FTN-blog

Karl Otto Götz is one of the most important painters of the German Informel. His painting is non-representational, non-abstracting, not derived from nameable objects or landscapes. His painting is pure painting, quasi in its original state, fluid, spontaneous, expressive – without a depictive function or illusionistic depth effect. In the early 1950s Götz spreads his brush strokes and squeegee strokes completely freely, spontaneously and loosely over the canvas. Since 1954 his painting and squeegee rhythms follow certain pictorial schemes. These schemes are characterized by comparable divisions and rhythms, but can only be approximately named with words such as “vortex pictures,” “waterfalls,” or “grottos.” The speed of color application is extremely high. Instead of clearly delineated forms, the scraps of paint spatulaed and flung onto the canvas form transitions and interlocks everywhere beyond classical principles of form.
He negates the constricting forms of the brushstroke of previous non-objective painting directions as well as the “cold abstraction” of constructed compositions.
By exposing his artistic action very experimentally to the unreflective, spontaneous painting gesture, pouring the paint and distributing it with brushes or squeegees, he challenges the instantaneous happening.

www.ftn-books.com has several Gotz publications available. Among them one from the Kunsthof Vicht with a handwritten, signed and dedicated cover.

In 1991 Harald Szeemann described Spitzer as  ”a master at installing this new sculptural quality that makes us so uneasy, that so shocks our perceptual habits …Everything has his own particular signature of commingling—sophistication in the guise of banality, circumspection and innovation brought back into the everyday language of elements screwed together.”

Objects and materials saturated with prosaic content—legal paper, industrial metal, recycled glass, wood, rubber—are re-contextualised in the space they inhabit, displacing and subverting their meaning. Formally precise, witty and direct, works such as Deadload/Deadlock (1985) foreground the processes and problematic economies of industrial production in their use of milled aluminium and rubber, while simultaneously engaging with their architectural context—About Sculpture (1984–87) is held by shock absorbers against the walls, while Corridor (Berlin) (1984) transects the gallery space and impedes the flow of viewers through the exhibition. Conversely, works using fused thread on legal paper, all Untitled (Law Blanks) (1994), challenge the conventions of perceptual representation by compelling us to read both the recto and verso at the same time, as the thread lines disappear through and re-emerge visible through the thin printed paper.

Serge Spitzer was born in Bucharest in 1951. His works have been exhibited in many museums and art institutions, among them Folkwang Museum Essen, 1979; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1983; Kunstmuseum, Bern, 1984 and 2006; Magasin, Grenoble, 1987; Gemeentemuseum, the Hague, 1992; Kunsthalle and Kunstverein, Düsseldorf, 1993; IVAM Centro Julio Gonzales and Centro del Carme, Valencia, 1994; Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, 1995; Kunsthalle, Bern, 2003; (MMK) Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, 2006; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut, 2008; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2010. He died on 9 September 2012.

Spitzer participated in a number of international art exhibitions and biennials including Documenta 8, Kassel, 1987; Istanbul Biennial, 1994; Biennale de Lyon, 1997; Kwangju Biennial, 1997; Venice Biennale, 1999, Sydney Biennial, 2010.

His work is represented in public and private collections, among them Brooklyn Museum, New York; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Haags Gemeentemuseum, the Hague; Kunstmuseum, Bern; IVAM Instituto Valenciano d’Arte Moderno, Valencia; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon; Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt am Main; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Staatliche Museen Neue Galerie, Kassel; Staatens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Menil Collection, Houston, Texas; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticutt.

www.ftn-books.com has the important 1992 catalog available

The process and act of painting are at the centre (stage). Both research and experimenting with selfmade ink and paint from colouring matters from collected or homegrown flowers or plants, are essential to me. Assembling ink and paint on paper and canvas is a surprising interplay of flowing and hardening, blending and rejection, predominating and submerging, fusing together and disintegrating. All this is influenced by my actions. Finding that things happen, come into being because I assemble materials, fascinates and inspires me. My works are not representations, but are the result of the way in which psychical actions and the used materials meet. My working method is consistent, the end result, however, is always not known beforehand. Form and content are free, but colour and the power of matter determine the image.

www.ftn-books.com has now 3 copies o the POWER OF DECAY available. all signed and numbered from the edition of 50 copies

Visually enticing, the paintings of Caio Fonseca illustrate the union of the artist’s two passions: art and music.

His paintings depict the juxtaposition of vibrant color and shallow space, where the relationship between each organic form reveals an acute sense of depth and proportion. Quixotic and alluring, Fonseca’s paintings illustrate the modest beauty of abstraction.

Fonseca explores the relationship between positive and negative space with his use of a carefully chosen palette. Rather than rendering dimension, he utilizes the properties of color to negotiate depth.

The artist divides his time between studios in Pietrasanta, Italy and New York City. A New York City native, he is the son of the sculptor Gonzalo Fonseca. Collected and exhibited internationally, his work resides in the collections of such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Whitney, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

www.ftn-books.com has some Fonseca titles now available.

In all these years of buying, selling and collecting books I only encountered BEWOGEN BEWEGING once. It as at a bookstall at the Voorhout in Den Haag, but is was already sold. I think I now have one of the largest and most important collections of publications related to the Stedelijk Museum and now….after 2 decades I finally can add BEWOGEN BEWEGING to my inventory and it is now for sale at www.ftn-books.com

I rank this among the most important publications the Stedelijk ever has published. Of course Zero is the ultimate of all Stedelijk editions, but this one surely ranks among the top 5.

Hayley Tompkins works with painting, photography and found objects to make installations that highlight the process of looking and experiencing space. Through her practice she seeks to understand objects in the world through an examination of the mimetic quality of paint and painting. For Tompkins the act of painting is a process of thinking and exploring, rather than as a means to simply produce paintings. Her work attempts to find new ways to challenge and explore painting’s transformational possibilities, in order to construct a balance between the pictorial and the physical. The exhibition at Bonner Kunstverein is a new commission and is Tompkin’s first major solo exhibition in Germany.

www.ftn-books.com hasthe CONVERSATIONN book by Tompkins now available.