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Dorien Melis (1938-2021)

Johan Claassen describes his work as “minimal, musical visual poetry”. What can I add? Dorien Melis (1938-2021) made small paintings, primarily on canvas or panel, in which lines were drawn along somewhat larger shapes to depict memories. These memories must have something to do with the city’s reflections Like the water, the horizon at dusk, or the cold light of the morning sun streaming into the bedroom through a light curtain. Her works have titles such as Life of Water, Little Cantatas, Songs of the Night, and Between the Lines. A painting depicting how vulnerable people are protected. A minimalist, musical visual poem.

http://www.ftn-books.com has 2 small Melis publications available.

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Mario Deluigi (1901-1978)

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Mario Deluigi is another painter from the stable of Galleria del Cavallino. He is one of the painters i like the most and his works remind me of the works from the early Seventies Sol LeWitt made for some italian publishers. Perhapd they have known eachother, but what remains is that the works by Deluigi are not cheap , but far less expensive than those of Sol LeWitt. Great art and still available at art galleries at a much more affordable price

Mario Deluigi was born in Treviso in 1901. The artist’s production was characterized by the use of grattage, a technique that required creating marks in negative, engraved on the surface layers of the painting, characterized by a lumpy and material surface. Color and light were the foundations of the artist’s research and the grattage works, fulcrum of his artistic production, were conceived and created in harmony with the spatialist current to which the artist adhered. The little book below is available at www.ftn-books.com

deluigi

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Jonas Weichsel (1982)

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Weichsel is without doubt one of the youngest artists that had a one man show at the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop and….deservedly. His works have a minimalist quality and are bright filled with color. Just see his show and it makes you comfortable and happy at the same time. Thre is nothing to distract….just the composition.

He creates minimalist paintings of uncanny precision and impalpability, which upon closer inspection translate into sensuous, lived experiences. Early on, Weichsel developed his unique analytical and systematic painting technique, which he continues to pursue often combining digital and plotting techniques with hand-painted elements to explore the possibilities and limits of painting and the boundaries between immateriality and a tangible, material presence. His paintings inherit a deceptive simplicity and unfold their full power only in the contemplation of the original.

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Jonas Weichsel, born 1982 in Darmstadt, Germany, first studied in Mainz and Düsseldorf before completing his Meisterschüler with Judith Hopf at Städelschule Frankfurt. In 2016, he was awarded a residency at the Villa Romana in Florence, Italy. In 2012, he won the Karl Schmidt-Rottluff Stipendium after having been awarded the Dies Academicus—the Prize of the Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz—alongside a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes in 2009. Recent solo exhibitions include the Joseph Albers Museum, Bottrop (2018), Museum Wiesbaden (2016), and Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt a.M. (2013). Important group exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt (2018; 2017; 2011), Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2017), Kunstverein Braunschweig (2016), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2016), Villa Romana, Florence, Italy (2016), Frankfurter Kunstverein (2015), Kunsthalle Wiesbaden (2015), Kunsthalle Mainz (2015; 2010), Kunstraum Bethanien, Berlin (2015), Salondergegenwart, Hamburg (2013), Kunstmuseum Wiesbaden (2012), Heidelberger Kunstverein (2011), Wilhelm Hack Museum (2010), and Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden (2010). Jonas Weichsel lives and works in Frankfurt a.M.

The Josef Albers Museum poster is now available at www.ftn-books.com

weichsel a

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Fred Sandback (1943-2003)

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A very special Minimal artist definitely is Fred Sandback.

Fred Sandback would stretch lengths of colored yarn taut in a space to make people experience it differently, uniquely, unexpectedly. His ingeniously simple sculptures had no weight or mass, no inside or out.

He described is work eloquently in his booklet A Children’s Guide to Seeing made to accompany his 1989 exhibition of yarn sculptures at the Houston Contemporary Arts Museum. His words for kids provide illumination for adults:
We all need a place for play, whether it’s jump rope, baseball, or making a sculpture. I’m lucky enough to have the whole Contemporary Arts Museum in which to build my sculptures that are made out of knitting yarn.

I need a big space like this because I mean my sculptures to take space and make it into a place—a place that people will move around in and be in.

Knitting yarn is great for making the proportions, intervals, and shapes that build the places I want to see and to be in. It’s like a box of colored pencils, only I can use it to make a three-dimensional sculpture instead of making a drawing on paper.

My knitting-yarn sculpture is a somewhat distant cousin to some other string games. Maybe the one that uses the most space is kite flying. But the one that is the oldest, and the most universal, is cat’s cradle. Indians, Eskimos, Bushmen, and many other cultures around the world have had games like cat’s cradle since before anyone can remember.

Often cat’s cradle is about making a little place—just for yourself, or to share with someone. If you don’t know any of the moves, you can probably learn some from a friend, a relative, or from your mom or dad, if they remember them.

If you ask the attendant here in the Museum now, he or she will give you some yarn to use while you are here and to take home. Your fingers might do some thinking while you wander around and look at my sculptures.

And here are a few cat’s cradle ideas.

Cat’s cradle is nice because you can put it in your pocket when you’re busy with something else, and take it out again when you’re not. Although, as you can see, it’s not so hard to build big things like my sculpture. All it takes is a ball of string. If you were feeling a little adventurous, you could even wrap up your whole house.

http://www.ftn-books is fortunate to have some nice Sandback items available

sandback bottrop a

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Enzo Maiolino (1926-2016)

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Not much information to be found on this artist. Still he is an established artist influenced by Hard Edge painting but with a much softer , subdued choice of colors he makes compositions that are typical for the Italian Sixties. These paintings are great and timeless and that is the reason why the Josef Albers Museum recognized the qualities of this lesser known artist. His works were presented in combination with the “square” paintinsg by Albers. The result /…… a feast in abstract ( minimal) art.

The Maiolino poster is availabel at www.ftn-books.com

maiolino aa

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Horst Antes (1936)

 

Schermafbeelding 2021-05-04 om 15.04.17I never had many titles on Horst Antes until i recently bought a small collections from the heirs of gallery d’Eendt.

galerie d’Eendt has had many exhibitions with works by Horst Antes and published some great graphic works by the artist over a period of over 20 years. Personally i would say his works are not “My cup of tea”, but…..undoubtedly his work is original and so typically Seventies that it has become important and shows the way art was developing. On one side there is complete abstraction with MINIMALISM and on the other side there is dreamy almost abstract characters who populate paintings and present a world completely different from the real world. In the Netherland i consider Jan Snoeck to be part of this movement of artist and when you look at both these artists their works , you see why i think these are artistically related.

Horst Antes (born 28 October 1936 Heppenheim, Germany) is a German artist and sculptor.

After his Abitur, he studied from 1957 to 1959 under the important woodcutter HAP Grieshaber at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste (today known as the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Karlsruhe) in Karlsruhe. In 1959, the artist’s work was honoured with two prizes, art prize of the city of Hanover and the Pankofer prize on the occasion of the German Youth Art prize.

In his early paintings, Antes sought a path somewhere between figurative painting and the L’Art Informel. One of his most important role models was Willem de Kooning. Around 1960 Antes discovered his ‘Kopffüßler’ (literal translation: Head-Footer), a form which preoccupied the artist in numerous variations and artistic techniques. By 1963 his ‘Kopffüßler’ was fully developed in its stylistic and contextual premises and became also compulsory for his sculptural work, which began the same year.[1] The artist was given several scholarships and awards in the 1960s, including the Villa-Romana-Prize in Florence in 1962 and the Villa Massimo scholarship in Rome in 1963. Three years later, aged only 29, Antes accepted a teaching post at the Akademie in Karlsruhe. This was followed by a post as a professor also in Karlsruhe which he held from 1967 to 1973, as well as a one-year guest-professorship at the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Berlin. The artist resumed teaching at the Akademie in Karlsruhe in 1984 and continued teaching there for another 16 years. The regional capital awarded him the Hans-Molfenter-prize in 1989.

Since 1990 Antes has been living and working in Karlsruhe, Florence and Berlin. His oeuvre includes not only paintings and graphic art, but also sculptures in public spaces. His works are exhibited throughout the world and are represented in all the most important German collections, et al. at the Kunsthall Hamburg, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the Nationalgalerie Berlin, and the Museum of Modern Art.

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Martin Gerwers (1963)

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I know the works by Martin Gerwers for some 10 years now. The first time i encountered them was at an exhibition at galerie de Rijk and since i have been following with great interest this German artist. His abstraction leans towards the de Stijl movement , but is so much more fragile and delicate. Thin lines and much “space” make his paintings more like minimal art paintings than DE STIJL. One thing they have in common. It is use of bright colors  for the compositions. Gerwers his works are now financially out of reach for me , but i still admire his works and hopefully one day i encounter a nice small painting at auction. If the price is right i do not hesitate and buy it for my personal collection.

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Martin Gerwers, emerged with monumental geometric abstract paintings. He has recently extended his dicipline with 3-dimensional painted objects. Made out of triangular forms from wood they take the shape of dynamic pyramids, which define the surrounding space. His work is in the tradition of Mondrian and the American colourfield painting. Gerwers’ paintings and objects evoke space through big contrasts in light and dark, thin lines and broad planes of color and subtle differences in tone.

Martin Gerwers is born in 1963 in Velen (DE). He lives and works in Düsseldorf. After the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, where he studied with Jan Dibbets, he exhibited regularly at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Düsseldorf and Galerie Tschudi in Glarus in Switserland. Since 1999 he has been exhibiting at Slewe Gallery. His work has been collected by several private and public institutions such as the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

gerwers

 

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Museum DE PONT / Tilburg

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I think that museum DE PONT in Tilburg is one of the museums that impresses me most. In the almost 30 years of its existence it has build a solid reputation in organizing breathtaking and ground breaking exhibitions and in the meantime expanded their collection of contemporary art in a very personal way. The building, not the most architectural beautiful museum in the world, is fantastic to present the modern art and each time i visit de PONT it impresses me. The man responsibel for this great achievement is Hendrik Driessen.

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While i was searching for minimal art in the Netherlands i discovered that many of the contemporary minimal artists in the Netherland had their first museum presentation at the DE PONT. Besides the exhibitions, their publication program is well worth following. Beautiful designed catalogues and posters are published making this one of the most desirable and satisfying museum packages/ visits for me.

www.ftn-books.com has many of the legendary de PONT publications available.

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Donald Judd and the Sikkens prijs ’93

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In 1993 Donald Judd was awarded the Sikkens Prijs for his radical approach to Modern Art. It was a well deserverd award for an artist who stood at the brink of Minimal Art and founded one of the most inspiring artists “colonies” in Marfa texas.

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Not much later Judd died in 1994 of Cancer, but his art remains and has proven to be (arguably) being the most important art made in the 20th century. The Stedelijk Museum and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag both have some very important Judd’s in their collections and over time these works have not lost their appeal. I am personally convinced that in a few decades , the Minimal art by Judd is considered to be of the highest importance in the development of Modern Art/ http://www.ftn-books.com has the Judd publication published with the Sikkens Award ao. available .

judd sik a

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The road to minimalism according to Carl Andre

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It has been a few month now that i have the book CARL ANDRE/ HOLLIS FRAMPTON, 12 Dialogues 1962-1963 in my inventory. Of course i have seen the works by Andre on many occasions, but rarely seen his early works and this book is focussed on his earliest works. It shows the logs of wood, sculptures with metal , but not the ordered ones for which he would become famous in the early Seventies. These sculptures feel like a thorough research into material and presentation. By the end of 1961 a little work shows how logs are arranged and combined into the earliest and purest form of his sculptures.

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Now i have read this excellent title id decide to put it oup for sale, but i will remember it for showing me what the earliest works by Carl Andre look like, The Book is now available at www.ftn-books.com