amsterdam – Page 16

Posted on 11.04.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Matisse and Sandberg

Sandberg as a curator admired Matisse as an artist and Sandberg as an artist must have been inspired by Matisse, when he made his famous paper cuttings because of his illness. Matisse himself called it “painting with scissors”. Could this have been the inspiration for Sandberg to use modelled torn papers for his book designs? Because these torn pieces of paper together with the lay-outs made the Sandberg publications highly personal and iconic. There is of course a difference, but the period in which these works of art existed is the same so it is not unlikely that his paper torn pieces were inspired by Matisse. The designs by Sandberg are now in, what are considered, classic publications and now used worldwide as examples of great design .

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Printed on paper, they easily survived 50 years or longer, however it is totally different with the Matisse cut-outs. These have to be restored now to conserve them for future generations and i know of two projects which have taken place in the last 10 years. There is of course the large cut out composition LA PERRUCHE ET LA SIRENE 1952/53 from the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam collection which was totally restored and made future proof for the decades to come and there was a project in the Beyeler in which one could follow the progress of the restoration /conservation of a large canvas titled ACANTHES, 1953.

Both works are on show again in all their splendor and show exactly why Matisse is possibly the greatest artist from last century. Great art in great museums and for those that want to read on both artists…visit www.ftn-books.com for some nice publications.

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Posted on 27.03.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Dennis Hopper (1932-2010)

hopper inv a

First time i saw Dennis Hopper in a movie was in Easy Rider. Together with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson he made this movie stand out from the rest in those days. A first class road movie which has become a cult classic since. I saw this movie in the Leidseplein Movie theatre in Amsterdam and the fact that i still can remember the theater in which i saw this movie, makes this one stand out for me . It makes a part of my cultural youth together with the Dali exhibition in the Boymans van Beuningen and the movies MORE and IF. I forgot about Hopper, but as soon as i saw his maniac appearance in BLUE VELVET, i was impressed again and started to read about him and saw his Photographs for the first time and noticed that he was a a painter / sculptor too. This man is a multi talented person in which his photographs stand out for me and are even more interesting than his acting. Highly personal photographs, a unique way of seeing things and the reason why an exhibition of his photographs was brought to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam ( catalogue available at www.ftn-books.com).

hopper keen a

In 2010 , to early, advanced prostate cancer was diagnosed and soon after he died at the age of 78 and left us some great movies and art works which can be admired up to the length of days.

A great interview ( 45 min) on his career can be found on Youtube .

https://youtu.be/hZkC05HUzt0

Posted on 18.03.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Erik Andriesse (1957-1993)

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Exceptional talent, a great dutch artist and one of the greats in Dutch Modern Art. Andriesse died at the age of 35 in 1993 and left us some very impressive works of art. His most important themes were flowers and skulls. The equivalent for him of life and death. Admirer of Salvador Dali, educated at the Ateliers 63, he soon became one of the most talented young artists in the Netherlands. He did not want to paint abstract paintings and chose for realism instead. Flowers and skulls being the centre of his works but also, lobsters, shells and apes. All his subjects were related to nature around us and he made wonderful paintings out of them. A large archive can be found on the internet at http://www.erikandriesse.nl

One of his techniques was to paint animals and use dead models to paint/draw them as accurately as possible. There is a nice video on YouTube in which Marc Mulders and Erik Andriesse discuss this technique and some footage is shown while Erik is at work. A tremendous artist of whom some books are available at www.ftn-books.com

On the Andriesse site there is a nice text by Marlene Dumas in which she describes the works by Andriesse and concludes that not all of his works are naturalistic:

Nightmares of Beauty

Once upon a time there lived a boy called Erik Andriesse, who distinguished himself from the passionless people around him by glowing in the dark. Now the country he lived in was a quite dark. Artists however would talk about the extraordinary light in that country.

During the 80’s all the artists were interested in the artificiality of life. A picture of a flower was much more interesting than the flower itself. Very few people still believed that everything that existed was part of nature itself. People lived in cities. Artists lived in their studios. Places filled with books, bottles and talk about art and artists and what was relevant and what was not.

And they forgot to love…

But Erik was aware of the fire that eats at the heart, while the clock ticks at night. The shortage of time, the repetitive movements of desire, the energy of the body watched by death. Flowers larger than life, dreams larger than life.

Nightmares of beauty.

He was ignored by the calculators, whose blood did not rise, when they saw his exotic death-dances on paper, but he continued on his own impatient way. Erik is not a conceptual artist. Erik is not an associative artist. He is not interested in displaying the cultural-historical aspects of his subject-matter. But Erik is also not the naturalist he seems to be. He even shows similarities (at times) to Spiderman, the comic-strip hero. Erik is not a cultural barbarian or a primitive. He reflects on the good, the bad and the ugly of the artworld and the synthetic problems of painting.

MARLENE DUMAS, 1986

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Posted on 16.03.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

the prints of Frank Stella (1936)

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Two reasons to devote a blog to Frank Stella. First there is an acquisition by the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag which i do not understand. For me it is a “stand alone” work of art with no relation with other works within the collection and at the time i saw it , i recognized it as a Stella, but was not very impressed by it. I would have thought the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam would have bought a work by Stella, because it fits in….but at the Gemeentemuseum it looks to be “a stranger at our midst”. Still Frank Stella is a great print maker and one of the reasons for this blog is to point out a very fine publication the Stedelijk Museum has published in 1970. The design was done by Wim Crouwel, but the best is there is a highly original “blind print” used as cover for this great catalogue.

It is one of the most spectacular catalogues from the 70’s with its embossed cover. A special artist cover which relates to one of the first “shaped canvases” use of multiple papers and ink colors. Typical Crouwel design. Book measures 10.8 x 8.2 inches, contains 78 pages plus cover. text in dutch and english.

Frank Stella is an important artist, has made some great works of art, but especially his minimal early works are for me among his best, including this great 1970 catalogue.

The Wim Crouwel / Stella catalogue from 1970 and other Frank Stella publications are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 09.03.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Robin Winters (1950)

Robin Winters and Europe are possibly a better match than Robin Winters and the US. There have been many shows and important museum presentations in Europe, possibly more than there ever have been in the US. This presence meant a great circle of admirers and some extremely nice publications of which i consider the large printed cotton canvas the very best of them. ( available at www.ftn-books.com ). This extraordinary work measures 150 x 130 cm. and comes with an original Winters drawing printed on paper and signed and dated in pencil by Winters. The cotton work was published in an edition of only 169 copies and shows the best qualities of the art of Robin Winters. Published by publishing house Bebert in 1986.

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the following text comes from Wikipedia

Robin Winters (born 1950 in Benicia, California) is an American conceptual artist and teacher based in New York. Winters is known for creating solo exhibitions containing an interactive durational performance component to his installations, sometimes lasting up to two months. As an early practitioner of “Relational Aesthetics” Winters has incorporated such devices as blind dates, double dates, dinners, fortune telling, and free consultation in his performances. Throughout his career he has engaged in a wide variety of media, such as performance art, film, video, writing prose and poetry, photography, installation art, printmaking, drawing, painting, ceramic sculpture, bronze sculpture, and glassblowing. Recurring imagery in his work includes faces, boats, cars, bottles, hats, and the fool.

for an extensive article on Robin Winters please visit https://alchetron.com/Robin-Winters-910625-W

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Posted on 27.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Anselm Kiefer (1945)

Anselm Kiefer

It is 31 years ago that i saw a work by Kiefer for the first time I and was really impressed . I remember the occasion….the occasion the Anselm Kiefer exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Grey, sombre , large paintings with scenes that reminded of war, devastation and ruins . Later i learned that the German history and the Holocaust were main themes Kiefer always used in his works. The history of Germany being one of the main subjects in his extremely large paintings. The Stedelijk Museum bought one of the paintings for its collection. “Innenraum” is a large painting ( 280 x 311 cm.) , but small compared to other Kiefer works.

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The exhibition was a great succes and since i encountered several other Kiefers in museums. One stands out, impressive and it’s size is overwhelming. ( almost 10 meters in length) and is a must see whenever you visit the North of Spain.

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Anselm Kiefer

Only with Wind, Time, and Sound (Nur mit Wind, mit Zeit und mit Klang), 1997

Acrylic and emulsion on canvas

473 x 944 x 22 cm

Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa

( the following text comes from the Art Story site)

It is the Anselm Kiefer’s monumental, often confrontational canvases were groundbreaking at a time when painting was considered all but dead as a medium. The artist is most known for his subject matter dealing with German history and myth, particularly as it relates to the Holocaust. These works forced his contemporaries to deal with Germany’s past in an era when acknowledgment of Nazism was taboo. Kiefer incorporates heavy impasto and uncommon materials into his pieces, such as lead, glass shards, dried flowers, and strands of hay, many of which reference various aspects of history and myth, German and otherwise. Influenced by his contemporaries Joseph Beuys and Georg Baselitz, as well as by postwar tendencies in Abstract Expressionism and Conceptual art, Kiefer is considered part of the Neo-Expressionist movement, which diverged from Minimalism and abstraction to develop new representational and symbolic languages.

Of course there are some nice publications available at www.ftn-books.com including the Anselm Kiefer / Stedelijk Museum catalogue from 1986

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Posted on 26.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Ren Hang (1987-2017)

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It is sad to learn that the Chinese photographer Ren Hang ended his life yesterday at the age of only 29 years.

A very promising young photographer, a talent like Araki and Ryan McGinley, who dared to be different in his approach to contemporary (nude) photography. As FOAM remembered in a short blog. Provoking and poetic at the same time and totally different from his Chinese colleagues. A talent which can be recognized immediately.

The exhibition in the FOAM museum in Amsterdam is well worth visiting and lasts until the 12th of March

https://www.foam.org/nl/museum/programma/ren-hang

and to get a great overview of his works, please visit chose the year and click on the photograph for some highly original and great photographs by Ren Hang.

http://renhang.org http://renhang.org

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Posted on 24.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Eduardo Paolozzi- Stedelijk Museum catalogue nr. 442

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There are multiple reasons to like the publication no 442. of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Published in 1968 on the occasion of the Eduardo Paolozzi exhibition this is a 100% original work of art . A serigraphie by Paolozzi in his typical Pop Art style. Folded as issued and when folded out an impressive large work of art. Design?….by Wim Crouwel who used the backside of the serigraphie for all the information on Paolozzi. A great Pop Art work of art and available at www.ftn-books.com

Posted on 23.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Lucebert (1924-1994)

Everywhere i come across Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk) nowadays. Re-editions of his poems, paintings at auction and exhibitions in galleries and museums. There is a huge interest in his works since 20 years or so, but before that period he was hardly known as a painter , but nowadays he is considered as one of the leading dutch artists from the 20th century . In his early years he was very much influenced by Cobra , but soon he developed his personal style which for me is a crossing between Cobra and Art Brut. He became known for his poems, but when you ask about Lucebert nowadays, people think of him first and foremost as a painter and because of this interest it is harder and harder to find the early publications on his paintings and etchings. There are some by Nouvelles Images, but the most important ones come from the pubvlications series of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Publications in which original etchings were bound and therefore are highly collectable ( and expensive) publications. www.ftn-books.com has a nice selection of classic and collectable Lucebert publications.

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for more information on Lucebert visit http://lucebertstichting.nl

Posted on 20.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Beauty and simplicity at de RIJK Fine art

Last week i was in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and was very much impressed by the Malevich and “white” rooms with Dekkers and Schoonhoven. White and nothing but white and it reminded me of the current exhibition at de Rijk Fine Art ( Noordeinde 95 /Den Haag).

Excellent, high quality, museum worthy paintings by ao Schoonhoven , Dekkers and Leblanc… in a totally different setting which was more a cosy living room ( including the dog ;-), than a gallery. The simplicity and in the same time complexity of the works, work very well in this setting. They do not need a museum presentation to show their true qualities. This exhibition lasts until the 26th of February so i advise you to take a look at the de Rijk gallery and see for yourself the qualities of this great and important gallery exhibition.

For publications on Schoonhoven, Dekkers and Malevich visit www.ftn-books.com