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Oscar Lourens (1973)

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The following text comes from the site of Oscar Lourens. This is not the standard artist i follow , but one who’s works grow on you when you one have seen them on location.

THE ARTIST AS ARCHITECT
Oscar Lourens employs photography and film as means to bring the reduced space back to human dimensions. For the exhibition ‘Vormen van aarden / Ways to root’ (Apeldoorn, 2005) he draws upon the principle of magnification: using a scaffold construction and whitewashed plywood plates, Lourens creates ‘a new house for Helene’. Referring to the live-sized pinewood-with-cloth models that Helene Kröller-Müller had built on the Ellenwoude mansion near Wassenaar, which functioned as studies for the to-be-built museum. Likewise, Oscar Lourens’ creation is a blown-up but otherwise exact replica of one of the models of La Lue. But this ‘new house for Helene’ isn’t a study for the future architecture, but a new artistic attempt to realize the miniature model in original size. In 2005, Oscar Lourens trades his role of artist for that of an architect. For the owners of the La Lue farmstead he designs a square tower of 5 by 5 by 12 metres. The tower with a pointed roof consists of three floors on which two people can cook (ground floor), live (first floor) and sleep (second floor). The dimensions are loosely based on existing rooms in the La Lue buildings. Important to Lourens is also the choice of a compact and slender tower that fits the landscape. The materials, style and position to the other buildings and the landscape are chosen accordingly. This is the first time Lourens creates a new architectonic space of his own design. Herewith, his miniature art has grown to true architecture in which the wandering spectator/visitor is able to truly experience the actual space. That the building has left the realm of art and entered that of architecture is also clear from the reactions of neighbours and visitors of La Lue. Many of them think the tower is a restored building that has been a part of the farmstead all along. The tower led me to ask Oscar Lourens whether he hadn’t rather chosen for the profession of an architect instead of being an artist. After an initial hesitation, he confirms. This hesitation is very understandable, because my question is like that of the farmer of the Lewis Caroll’s novel, who asked Mein Herr to accept the existing landscape as the best possible map. For is the tower of La Lue not the best means to truly take possession of architectonical space?

the book Possessing Space is available at www.ftn-books.com

lourens a

 

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Harry van Kruiningen (1906-1996)

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Harry van Kruiningen is one of those dutch artist who’s importance grows by the year. He was a multi disciplined artist. Painting, etching, sculpting….he did everything. Personally i think his etchings and illustrations belong (arguably) to the very best that were made during the second half of last century in the Netherlands.

They all have something mystical and when you see where his inspirations was coming from ( African masks) one can see the mystic  and recognise the mysticism in his works.

 

 

 

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Reindert Wepko van de Wint Den Helder, (1942-2006)

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Without knowing, many people have encountered work by R.W. van de Wint. The large vertical paintings in the dutch National Assembly are paintings by R.W. van de Wint.

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RWVDW will become increasingly imortant for dutch art because  he bought a piece of land in the year of his death , meaning to turn this into a outside museum in which he and his friend artist could develop their works in an outside situation. Much like Ian Hamilton Finlay intended to do in the same your 2006. he also died in the year he started his developments, but there is a difference too. The Dutch municipal government of Den Helder embrased the plans and is now building a nice compact museum beside the sculpture garden.  The building is delayed because of the pandemic and the park/garden is not open yet, but this will be our first museum visit after the museums reopen. A great initiative and i can only recommend the park because personally i consider sculpture gardens among the most accessible and high valued cultural desitinations.

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On the first initiative, Arlette Brouwes designed this “bidbook” for the Nolen project in 1986. The idea is now 35 years in development and soon, the project will have been completed. Meaning a start for a collection of which RWVDW must have dreamed a very longtime.

wint nollenproject

 

 

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Enrico Baj ( 1924-2003)

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Enrico Baj was born in Milan on October 31, 1924, and studied at the Accademia di Brera. In 1951 he, along with Sergio Dangelo and Gianni Dova, promoted the Nuclear Movement, and had his first solo exhibition in Milan at the Galleria San Fedele. Upon meeting Asger Jorn in 1953, the two founded the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus, which reacted against the forced rationalization and geometry of art, and the following year organized the International Ceramics Meetings at Albisola in Liguria, Italy.

Baj’s artistic experiments resulted in multicolored collages made from many different materials. On one hand, his work emphasises the joyful experience of painting with diverse materials; however, it also provides a social commentary and strong criticism of the contemporary world. Such is true for his Generali and Parate militari of the 1960s, and it is even more evident in works dating from the 1970s, such as I funerali dell’anarchico Pinelli (1972) and Apocalisse (1979). In the 1980s, he abandoned collage temporarily and made a series of works called Metamorfosi e Metafore (1988) in which his images were based on imagination and fantasy. In 1993, he started his Maschere tribali cycle, which consisted of assemblages that used waste materials of modern civilization to create ironic and brightly colored masks. These pieces were followed by Feltri (1993-98) and Totem (1997).

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Throughout his life, Baj was in close contact with poets and intellectuals, both in Italy and abroad, and collaborated on numerous occasions to produce prints or original multiples for several artist books. In 1999, the artist once again reconfirmed his strong links to literature by producing a series of 164 portraits inspired by the Guermantes of Marcel Proust. He also collaborated with many artists, including Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni. In 2001, he started a series of works dedicated to the history of Gilgamesh, the King of the Sumers. Enrico Baj died in Vergiate (Varese), Italy, on June 16, 2003.

Enrico Baj publications are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Giovanni Nicolai, (continued)

Another painting by Giovanni Nicolai which picture was send 2 months ago. I received this and i was even a liitle scared by the subject. Nicolai wrote to me that it was inspired by Symbolist and nude art and he tried to incorparate this in this painting. I think he succeeded and i will continue to follow this italian artist with great interest. for more information on Giovanni Nicolia please refer to wilfriedvandenelshout@gmail.com

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Thomas Struth (1954)

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One of the aspects i noticed in the works by Thomas Strutch that this photographer includes in many of his photo’s another art object. Making this part of his own composition. An excellent example is this scene from the Chicago Art institute. Also just do a Google searcjh and notice the family group photographs which include in almost all cases another work of art.

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Thomas Struth was born 1954 in Geldern, Germany and currently lives and works in Berlin. He is best known for his genre-defying photographs, though he began originally with painting before he enrolled at the Kunstakademie, Düsseldorf in 1973. Struth has developed his individual photographic practice, often penetrating places of the human imagination in order to scrutinize the landscape of invention, technology, and beyond (as in his recent CERN and Animal images). Celebrated for his diverse body of work—Unconscious Places, Familienleben (Family Life), Museum Photographs, New Pictures from Paradise and Nature & Politics—Struth continues to advance his vocabulary with each new series, while maintaining the same principles core to his practice.

Recent comprehensive exhibitions of Struth’s work include the major touring exhibition Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics exhibited at the Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany, the High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia; the Moody Center for the Arts, Houston, Texas; the St. Louis Museum of Art, Missouri and the MAST Foundation Bolgna, Italy (2016-2019) as well as Figure Ground which opened at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany and traveled to the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain (2017-2019).

www.ftn-books.com has the catalogue available which was published for his Stedelijk Museum exhibition.

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Bart de Vogel (1948-2020)

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The reason of this blog is not because Bart de Vogel is such a famous name in dutch art, but because i recently discovered some original photographs from 50 years ago in which de Vogel is at work at his glass furnace. He attended the Rietveld academy and was known for his clay sculptures and glas objects and at some time in 1970 these photographs were taken by Foto J. Cupido for an article in the Sixties dutch newspaper HET VADERLAND. Now i have these in my posession and the original photographs are a true document for glass artists in the Netherlands in the Sixties. The original photographs are for sale at www.ftn-books.com

 

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Koen Wessing (1942-2011)

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Koen Wessing was and remains on of the Netherlands most important icons photo journalism. Wessing started as freelance photographer in 1963. In his early years he became renowned for picturing the May protest of 1968 in Paris, the occupation of the Maagdenhuis of the University in Amsterdam in 1969, and later the military coup in Chili in 1973. Later Wessing produced more uniquely powerful work in Ireland, Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, Nicaragua, El Salvador, China and Kosovo.

Seen retrospectively, his work from South America probably received the most attention throughout the years. His images of the 1973 coup in Chile against the progressive government of Salvador Allende, as well the insurrection in Nicaragua and his reportage of the massacre during the funeral of Archbishop Romero in El Salvador, were all striking and alarming. His engaged work in these countries made him an internationally renowned photographer.

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Regrettably, Koen Wessing was never able to see the finished exhibition as he passed away in Amsterdam in the morning of February 2, 2011. Until the last moment he had been involved in the preparation of the exhibition. Knowing that the show was going to happen gave him a lot of strength during the last period of his life.

www.ftn-books.com has the Stedelijk Museum catalogue on Koen Wessing now available.

wessing china

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Keith Haring (continued)

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Keith Haring is a regular subject for these blogs i write and a good reason is the small collection of books and other items i bought recently. In all there are 25 different titles added to my inventory. Among these my personal favorit ” Nina’s book of Little Things!”.

A highly personal title he made in 1988 for the birthday of Nina, his friends daughter.

A “thank you” present for staying at the Clement family home. A gift that will delight generations to come and which is now available at www.ftn-books.com

haring col c

haring col b

haring col a

 

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Sorel Etrog (1933-2014)

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For us in Europe this is a lesser known artist/sculptor. But it appears that Etrog had his exhibitions at the Marlborough gallery and Galerie d’Eendt in the mid Seventies.

In 2000, a Toronto newspaper dubbed artist Sorel Etrog the “Grand Old Man of Canadian Sculpture.” It was an apt description, after a career spanning five decades including the installation of outdoor sculptures across Toronto, Canada and beyond. Yet Etrog was much more – a painter, draughtsman, film maker and not least, a literary man. He was keen to collaborate with the great thinkers of his generation, including playwrights Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco, Toronto media guru Marshall McLuhan and composer John Cage.

Etrog was born into a Jewish family in Romania in 1933. After a childhood spent in flight from the Nazis and Soviets, he immigrated with his family to Israel in 1950 where he began to study art and exhibit. In 1958 he won a scholarship to the Brooklyn Museum of Art School and moved to New York City. There, he had a chance encounter with Toronto collector and AGO patron Sam Zacks, who invited him to Canada.

Etrog permanently settled in Toronto in 1963. Recognition came quickly with museum purchases, international exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale (1966), and a commission to design the Canadian Film Award statue, now known as the Genie (1968). Etrog resided in our city until his death in early 2014.

www,ftn-books.com has the Marlborough publication available