FTN-blog

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Rik Poot (Vilvoorde, March 20, 1924 – Jette, December 16, 2006) was a Flemish visual artist who mainly focused on bronze sculptures and assemblages in metal.

He was born in the Flemish part of Brabant, more specifically in the working-class neighborhood Far-West, the first social residential area of ​​the municipality of Vilvoorde. Poot attended the modern humanities at the Royal Athenaeum in Vilvoorde and then took lessons at the Academy of Molenbeek. As a child, Poot became fascinated by the craftsmanship of his father, who was a bronze caster and made funerary ornaments. The fairs in Vilvoorde, especially the horses that were inspected and traded, made a lasting impression on him. During the war years 1944-45 he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. In 1948 he settled in Grimbergen. Poot has successively received several prizes: First Prize Open Air Exhibition Anderlecht (1948), the Godecharle Prize and the prize of the city of Liège (1949). He then undertook study trips to France and Italy thanks to a scholarship won to study the art of Antiquity and the Renaissance. In 1953 he won the second Prize of Rome, the first Prize Open Air Exhibition Forest and the first Prize City of Brussels. In 1954, together with Roel D’Haese, he received an honorable mention in the Prix Jeune Sculpture. In 1959 he received the Coopal Prize. From 1962 to 1984 he was professor of Monumental Sculpture at the National Institute of Architecture and Decorative Arts of ter Kameren, Brussels. Poot’s statues are almost all in public space. His Resting Najade is located in front of the Turnhout courthouse. In 1982 he designed “Ode to a mountain river” in bronze for the Herrmann-Debroux metro station in Brussels. His statue of the writer Maurice Gilliams was given a place in the garden of the Elzenveld in Antwerp. On the bluestone pedestal is this text by Gilliams: The unrest gives wings to the imagination, which became the motto of the novel The evening is discomfort by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. In 2004 the city of Vilvoorde organized an exhibition of his work in the Hansenspark and an old monastery as a tribute to Poot. Here they brought together the voluptuous figures, the prancing horses, the monumental statues and the busts that Poot had made. In the spring of 2008, Poot’s latest creation, The Kidnapping of Europe, was created on the Leuven provincial square, with the support of the province of Flemish Brabant, the city of Leuven and KBC. The bronze statue forms the final piece of the esplanade that will connect the station with the provincial government. The statue depicts the Greek myth of Europe on the back of a bull. Shortly afterwards, he posthumously received the biennial Van Acker Prize for his entire oeuvre in Bruges.

www.ftn-books.com has the Belgisches Haus from 1970 available.

Farhad Farzaliyev was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1989. Farhad completed an MFA with distinction at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts in Baku in 2012. Farhad works predominantly in the medium of installations, but also paintings, graphics, photography and sound. He is member of Artists Union of Azerbaijan since 2011 and member of Yay Gallery of the YARAT Contemporary Art Space since 2013. He has participated a large number of group exhibitions around the world. He is represented in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Baku. Farhad Farzaliyev lives and works in Baku.

Some of Farhad’s recent work, the Granny’s Vocabulary series from 2014, considers nostalgia for the Soviet era, combining rudimentary Soviet textiles with neon slogans from his grandparents generation. Using Cyrillic script, which was replaced by Turkic script after independence in 1991, his work immediately speaks of the pre-independence era of Soviet rule and the tumultuous history of Azerbaijani script, which has changed officially three times in the last seventy years.

Farzaliyev has featured in many exhibitions in his native Baku, and a growing number around the world including Russian and Germany.

So far the info i have found on this artist who i compared to Craig Martin when visiting the portrait exhibition at the Fries Muzeum.. This coloring plate was at the entrance available and i thought it an original multiple tom collect. The coloring plate is now available at www.ftn-books.com

the year 1984… Siep van den Berg received several one man exhibitions ao at the Haags Gemeentemuseum. A few months before that exhibition a special publication was published by LA FONTAINE DU PEUCH. Text by Prof. Jaffé, who died shortly before the book was finished and published. The edition is only 54 copies all signed and numbered by Siep van den Berg. Measuring an impressive 51 x 41 cm. and containing beside poems , tipped in off set prints, 2 original signed and numbered silkscreen prints and 2 collage works mounted on paper. The cover is a composition by Siep van den Berg executed in laminated paper. Overall 40 pages, red binding papers and linnen cover . It is an absolute must have for the Siep van den Berg admirer, but to make it available for all i have photographed all pages from front to backcover to give the presentation of this epic work to all. The book is now availabel at www.ftn-books.com

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It has been over 30 years now that i became part in producing these 3 plastic bags for the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag ( Kunstmuseum Den Haag ). I made these bags together with Joost Swarte ( middle ) who was instructed to combine all departments of the museum into one illustration. In the late Eighties Sol LeWitt was asked to design a bag for the museum. There were two different editions. One colorful and one black and white (depicted). LeWitt borrowed the lettering from the Swarte bag, but the design was specially made for the Museum and the one on the right t was a design by Gracia Lebbink who used the “new” style and logo of the museum in the early Nineties to make a simple but striking plastic bag.

All 3 plastic bags are for sale at www.ftn-books.com

A typical dutch furniture product is furniture by the Friesland based Fristho furniture factory. IT ceased to exist in 1978 but left us with some remarkable furniture pieces by the every best of dutch designers from mid last century. Among them Kho Liang Ie and Wim Crouwel who both designed for this factory.

Typical Fifties/Sixties furniture assembled from wooden parts . Looking very Sixties like, but some sixty years later they still look fresh and relatively modern. Now is the time to find iconic Fristho pieces and start collecting them. They are still to be found and are sold at reasonable prices. Guaranteed future classics among furniture collectors. The book on Fristho is now available at www.ftn-books.com.