FTN-blog

Meijers mines the language of the underground for its raw power and immediacy of communication. A musician, and longtime fixture on the Dutch indie music scene, Meijers portrays his post-punk subjects with reverence, imbuing them with a dignity they are not normally accorded in contemporary society. Pin ups, prophets, mystics and pimps are lovingly adorned with the flotsam and jetsam of the streets.

The creative tension in his work resides in his exuberant embrace of heroic expressionist painting – while simultaneously mythologizing his figures that are far from noble. Still, like his literary heroes, Genet, Celine and Bukowski, Meijers does not liberate his figures from hell, but rather brings his viewer deep into the spirit of the world they inhabit.

Rik Meijers trained at the Academie Beeldende Kunsten (Visual Arts Academy) in Maastricht and Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. Works by Rik Meijers are included in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, Amseterdam, S.M.A.K. Gent, Fries Museum Leeuwarden, Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht, Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem, Schunck Heerlen, Museum Het Domein Sittard, ABN-AMRO Amsterdam, Océ Venlo, De Nederlandsche Bank Amsterdam and DSM Art Collection. In 1996 he won the Koninklijke Subsidie for free painting and in 2000 the Wolvecampprijs.

www.ftn-books.com has now the Bonnefantenmuseum catalogue available.

Today i encountered a small book on Aat Verhaag and his ” model” paintings. Available at www.ftn-books.com

BUt the purchase of the book reminded me of one of the very first art works I purchased. It was an etching by Aat Verhoog which I bought at ARTA in Den Haag. I was impressed with the etching. I can not recall the reasons I was impressed, but fact is the etching is still in my collection so it must have a timeless quality for me personally.

I encountered Aat Verhoog once at the Gemeentemuseum, but never visited his studio. Still I encountered his paintings at auction and I am always interested to see what their auction results are.The little book I have now for sale is dedicated to his model paintings. Posing, Undressing, modelling….they have a Balthus quality about them making these the very best from his impressive oeuvre.

His work can be found in the collection of, among others, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Dutch Textielmuseum, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York and several private collectors.

Jeroen Vinken is in my opinion the best representative in our country of an industrial designer who is also an artist. For instance, it was Jeroen Vinken who did extensive research in the Dutch Textielmuseum on their first jacquard machine to get as many colours as possible with a limited amount of coloured yarns. Every student or artist who has a digital design woven in the museum nowadays profits from his work. But beside industrial development (Vinken was and is consultant for several weaving mills and carpet manufacturers) he also paints and creates very poetic woven images, for instance in his curtain designs, with repeats up to five meters!

www.ftn-books.com has the 1986 Nederlands Textielmuseum catalogue now available.

Because of a recent addition to my inventory ( the ECHO book by Stijn Peeters)(available at www.ftn-books.com, I stumbled upon the site of Peeters and stayed there for over 20 minutes. Searching, reading , admiring and remembering. An adventure which took part of the time I decided to devote tot this blog on Peeters. Better still …take a look your self at the site of Stijn Peeters an d experience what I experienced. A remarkable and original site by an original authentic artist: www.stijnpeeters.com

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Stephen Dixon studied Fine Art at Newcastle University and Ceramics at the Royal College of Art, graduating in 1986. He currently holds the chair of Professor of Contemporary Crafts at Manchester School of Art, investigating contemporary narratives in ceramics. His work features in numerous public and private collections, including the Museum of Arts & Design, New York; the Victoria and Albert Museum; the British Council; the Crafts Council; the Royal Museum of Scotland and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He was a Trustee of the Crafts Council from 2009 to 2013, and is a member of the Art and Design sub-panel for REF 2021.

Early exhibitions in London with Contemporary Applied Arts and the Crafts Council established a reputation for ceramics with a biting political and social satire. Anatol Orient introduced Dixon’s figurative vessels to the U.S.A. in the early nineties, resulting in solo exhibitions at Pro-Art, St. Louis (1993) Garth Clark Gallery, New York (1995) and Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York (1998). Dixon’s politically engaged ceramic practice was comprehensively surveyed in a major solo exhibition ‘The Sleep of Reason’, a twenty-year retrospective showcased at Manchester Art Gallery in 2005, which subsequently toured the U.K.

In 2006 Dixon travelled to Australia as part of The HAT Project, to investigate the effects of dislocation on the creation of cultural artefacts. This experience provoked a shift away from the ceramic vessel as a vehicle for narrative, towards intervention and installation works such as ‘Bush Pantry’ (2007), ‘Monopoly’ (2009) and ‘Letters from Tripoli’ (2011). He was awarded the inaugural V&A ceramics studio residency in 2009, where he embarked on a new body of work exploring political portraiture. (‘Restoration Series’ 2011-2013).

Dixon combines his studio ceramic practice with regular forays into public and community arts;

In 2000 he received an Arts Council Year of the Artist award for ‘Asylum’, a collaborative project with Amnesty International U.K. and Kosovan refugees. Recent public engagement projects ‘Resonance’, ‘Resonate’ and ‘The Lost Boys’ have examined commemoration and the material resonance of archives and objects, in the context of the centenary of World War 1. ‘Passchendaele: mud and memory’ focused specifically on the materiality of the conflict, using terracotta clay sourced from the battlefields of the Western Front. www.ftn-books.com has the Manchester Art gallery publication available.

Aernout Mik’s film installations create situations that chart the formation and transformation of group behavior. The artist draws parallels between structures like religious movements and our belief in the market economy to create spaces for the viewer to contemplate their position between malfunctioning systems.

Aernout Mik’s film installations create situations that chart the formation and transformation of group behavior. The artist draws parallels between structures like religious movements and our belief in the market economy to create spaces for the viewer to contemplate their position between malfunctioning systems.

Aernout Mik (b. 1962, Groningen) lives and works in Amsterdam. He represented the Netherlands in the Dutch Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007. He has had solo exhibitions at venues such as Art Sonje Center, Seoul; MoMA, New York;  BAK, basis voor actuele kunst,  Utrecht; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Jeu de Paume, Paris; Museum Folkwang, Essen; and CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid. Mik has participated in numerous international biennials, including the Venice Biennale, Sao Paulo Biennial, Gwangju Biennale, the Aichi Triennale in Nagoya, Istanbul Biennial, and the Berlin Biennale.

www.ftn-books. com has several publications on Aernout Mik available

For me the photgraph above is an iconic photo. Without knowing who the artist was I have known the Eline Veere statue all of my life. Eline Veere is themain character in the Louis Couperus novel and van der Nahmer has made the most famous statue of her. He made several versions of Eline Veere statues , but the one above is the most famous one.

The Haags Palet book is now available at www.ftn-books.com

at an early stage of his career the designer-goldsmith cees post became interested in architectural forms.the inspiration he gains in architecture and the choice he made for the material in which he works, determine the shape and style developed by him.each one of his jewelry witness from a clear – tight – form and simplicity.his aim is to develop the jewelry into shaped visual arts.this is the credo for his creative work.the design of his jewelry can be described as “graphic constructively” with a scale-free or monumental character.the materials used are exclusively 1st grade silver and (white-) gold.the jewelry are built in planes and then performed a line pattern with silver.which provides the graphical effect.gold is either used as an accent color either by a folded-edge as a ‘contra shape’.the starting points, which determine the appearance of the jewelry, are: square, rectangle, triangle folded-shape or a combination of these.that leads to theme-like series.despite the theme series each piece retains its individuality and thus remains unique.

,The Haags Palet publication on Post is now available at www.ftn-books.com

About a month ago i encountered this scarce publication on Mary Waters. I recognized the design by Swip Stolk and was surprised to see that I had never encountered this before. Published in 1995 for Flatland gallery / Utrecht. A surprisingly innovative and typical Stolk catalogue which presented me for the very first time with this artist. Mary Waters takes her inspiration from the classic dutch painters from the 17th Century , but gives these great paintings a personal twist. The catalogue is now available at www.ftn-books.com

” All of the source images for my work are taken from European (mainly Italian Dutch, Spanish and English)
painting from the 14thto the 19thcentury. These images are seen by most of the western world as embodying the best in us. They are iconic and unquestioned.
 
Coming from Ireland, a country with a long history of colonization and its aftermath, I see another side of this imagery. In Ireland, these Paintings were not seen as our cultural heritage in the same way they would have been by the English, Dutch or Germans. They carried a message of unattainable superiority and lasting authority, culturally and politically. 

This tension, for me is profoundly interesting and I have been exploring it in my work for many years. I have to stress that I do not look at the images in a sequential, analytical or academic way; I am not an Art historian. I can only describe my study of them as instinctive visually led. Looking at these images I have concluded that they frequently reflect the character of a culture more in their aesthetic than in their content. The values or desires of a society are often allowed only subliminal expression. It seems that for most of us, we can only examine ourselves obliquely. “

Not much info to be found on Oscar Jespers, still , like his father, this artist has grown more important over the last few decades.

As his father, Oscar Jespers practised sculpture. He was formed at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts. His first sculptures, dating from the 1920’s, are Cubists. Later, in 1930, his style changed and evolved towards Expressionism. He exhibited alongside artists of this movement as in 1934 at the Kunst van Heden exhibition held in Antwerp. The sculptor mainly conceived heads, and nudes.

Nowadays, his artworks can be found in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice Jespers publications available.