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Marc Quinn (1964) an extreme “selfie”

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Every five years, over the course of five months, British artist Marc Quinn siphons off five litres of his own blood and spills them into a translucent, refrigerated mould of his face. The result is an ever-emerging series of self-portraits into which the artist can legitimately claim to have poured more of himself than any artist that came before him. For some observers, Quinn’s ongoing series Self is nothing more than a gruesome and vampiric stunt. For others, the work embodies a poignant and daring contribution to the tradition of self-representation to which such great artists as Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Cindy Sherman have contributed – one that profoundly highlights the fragility of being.

This is from an interesting article on works of art that shocked the world, but Marc Quinn is much more than an artist that shocks….see for yourself with these books at www.ftn-books.com

 

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Piet Dirkx daily … FIVE HUNDRED

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A simple box to mark this milestone in the Piet Dirkx Daily. Trust you will still enjoy it

Piet Dirkx cigarbox 500

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Mathias Fels (1922-2009)… galeriste extraordinaire

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One of the great gallery owners of our town was Mathias Fels. Her started the gallery in 1955 and the gallery has since become one of the leading galleries in the world. With the death of Mathias Fels the gallery stopped, but until that date they organized some very important exhibitions and with these exhibitions catalogues were published using special designs, papers and in many cases special covers . The covers in some cases being original lithographs. As one of the leading art scene figures, Fels has become an icon for many gallery owners and together with gallery Denise Rene in Paris he always had a keen eye to present new modern artists in his gallery.

www.ftn-books.com has some beautiful and important Fels publications available.

corneille fels a

You can find an excellent interview( in french)  with Fels at:

http://www.visuelimage.com/ch/fels/

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Piet Dirkx daily …499

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Piet Dirkx cigarbox 499

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Rudolf Mumprecht (1918)

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Why a blog on Mumprecht…. first reason is this artist is too long a forgotten artists. He rose to some fame in the 60’s while he was showing his works at gallery Berggruen/Paris, but was forgotten again . The second reason is that this artist reached the age of 100 years on the 1st of January 2018. It made me take up the Berggruen catalogue again and examine it carefully and noticed that this special catalogue is filled with 14(!) original “pochoirs” prints making it an outstanding and highly collectable artist catalogue. Mumprecht deserves better.

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His works are great and typical for the 50’s and 60’s and being one of the original Berggruen “stable” artists his works will probably also become much more expensive in the decades to come. The Berggruen catalogue is now available at www.ftn-books.com

 

 

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Piet Dirkx daily …498

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Piet Dirkx cigarbox 498

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Karel Appel and the Congresgebouw Den Haag (1969)

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The Congresgebouw is an architectural icon in Den Haag. It was designed by Hans Oud and J.J.P. Oud and opened in 1969. In 1968 Karel Appel was commissioned a large painting on ceramic tiles and this painting is one of the lesser known Karel Appel paintings because not many people realize that they pass it while entering the Congresgebouw / World Forum ( the name what it is called nowadays).

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The extremely large tile painting consists of over 1200 separately painted tiles. These together, making it one of the largest Karel Appel paintings ever. If ever you come to Den Haag , this location is well worth a visit because not only there is the Gemeentemuseum nearby, but beside the tile painting by Appel there are sculptures, by Henry Moore, Auke de Vries and Pevsner in the vicinity.

For some nice Karel Appel publications please visit www.ftn-books.com

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Piet Dirkx daily …497

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Piet Dirkx cigarbox 497

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Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967)

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Ossip Zadkine is perhaps one of the most famous artists in the Netherlands without people knowing him by name. Zadkine made the sculpture ” DE VERWOESTE STAD” which symbolizes the destruction of the heart of Rotterdam after the bombardment of it in the early stages of WWII ( 14 mei, 1940) .

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The sculpture was revealed in 1953 and financed by DE BIJENKORF on the condition that it always must be on the same spot within the centre. The human figure has a hole where the heart should be making it the perfect image for a destroyed city centre.

Since the revealing of this statue  Ossip Zadkine received on several occasions exhibitions of his works in the large museums in the Netherlands , but for many his claim to fame here is this ” DE VERWOESTE STAD”

There are some nice publications on Zadkine available at www.ftn-books.com

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Piet Dirkx daily …496

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Piet Dirkx cigarbox 496