn-books.com has now the invitation for his woodcut prints exhibition available together with some other quintessential vander Kraan publications.