FTN-blog

The idiosyncratic oeuvre of Belgian artist Walter Swennen (1946) is deeply rooted in language. From a very young age, he develops a strong sensitivity for spoken and written word. Driven by necessity, as when he was five years old, his parents decide to suddenly break with their Flemish past and switch to French. This marks the beginning of a lifelong investigation into how (visual) language transmits meanings – or conversely, obscures them.

Swennen’s paintings, often a mix of light absurdity and philosophical playfulness, are always a variation on this theme, but differ greatly in style. This is the result of the associative method he employs, which aligns his work with free jazz: he paints without a fixed direction or end goal. “My only aim is to finish the painting,” he says. “You start, and you react to what is there. People who write about painting forget that painting is usually nothing more than an agreement between the painter and the painting.”

www.ftn-books.com has several Swennen publications now available.

Impressive skeletons, independently moving in the wind: the beach animals of artist Theo Jansen (1948) regularly stroll along the coastline of The Hague. They have also been exhibited all over the world. In addition to the Animaris Omnia, which has been on display in the Garden Hall of the Kunstmuseum since 2018, ten beach animals, in chronological order of their evolution, will be featured both inside the Project Room and outside along the pond’s edge starting February 26th. Jansen: “Since 1990, I have been occupied with creating new forms of life. The building material is not protein, like in existing nature, but electricity tubes. My beach animals harness energy from the wind and therefore do not need to eat. Over time, an evolution has taken place, visible in the successive generations. This becomes evident in the presentation at the Kunstmuseum.”

www.ftn-books.com has now the invitation for his 2022 presentation at the Kunstmuseum available.

Influenced by every movement that shaped the art of the first half of the 20th century, Belgian artist Jean Brusselmans (1884 – 1953) builds his own distinctive oeuvre. A starring role in his work is given to the rolling countryside and village life of Brabant, Belgium. For the first time in a long while, this important artist will be given a full exhibition outside the borders of Belgium at the Gemeentemuseum. On display will be approximately forty paintings focusing on the 1930s and 1940s, including a number of undiscovered gems from private collections.

While his direct contemporaries, such as Rik Wouters, Constant Permeke, and Gustave De Smet, gained fame as leaders of the new avant-garde in Belgian painting after the First World War, Brusselmans remained under the radar. His stubbornness and his physical distance from the art world – he lived almost his entire life in the rural town of Dilbeek, west of Brussels – hindered his success. In the shadows – and in great poverty – Brusselmans developed his own style. It wasn’t until the 1940s that he gained tentative recognition, though his work remained relatively unknown to the general public.

www.ftn-books.com has several Brusselmans titles available.

Born in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Morgan Betz resides and creates in three cities: Amsterdam, Berlin and Japan.

Betz’s artwork speaks volumes about the current state of the art world, in which many pieces lack a sense of legitimacy. In order to truly hold value, every piece must answer the question of its relevance. Mere beauty is not enough. Betz’s paintings and objects may not fit traditional notions of beauty, but that is precisely his intention. He intentionally strays from the norm to explore the possibility of creating something new from the ruins. This is where his talent for subversion shines, a quality that is all too rare in contemporary art.

But how does this subversion manifest? Betz finds inspiration in the maladjusted, the tragicomic elements of our everyday lives. It takes bravery to reject the entrenched practices of rationalization and conceptualization that have become the norm in visual culture today.

So how does his work prove its significance? One could describe it as a mosaic of images, fragments, and quotes. These different layers come together to form a new viewpoint. The creative process itself is a balancing act, a mix of spontaneity, careful construction, and a tension between intention and outcome. Betz’s aim is to arrive at a satisfying equilibrium, where the image is at peace with itself, needing no further justification and serving as an expression of pure ideas.

www.ftn-books.com has the invitation for his Gemeentemuseum Den Haag exhibition now available.

Hanny Reneman (b. 1947, Gouda) currently resides and works in Delft. After studying Art History in Leiden and completing her training at the Vrije Academie in The Hague, she established herself as an independent artist. Reflecting on her work, she states: My paintings and drawings are a reflection of the impressions and experiences I’ve gathered. I navigate between seemingly contradictory elements such as figurative and abstract. My primary inspiration is drawn from the landscape and nature. Consider me a true wanderer, for slowing down allows one to see more. That methodical and tranquil pace carries a meditative quality. I strive to uncover the structure and rhythm of the landscape in this manner. I refer to it as the grammar of the landscape. The overarching theme in both my life and work is the journey and search. The destination itself is not of great importance, it is the journey that holds significance. Painting for me is always a process of overpainting, adding and subtracting elements, an organic process of change. The overpainted areas serve as a sort of memory, sometimes barely visible yet still influencing what comes later. I blend everything together and paint.

In cooperation with KoosGijzen/ Any Art, www.ftn-books.com offers a cassette. With a painting on the outside and containing 27 etchings. All signed and numbered. For information please visit www.ftn-books.com

“I aspire to attain everything. None of my photographs are failures,” stated Gerard Fieret, capturing the essence of his unconventional and idiosyncratic body of work (1924-2009). This exceptional photographer left behind a mesmerizing collection of subjects: people, animals, street scenes, and himself. However, his love for capturing women – models, students, young mothers, dancers, and waitresses – or their body parts in isolation, such as breasts, feet, or long legs, was unparalleled. Despite being concentrated over just ten years (1965-1975), Fieret’s relentless pursuit of photography resulted in a vast oeuvre. In the Netherlands, he is known as a pioneer of autonomous visual art photography. Recently, his art has garnered international recognition, yet he remains relatively unknown to the general public, unlike his contemporaries Paul Huf and Ed van der Elsken. For the first time since his passing, the Hague Museum of Photography is co-hosting a major exhibition in collaboration with the Le Bal photographic center in Paris, showcasing Gerard Fieret’s work.

In his career, Gerard Fieret often sabotaged his own success. Wim van Sinderen, the curator at the Hague Museum of Photography, reminisces about Fieret’s unannounced visits, where he would sneakily add his signature to already-collected works, donate bin bags full of photographs, or hand-deliver lengthy letters filled with paranoid accusations. Fieret was equally unpredictable when it came to exhibitions and publications, causing turmoil for curators and publishers with his interference. Nevertheless, the Hague Museum of Photography successfully organized a major exhibition for his 80th birthday in 2004, and in 2010, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag acquired his estate.

www.ftn-books.com has now the invitation for this memorable Fotomuseum exhibition available.

The narrative of Dark Dunes centers around a passionate novice photographer who captured his finest images during the German occupation of the Netherlands. His approach to photography was meticulous, not only documenting shutter times and aperture settings in the margins of his negatives, but also noting the time of day, weather conditions, and year, mostly between 1940 and 1945. His subjects varied from landscapes to tulips to country roads, with the occasional cloudy sky. Through the lens, he failed to see the world and era he was a part of. This collection of negatives begs the question of photography’s ability to obscure reality rather than expose it, and its potential to serve as a means of escapism rather than engagement.

www.ftn-books.com has the invitation for his Fotomuseum exhibition on DARK DUNES now available.

Richard Learoyd’s color visuals are created using one of the oldest methods of photography: the camera obscura. In literal translation from Latin, “dark room,” Learoyd utilizes a room-sized camera to expose photographic paper. The subject, sometimes a person or a still life, is situated in an adjacent room, separated by a lens. Utilizing direct focus, without the use of a film negative, light falls on the subject and is projected onto the photographic paper. The end result is a completely grain-free image. These larger-than-life visuals redefine the concept of a photographic illusion. Learoyd’s subjects, composed in a simple and straightforward manner, are highlighted through the use of a thin in-focus plane, replicating and enhancing the way that the human eye perceives. This is not without a nod to the works of Dutch Master paintings.

Learoyd’s monochrome gelatin silver contact prints are crafted using the negative/positive process, invented approximately 170 years ago by Englishman W. H. Fox Talbot. Employing a large, portable camera obscura of his own construction, Learoyd has ventured beyond his London studio, exploring the historically-rich English countryside, California coastline, and Eastern Europe, capturing images that have long remained latent within his imagination. These negatives can reach widths of up to 80 inches, resulting in the largest gelatin-silver contact prints ever created.

www.ftn-books.com has the invitation for his Fotomuseum Den Haag exhibition now available.

Gabriele Münter, an expressionist painter, was a member of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München but not part of the Blaue Reiter movement.

Münter was also renowned as the companion of Wassily Kandinsky. She safeguarded a significant portion of his works during and after the war, later exposing them to the public alongside paintings by her fellow Blaue Reiter artists and her own.

In 1909, Münter purchased a house in Murnau where she lived with her partner Kandinsky during the summer. The idyllic residence quickly became a hub for the avant-garde, with Marc, Macke, Werefkin, and Jawlensky among the frequent guests. They all found great inspiration for their artistic endeavors in the area surrounding the Staffelsee. Art history describes these years around the establishment of the Blaue Reiter as the “Murnau period.”

The outbreak of World War I and the separation from Kandinsky led to tumultuous years for Münter. In 1931, she permanently moved to Murnau. The landscape in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps played a significant role in her work during this period, as it did at the beginning of the century. When Münter passed away in Murnau in 1962, she, along with Paula Modersohn-Becker, was considered one of the most important expressionist painters for an extended period.

Bob Bonies (1937) is considered a successor of the De Stijl movement. In his work, he focuses on the question of how far you can go with limiting and reducing without compromising the tension in the image. Bonies limits himself to visual language and in his choice of colors: he exclusively uses the primary colors plus green and white.

In his paintings, Bonies uses color to guide the direction of space: vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. He strives to achieve synergy between the three-dimensionality or structure of his painting and the actual space in which it exists. In this sense, Bonies considers himself a constructor of space. He mainly works with squares and rectangles. He starts new paintings in his studio and follows a completely traditional process: linen on a wooden frame.

Bonies received his education at the Free Academy of Visual Arts and the Royal Academy of The Hague, where he focused on sculpting. He also studied interior design and design at the Konstfackskolan in Stockholm. In 1966, Bonies had his First one-person exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. In the same year, he participated in the international exhibition Forms of Colors, with work from Donald Judd, Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman, and Frank Stella. Bonies has collaborated with choreographer Hans van Manen, fashion designer Frans Molenaar, and composer Simeon Ten Holt. He was the director of the Free Academy of The Hague from 1988 to 2001 and was a co-founder of the Union for Visual Arts Workers (BBKA) in 1972.

www.ftn-books.com has several Bonies titles now available.