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Bernd Zimmer (1948)

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I have been following the careeer of Bernd Zimmer from the time he had his first exhibition at the Groninger Museum in 1982( catalogue available at ww.ftn-boooks.com). At that time i had a great interest in Zimmer and his fellow artists Elvira Bach and Rainer Fetting, but somehow, after a few years, i lost interest in these artist, but lately works are appearing at auction and sometimes at very reasonable prices. So maybe now is the right time to renew my interest in Zimmer and his friends from the NEUE WILDEN group.

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Bernd Zimmer is a contemporary German artist. Often discussed as representative of the Neue Wilde group, Zimmer’s paintings are characterized by their monochromatic palettes—primarily greens, yellows, and chartreuse—and recurring imagery of abstracted nature created through poured and splattered paint. Zimmer’s work is influenced by his extensive global travels, spanning numerous countries on five of the seven continents. Born on November 6, 1948 in Planegg, Germany, the artist has enjoyed widespread acclaim for his work, including exhibitions at institutions such as the H2 Center for Contemporary Art in Augsburg, Germany, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and The Berlin Gallery.

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Paule Vézelay (1892-1984)

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Paule Vezelay was  recognized for her art in the last stage of her career and is not that knoewn an artist. Still the TATE organized a retrospective in 1983 . Not many publications have been published during her life, but some small publications are still to be found on the internet. One is availabel at www.ftn-books.com.

the following text comes from Wikipedia:

Vézelay was born Marjorie Watson-Williams in Bristol, a daughter of the pioneering ENT surgeon, Patrick Watson-Williams (1863-1938). Before the First World War she trained for a short period at the Slade School of Fine Art and then at the London School of Art. She first gained recognition as a figurative painter, had her first London show in 1921 and was invited to join the London Group in 1922. She moved to France in 1926 and changed her name to Paule Vézelay possibly to identify herself with the School of Paris. In 1928 she abandoned figurative painting and made her first abstract work (which is now lost) and from then on worked exclusively in an abstract mode. In 1929 she met André Masson whom she fell in love and lived with for four years. Working side by side, they both painted dreamlike surrealist works.[2] Vezelay became well respected in modernist Parisian art circles and was elected in the 1930s to membership of the French abstract movement, Abstraction-Création, which was largely established as a reaction to Surrealism.

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On the outbreak of the Second World War Vézelay moved back to London, but had difficulty in gaining recognition from the British art establishment, possibly because of her identification with Paris at a time when the London art world was beginning to acquire its own separate and different reputation. However, in 1952 she was invited by Andre Bloc, president of the Parisian constructivist abstract movement Groupe Espace, to form a London branch of that movement. After many difficulties and the refusal of some leading British abstract artists to join (including Victor Pasmore), she was successful in forming a small group of painters, sculptors and architects who held an exhibition in the Royal Festival Hall in 1955 which anticipated many elements of the much better known 1956 Whitechapel Gallery exhibition, This is Tomorrow. In the 1950s she made textile designs for Metz of Amsterdam and Heals of London. In many of her works, Vézelay’s abstract imagery, such as floating quasi-biomorphic shapes, was outside the main characteristics of the constructivist approach. She had a lifelong aim of creating works which were “pleasing and happy” – not terms generally associated with Constructivism. However, her view that ‘pure’ abstract art enhanced the environment, and her involvement with Groupe Espace in the 1950s which promoted the concept of a synthesis (or close collaboration) between architects and abstract painters and sculptors, place her at least in part within the Constructivist tradition. Her post-war textile designs for Heals also place her firmly within the 20th century Modern Movement.

The Tate gave Vézelay a retrospective exhibition in 1983 – a late recognition of the quality of her work and her significant place in art history as one of the first British artists to embark on a lifetime exploration and development of abstraction.

Paule Vézelay was also included in Pallant House Radical Women exhibition, focusing on the works of Jessica Dismorr and her contemporaries, in early 2020.

paule vezelay

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Anthon Beeke (continued)

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Here is a tip by a very good friend I received yesterday. It shows that it is impossible to keep track of every exhibition, but this is well worth mentioning in a blog, since the subject is one of the greatest of dutch graphic designers from the last 50 years. It concerns the library of Anthon Beeke.

The library of Anthon Beeke

Get lost in the books of graphic designer Anthon Beeke.

The exhibition space above the Social Label Lab is a temporary library with bookcases full of books arranged around themes such as graphic design, culture, photography, typography, jazz, eroticism and just plain fun. Playful, naughty and challenging. On entering the Werkwarenhuis, you are given white gloves to browse through the enormous collection of books at your leisure. In silos, you can retreat to your own reading table with a twilight lamp. Anthon Beeke was a graphic designer and designed posters for Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Kunstrai and the Centraal Museum, among others. Lidewij Edelkoort, Anthon Beeke’s life partner, wants his collection and his love for books to be shared with the whole country. His books tell the story of him as a long-time collector of books that inspired, relaxed or transported him. Together with co-curator Charlotte Grün (Studio OOK), she put together this exhibition. A collection of books tells different stories about its collector, through the layers of information that cross each other. More and more information can be found on the Internet, which is why more and more people are rigorously getting rid of their book collections. This also applies to well-known creative Dutchmen.

“We are proud that after the van Abbe Huis in Eindhoven, we can now show this special intimate exhibition in our Werkwarenhuis.” Petra Janssen and Edwin Vollebergh of Studio Boot have themselves taught with Anthon for years at the Design Academy. They know how he looked, inspired and shared his knowledge with the students. “By showing these books in the work shop, you can get a glimpse of his world through his eyes again. But each time through a different lens.”

More Anthon Beeke > 01.02.2015 / 06.12.2018 / 02.12.2020

Exhibition the library of Anthon Beeke
Werkwarenhuis, ‘s-HertogenBosch
9 June -28 Aug, 2021
werkwarenhuis.nl

of course ww.ftn-books.com has many items by Beek in its inventory

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Christian Boltanski (1944-1921)

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For me personally Boltanski stands for “remembering” and expressing this in gloomy art. The dark side is always present in his art and publications. Now Boltanski is dead and he leaves us with some of the greatest art from the last 50 years.

Christian Boltanski was born in 1944 in Paris and died in 2021 in Paris. In the 1960s he began to develop a “personal ethnology” marked, among others, by the influence of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Harald Szeemann. At the same time, drawing on museology, Boltanski exhibited inventories of items of anonymous owners. It is often the case in Boltanski’s work that objects (photos, pieces of clothing, bells, flowers…) give voice to absent subjects and are an invitation to the viewer to meditate and contemplate.

Since his first exhibition at LeRanelagh cinema in 1968 Boltanski’s work has been shown in numerous countries. Recent solo shows have been at Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2019); Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo, Japan (2019); The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan and the National Art Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (2019); The Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2018); The Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China (2018); the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2017); Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Italy (2017); The Museum of Contemporary Art of Monterrey, Mexico (2016); Instituto Valenciano Arte Moderno (IVAM), Spain (2016); Mac’s Grand Hornu, Belgium (2015); and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile (2014).

Boltanski was recognized with several awards over his lifetime, including the Praemium Imperiale Award (2006) and the Kaiser Ring Award (2001). He participated in Documenta (1977 and 1972) and numerous Venice Biennales (2011, 1995, 1993, 1980, and 1975).

www.ftn-books.com  has a large selection of Boltanski titles available

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The ultimate Francis Picabia title.

picadia box oo

Without a doubt. There is only one publication that deserves that ULTIMATE title. It is PICABIA by Ronny van de Velde who made this special box available in an edition of 1000 copies and a secondary edition, with the special pochoir print of Satie, in an edition of 200. This box which is now for sale comes from the edition of 200 and contains the “pochoir” print of Erik Satie.  This box was the second of a series of special publications by Ronny van de Velde . The first being the CHESSBOARD box by Marcel Duchamp. I once had two copies of it, but both are sold and now i am very happy to offer you this other great collectable item. Francis Picabia and DADA in optima forma. Only the size and weight says it all 47 x 32 x 6 cm. and a hefty 4.2 kg.

The box is now available at www.ftn-books.com

 

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Rini Hurkmans

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From the beginning of her career, Rini Hurkmans is concerned with topics such as absence, loss, disruption, alienation and the related concepts of safety, security, identity and compassion.
This can be perceived in the photo series Pietà, in the films Dear Son, The Flavor of Salt and Don Quixote but also in the sculptures The White Shroud and The Inner Garden.
Life, art and politics are intertwined in a continuous dialogue and each specific period requires its own thoughts, strategies and forms. Hurkmans initiated the conceptual artwork Flag of Compassion in 2002 out of the desire to go beyond the framework of cultural consensus and consumption. Since 2008, she is an advisor to the Unda Foundation, the foundation that manages the artwork and also organizes a series of

Making Waves events around themes related to Flag of Compassion. By engaging with the Flag, it is investigated how a work of art can activate ethical questions in society and how it can function both within the arts and in society. Hurkmans is the driving force behind the book Compassion. A Paradox in Art and Society (Valiz, 2017) in which Flag of Compassion is discussed as a case study.
She is currently conducting further research into the concept of loss in relation to ethics and politics and is developing new work based on her working period as Artist in Residence at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome in 2019. Her research into the press photo she bought in 1992, and which inspires her work ever since, of the moment Michelangelo’s Pietà was attacked in 1972, serves as the starting point for the work in progress.

www.ftn-books.com has one interesting Rini Hurkmans title available

hurkmans

 

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Pino Pascali (1935-1968)

 

Schermafbeelding 2021-07-07 om 16.53.36Pascali has become a legend over the last decade or so. He counts many admirers and many consider his art timeless and as contemporary as his present ” brothers in arms”.

Pino Pascali was born on October 19, 1935 in Bari, Italy.In 1955, Pascali left the science-oriented school that he attended in Bari, and went to a secondary school specialized in the arts in Naples. Later, in 1956, he enrolled at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma, on the scenic design course held by Peppino Piccolo with the help of his assistant Fabio Vergoz.He also studied under the guidance of Toti Scialoja, whose open teaching approach encouraged students to experiment with diverse mediums and forms. In the context of the Accademia, Pascali met fellow Arte Povera artist Jannis Kounellis. Pascali also took part in a number of collective shows for young artists: 1956, the Painting Exhibition at the Istituto Tommaseo di Tivoli; 1956, Second Exhibition “Pennello d’argento” at the Circolo Culturale dell Vittorie in Rome; 1959, Scenic Design Show, at the 2nd Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto. Before Pascali graduated in 1959 he worked as an assistant scenic designer in many RAI productions and additionally collaborated with the Studio Saraceni, Lodolofilm and Incom as a set designer, graphic design, scriptwriter, and creative writer for television advertising, making sketches, creating characters and shorts for the ads.

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In the early 1960s, Pascali exhibited his sculptures in a number of art exhibitions. In 1965 Pascali exhibited at Galleria La Tartaruga. In January 1968, he had an exhibition at the Galleria Ars Intermedia in Cologne, Germany.

pascali

Pascali died at the age of thirty-two on September 11, 1968 in Rome, Italy, following a tragic motorcycle accident. His short career has served as an important contribution to post-war art.

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Willem Hussem (continued)….the poet

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Willem Hussem has been a long time favorit of mine and not only for his paintings , but also his poetry is remarkable. Influenced by the rythme of japanese poetry , Hussem began to write his poems as early as 1950. He is becoming deservedly more and more known for his poems of which one recently found a place on a wall in the city of Leiden. It is the same poem as the one that graces the cover of the book which was published in 1977 by Bert Bakker and Nouvelles Images which is now available at www.ftn-books.com

Where do you draw the line between the art of painting and poetry? Willem Hussem started out as a painter of landscapes and portraits but from the 1950s onwards his work became more abstract. This way, he hoped to capture the essence of an image, a technique he also used in his poetry. His poems became shorter and more powerful, which is also evident in this poem, in which Willem Hussem uses words to paint the beach of Scheveningen.

After his return to the Netherlands, Hussem also started writing poetry. His first collection of poems, De kustlijn (The coastline), was published in 1949. In subsequent collections the sea also plays a prominent role. The beach of Scheveningen, on which this poem is based, was his primary source of inspiration. Hussem mostly wrote short poems in which he ‘painted’ images for which he received the Dutch Jan Campert award for poetry in 1965.

Translated it is :

PUT THE BLUE

Put the blue
of the sea
against the
blue of the
heavens, wipe
some white
of a sail
in it and the
wind starts to blow

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

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Floris Jespers (1889-1965)

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Important, but not very well known outside Belgium is Floris Jespers, Friend and contemporary artist to Paul van Ostaijen , Jespers became one of the more important artists in the Interbellum. I personally think that the works he made in that period are less appealing and important than the other artists from Belgium made in Belgium in the period between WWI and WWII, one exception….i love the paintings he made of the people he painted in the Congo. The Congo was a colony of Belgium and Jespers travelled three times from 1951-1955 this country and made some wonderful authentic paintings  influenced by the people and landscapes of an impressive country.

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www.ftn-books.com has recently added some books on Jespers to its inventory.

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Marlene Dumas (continued)

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Undoubtedly Marlene Dumas has proven to be one of the leading artists from last and this century. Always surprising original and highly recognizable. I always have admired her and i am still adding publications on her to my inventory. Last addition is the exhibition catalogue for the Cabinet at the Centre Pompidou in 2002. Beautiful and sparkling publication ands now available at www.ftn-books.com.