FTN-blog

Weller (1974) depicts images, but in a unique manner unlike the familiar pictures we encounter. They become echoes of visuals ingrained in our collective consciousness, their original forms obscured by the layer Weller applies on top. To be frank, Weller is not the most skilled painter I have come across in recent years; his portraits are stiff and far from expertly painted.

But I don’t see Weller as just a painter; he is someone who uses the medium to raise questions about these collective images and how they can be distorted. This results in some strong pieces, while others may be less impressive. The hint of smudges and streaks sometimes feels contrived and serves more to smooth out the images rather than enhance them.

In this sense, I view Weller more as a thinker who utilizes visual aids, transforming them into paintings. Perhaps he should focus more on this aspect and even embrace his lack of expertise. This reminds me of Tuymans’ recent work, which clearly has nothing to do with painting, but rather with the resulting image.

www.ftn-books.com has the galerie Helder invitation now available.

Embracing iconic American imagery and iconography from LIFE magazine, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, the American West, the atomic bomb, and more, he delves into how the relentless pursuit of an illusory utopia throughout American history has influenced ideas of national identity. Jackson’s own personal experiences and embodiment of the past and present take center stage in his artistic process. At the heart of his work lies a profound fascination with finding similarities within binaries and dichotomies, particularly the coexistence of beauty and horror.

The research and experimentation that forms the core of Jackson’s creative process challenges the mythologies of artistic genius often associated with his distinctive style. Using a diverse range of traditional, industrial, and found materials – such as Formica, molten lead, and scorched wood – the artist synthesizes new meanings and interpretations. His materials hold as much significance as the conceptual foundations of his pieces, often subverting viewers’ initial expectations and impressions. Layered and complex, his works invite contemplation and provoke questions about medium, materiality, and meaning, all of which can only be answered through sustained examination, analysis, and inquiry.

Evident of Jackson’s ongoing exploration of art historical references and the intersections between physical and digital mediums of art, his latest creations delve into the complexities and ambiguities of authorship. Drawing parallels between the political and social issues of the 19th century and those of the present day, Jackson homes in on the role of memory as a central component of his practice. Utilizing a semi-autonomous laser process that infuses colors and forms with an otherworldly essence, the artist delves into the history of landscape painting, drawing connections to the conventions of landscape in science fiction, film, and literature, where the unfamiliar and the familiar collide.

www.ftn-books.com has the GEM invitation nowe available.

Van Kempen hails from Balikpapan, Borneo, his hometown where he spent his formative years. Despite no formal training in the arts, he pursued a career in photography and honed his skills as a self-taught artist. In the late 1960s, he became a member of the Professional Association of Visual Artists.

Throughout the 1960s, Van Kempen gained recognition in professional circles as a photographer. In the 1970s, he was part of the core team of videographers at the Lijnbaancentrum in Rotterdam, along with Henk Elenga, Frédéric Kappelhof, and Erik van Dieren.

In 1975, Van Kempen took the initiative to publish small, affordable photo books featuring contemporary photographers under the name Gemeen Goed. The first series of ten books was funded by the municipality of Rotterdam. The premiere book in the series was “De laffe nomaden” with photographs taken by Van Kempen and curated by Henk Elenga.

From 1980 to 2010, Van Kempen worked part-time as a photographer for the Centre for Visual Arts in Rotterdam, and also contributed to various theater productions as a photographer. Between 1981 and 1986, he organized four festivals on performances for Lantaren/Venster. Following this, he and Henk Tas organized a talk show in 1989 for the Rotterdam Centre for Photographic Perspective on the diverse forms and vitality of photography.

In the new millennium, Van Kempen collaborated with Henri van Zanten and Wim van Egmond on the photo theater, presenting a full-color movement painting with choreographer Camilla Ulrich in 2002 at TENT Rotterdam. His work is in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, among other prestigious institutions.

www.ftn-books.com has the van Kempen/Mapplethorpe invitation now available.

Grazing cows in a marshy pasture, a fan of sunlight. Ducks in a pond, splashing along the water’s edge. No place captures the familiar image of the Dutch landscape quite like the paintings of the Hague School. Willem Maris (1844-1910) was one of the most prominent artists of this influential Dutch art movement of the 19th century. He was also the only one who truly embraced impressionism, using bold colors and a loose brushstroke.

Maris depicted the simple life of farmers with broad, impressionistic brushstrokes, giving his paintings a vibrant quality. “I do not paint cows, but rather light effects,” Maris once said. Although he had been featured in many exhibitions, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag had the honor of presenting the first posthumous solo exhibition of this lyrical interpreter of the Dutch landscape in the winter of 2012.

The exhibition showcases the development of the young and talented Maris who became one of the most important and prolific representatives of the Hague School. Maris had been working outside in the countryside since his early childhood. His older brothers, Jacob and Matthijs, were also painters. However, Willem was the only one of the three brothers to experience success and fame throughout his career. He maintained friendships with Anton Mauve and Hendrik Willem Mesdag, and together they founded the Hollandsche Teeken-Maatschappij in 1876.

www.ftn-books.com has several pubications on Willem Maris available.

It appears as though De Wit has always thought in clear forms, which he leaves standing, lying, or rising. His art always begins with a form that he then develops into a new form. In this way, he spots potential and works to bring it to fruition. As a child, he would cut shapes out of paper, and he would be amazed to see that the remaining paper formed a complementary shape. He was fascinated by the idea that you could play with form and complementary form. For example, you could mirror them or arrange them rhythmically. And if you made them three-dimensional, you could stack them as well. Ah, now gravity also came into play. It brought energy! This resulted in the forms he created seeming to experience exciting adventures, showing earthly or heavenly tendencies, in short, becoming forms of life. Geometry was no longer just about calculable data, but it had also become poetry. This is the essence of Niko de Wit’s sculpture.

www.ftn-books.com has then galerie Ramakers invitation now available.

Jonathan Meese, born in Tokyo in 1970, is a German artist known for his enigmatic and dynamic works of visual and performance art. He defies traditional norms with his fusion of philosophical, political, and cultural themes, described as liturgical in his performances and dionysian in his installations. Meese gained recognition for his performance at the 1994 Berlin Biennale and has since exhibited at prestigious galleries such as the Saatchi Gallery and the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain.

His distinctive style was showcased in a major exhibition titled “Totalzelbstportret – Diktatur der Kunst” at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag from October 2010 to January 2012. The exhibition featured his paintings, videos, and a basement full of unique objects and constructions, all orchestrated to challenge traditional notions of art.

In 2013, Jonathan Meese was charged with making a Nazi salute at a previous event, but he successfully argued that it was part of a performance-art piece and was subsequently acquitted. With his devotion to cultivating perplexity and burstiness, Meese continues to push the boundaries of art and provoke meaningful discourse.

The 2011 Invitation for the Meese exhibition is now available at www.ftn-books.com

Initially, Nanning works with ceramics before devoting herself to glass. In 1979, she graduates from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, at the same time as Geert Lap and Babs Haenen, forming the core of a new generation of Dutch ceramicists who gain international recognition. In 1994 – at the invitation of the National Glass Museum and Royal Leerdam Glass Factory – Nanning experiments with glass for the first time, an unfamiliar and distant material for her. She shapes her first sculptures by cutting and polishing the blown objects.

Over the past twenty-five years, Nanning has built an impressive glass oeuvre represented in numerous museum and private collections both domestically and abroad. Many of Nanning’s objects and installations suggest spontaneous growth, resembling crystals, jellyfish, flowers, or microorganisms. They elicit tension and demonstrate that the dichotomy of “naturally formed” and “handmade” is less rigid than often believed.

“In the center of the circle, there is a point of rest. Movement comes from that point. And that’s what I do; capture the essence of movement and growth in my work.”
– Barbara Nanning

Nanning’s unique visual language and way of working are largely influenced by her prolonged stays in the epicenter of glass production in Europe: Nový Bor. Every year she travels to this Czech city, where she collaborates with experienced glassblowers to create the most surprising shapes and structures

Yvonne van den Herik harnesses indian ink and a brush to create her unique drawings on paper. Recently, she has also ventured into tape-drawings, utilizing self-made tape on paper and XL-sized surfaces like walls and windows.

Her monochromatic works are a result of blending snippets from her previous drawings, visual notes, and explorative photographs- much like a DJ samples pre-recorded music. The lines, shapes, and (a)rhythms are born from a direct, physical, and visually intuitive process, as she switches between traditional paper and a digital tablet. Thinking and creating intertwine, as her eye and hand work as one.

Through constant innovative interventions, like connecting and disconnecting, or ‘adding and subtracting’, she challenges perception and visual thinking in her freehand drawing process.

www.ftnbooks.com has 1 invitation on a van den Herik exhibition available.

This time no blog, but just a short anouncement. Recently i acquired one of the ultimatei Crouwel posters. The importance of this one is the typography used. Not the best condition, but really really scarce and highly collectable.

now available at www.ftn-books.com

Alberto Magnelli chose to have the words ‘pittore fiorentino’ inscribed on his gravestone. The artist was intimately connected to his hometown and its artistic heritage in many ways. He was particularly influenced by the readability of the story and the clarity in the execution of renowned predecessors such as Uccello or Piero della Francesca in developing his own art.

Despite being an early friend of the Futurists, Magnelli’s works never possessed the rhythm of artists like Boccioni or Balla. For Magnelli (Florence, Italy 1888 – Meudon, France 1971), his painting style remained classical in nature. His compositions were never unbalanced, and his use of color always remained harmonious. Although he was the first Italian abstract artist, his formal pursuit was always focused on developing a decidedly modern but still elegant visual language. Even when he moved away from abstraction to practice a form of metaphysical painting, his illustrious predecessors continued to guide his hand. As a city-dweller, Magnelli was never a painter of nature. In many of his works, architecture acts as an organizing element; sometimes reduced to simple geometric planes in the background. For Alberto Magnelli, culture always triumphed over nature. When he returned to pure abstraction later in his career, it was through countless drawings/paintings where the development of line became just as important as chromatic exploration. In his best works, these two concerns converged, revealing a master of abstraction at his finest. Reality disappears completely, and we bear witness to the birth of a new, independent, and original world of forms, colors, and lines. Here, a modernity emerges that, though stylish and beautiful, is firmly rooted in a rich, classical history.

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