FTN-blog

Born into a Basque family in Getaria, Spain, Balenciaga founded his fashion house in San Sebastián in 1919. His work was quickly admired, leading to the opening of new stores in Madrid and Barcelona. His clientele consisted mainly of the aristocracy. However, with the decline of the Spanish monarchy, the country’s prosperity decreased, impacting Balenciaga’s clientele. He made the decision to move to Paris, where he opened his house on Avenue George V in 1939. His first couture collection was a resounding success, prompting him to reopen his three houses in Spain.

His reputation continued to grow and couturier Christian Dior referred to Balenciaga as “the master of us all.” Other fashion giants such as André Courrèges, Emanuel Ungaro, and Óscar de la Renta learned their craft under Balenciaga’s tutelage before starting their own fashion houses.

Balenciaga’s style was revolutionary: he played with proportions, volumes, and drapes of different fabrics around the shoulders and skirts. His silhouettes often featured a pronounced hourglass figure, achieved by centering his suits and flaring out the hips with a tulip skirt underneath. He used minimal prints and vibrant colors, with polka dots being a signature print in his work.

In 1960, he designed the wedding dress for doña Fabiola Mora y Aragón for her marriage to King Boudewijn of Belgium.

In 1946, Balenciaga launched his first perfume, Le Dix, named after the house number of his fashion house in Avenue George V in Paris. After the 1950s, haute couture gradually lost its importance and in 1968, Balenciaga closed his house in protest against the vulgarization brought on by the modern age. He passed away in Jávea, Alicante in 1972.

www.ftn-books.com has the invitation for his Kunstmuseum exhibition now available.

Breathable and pulsating devices replacing the human brain, a sea of children’s drawings connecting continents, and greenhouses built on container ships. In New New Babylon: Visions for Another Tomorrow, prominent and emerging artists, designers, thinkers, and activists share their perspectives from around the world. Starting from Constant Nieuwenhuys’ visionary project New Babylon (1956-1974), a key work in the collection of Kunstmuseum Den Haag, they shape a society of ultimate creativity and freedom to play. Today’s creators show that Constant’s quest is far from complete. New New Babylon: Visions for Another Tomorrow showcases the power, beauty, and necessity of radical imagination.

www.ftn-books.com has several pub;lications on Constant and his New Babylon project available.

Nalini Malani (born 1946 in Karachi) is a prominent artist who skillfully integrates a diverse array of media to bring attention to her political activism. Having experienced firsthand the impact of the partition of India and Pakistan as a refugee, her oeuvre is imbued with themes of migration, globalization, poverty, and the subjugation of women. These contemporary issues are often interwoven with references to classical literature and mythological tales.

www.ftn-books.com has now the invitation for her drawings exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag available

On Friday the 13th of March 2020, things took a turn for the worse: artist Nalini Malani (1946, Karachi, at the time undivided India) was forced to travel from Barcelona to Amsterdam. The magnitude and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic became increasingly clear in Europe over a short period of time, and one country after another went into lockdown. Malani saw no way to reach her hometown of Bombay in India. The Netherlands became her refuge. A temporary stay that turned into a period of over a year. Never able to stop working, Malani dedicated herself to creating drawings, now without her studio and usual materials. Every day, she worked at the kitchen table on subjects stemming from her constant stream of thoughts reflecting the socio-political circumstances in the world. At times with aggressive lines and sharp texts, then again vulnerable, colorful, and with humor.

Van Koningsbruggen demonstrates a vibrant use of color in an abstract style, often featuring elements such as circles, rectangles, and funnels. He typically works on multiple pieces simultaneously: “I begin a painting and then I see a form emerging. I then transfer that form onto a new canvas and continue working on it. I let the other painting rest for half a year. Sometimes I have ten paintings in progress at once. They’re like patients, you have to heal them. Then I suddenly have a color on my brush and I look at the other painting and think, hey. That’s how I play the paintings against each other.”

In the 1970s, Van Koningsbruggen gained notoriety for his shifted paintings. He created these by placing paint on the canvas and sliding a second canvas over it. In his recent work, he revisits these works in part.

Rob van Koningsbruggen studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts and the Vrije Academie in The Hague. His oeuvre includes paintings, drawings, and knitted art.

www.ftn-books.com has several van Konigsbruggen publications now available.

Martens is not only an ingenious explorer, but also expertly makes the most of his budget. He avoids wastage and utilizes materials such as newspaper and old archive maps from the Stedelijk Museum. He freely deviates from traditional design laws; for instance, the text can begin on the cover or be placed in the margins. His experiments went to the extreme when designing the architecture magazine OASE: each edition is unique. He initially formed it with students from the Workshop Typography, which he co-founded, and now collaborates with his daughter, Aagje Martens.

Since 2019, when Karel Martens joined forces with his children, Klaartje and Diederik, under the name Martens & Martens, their work has expanded into fields such as textiles and collaborations. One such collaboration is with Suite702, which produces towels based on Martens’ color system for the beach cabins in Le Havre. Martens’ designs have also been incorporated into textile designs for companies like Liberty London, Maharam, Hermès, DUM, Pop Trading Company, and Pentagram.

www.ftn-books.com has many Martens designed titles now available and his Stedelijk Museum exhibition will be on view until the 26th of October 2025.

Axel van der Kraan (b. 1949) makes woodcut prints showing a densely built-up world from which the human population seems to have vanished. All that remains is a variety of desolate urban landscapes, bunkers and other fortifications.

The artist’s idiosyncratic oeuvre is composed of powerful sculptures, reliefs and woodcuts, all revolving around his fascination with heavy engineering and military motifs like soldiers, knights, horses and tanks.

www.ftn-books.com has now the invitation for his woodcut prints exhibition available together with some other quintessential vander Kraan publications.

This is what the jury said on JEROEN EISINGA for his Ouborg Prijs win.

With utmost precision and penetrating depth, Jeroen Eisinga’s work has been praised in the jury report for the 2019 Ouborg Prize. Described as being of exceptional quality, his pieces captivate and linger in the mind. On Friday, November 22nd, he will officially receive the Hague City Prize, a joint initiative by the Municipality of The Hague, the Hague Art Museum, and Stroom The Hague.

Eisinga is a driven artist, never satisfied and always pushing boundaries. In his now iconic film, Springtime (2011), he allowed himself to be covered by a swarm of approximately 150,000 bees. His productions are painstakingly labor-intensive, resulting in a smaller oeuvre, but one that is truly remarkable. His films have been showcased at international festivals and art venues, and are also featured in numerous museum and private collections.

www.ftn-books.com has the inviation for this event now available.

Claude Monet (1840-1926) arrived in Giverny at the age of forty-two in 1883 and lived there until his death in 1926. During this period, he cultivated two gardens: a floral garden and a water garden featuring a pond filled with water lilies, inspired by the serene beauty of traditional Japanese gardens. Monet consciously chose exotic flora for his gardens, such as towering bamboo, vibrant water lilies (which he discovered at the Exposition Universelle of 1889), and cascading wisteria. A charming Japanese-style bridge spanned over the narrow part of his pond, adding to the picturesque allure of his gardens.

In Giverny, Monet increasingly isolated himself from the outside world and became captivated by the endless enchantment of his garden. From 1883 to 1926, he painted the reflections on his water lily pond hundreds of times. While his first few attempts at capturing these scenes followed the principles of Impressionism, Monet gradually embraced a more expressive approach to his art. He rejected depth and no longer felt the need to depict recognizable subjects. Instead, his monumental garden paintings exuded a sense of timelessness, transcending the fleeting moments typically depicted in art. This phase at Giverny marked not only the most prolific period in Monet’s career, but also a significant artistic evolution. The pioneering Impressionist of the 19th century successfully reinvented himself in the 20th century.

www.ftn-books.com http://www.ftn-books.comhas several titles on his Giverny paintings now available.

Jérôme Touron, an French male contemporary artist born in Chartres, Eure-et-Loir (FR) in 1967, has a remarkable career in the world of art.

His first verified exhibition, VIS A VIS, took place at Galerie du Haut-Pavé in Paris in 1993. His most recent exhibition, Bousculer la couleur, was showcased at Galerie La Ferronnerie in Paris in 2023. While Jérôme Touron is frequently exhibited in France, he has also had exhibitions in Netherlands, Spain, and other countries. With at least 8 solo shows and 34 group shows in the past 30 years, Touron’s work has been widely recognized (for more information, refer to exhibitions). Additionally, he has participated in 3 art fairs, but has not yet been featured in any biennials. One of his most notable shows, Stage of Being, was displayed at Voorlinden museum in Wassenaar in 2018, showcasing his unique style and perspective. Other noteworthy exhibitions were held at Galerie La Ferronnerie and Passage de Retz in Paris. Jérôme Touron has also exhibited alongside renowned artists such as Dominique Dehais and Marie-Amélie Porcher.

www.ftn-books.com has teh Ramakers invitation now available.

Reinoud Oudshoorn (1953) employs perspective, drawn from the illusory language of painting, and incorporates it into his sculptures. In this way, he aims to bridge the gap between the spatial illusion of the two-dimensional plane and the tangible reality of three-dimensional imagery. Oudshoorn’s sculptures originate from staring and gazing at a blank white surface, which gradually transforms into a space. It is from this process that his drawings emerge.

The choice of material is determined by the selected drawing and its technical possibilities: iron alludes to graphite, while wood is intriguing due to the lines of the grain, and matte glass adds depth.
A painting is too much of an illusion for him and a three-dimensional sculpture is too much reality. He has found an intermediary form in sculptures that create space, sometimes on a wall, and sometimes on the floor.

The vanishing point, which is present in almost all of his larger works, is located at eye level, specifically at 1 m 65, creating a palpable horizon at every exhibition.

www.ftn-books.com has several Oudshoorn publications now available.