Tag: minimal

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Erik Oldenhof (1951)

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One of the reasons why i started this blog is to introduce artists and their works to a larger audience and here is one of these artists. Erik Oldenhof has had a lng time careeer now and his abstract art leans towords Zero and more abstract painting. However his technique reminds me of Jakob Gasteiger who molds his paint after he has applied it to the canvas. This is what Oldenhof must also do when i look at his paintings. There is a growing interest in his works, but still they can be bought at fairly reasonable prices at galleries and art loan institutions and whenever you find a painting by Oldenhof put up for auction they can be outright cheap. Still this stands in no relation with the artistic values. Oldenhof his paintings have a personality of their own and will not bore for a long time to come.

http://www.ftn-books.com has a nice Erik Oldenhof publication available

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Two Carl Andre additions

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At the beginning of Minimalism, 3 names rose to fame almost instantly. Sol LeWitt, Donald Judd and Carl Andre. All had their one man shows at the Haags Gemeentemuseum, but i noticed that the appreciation of Andre was not as high as the appreciation of his comrades. 30 years after his last show at the Gemeentemuseum things have changed for the better for Carl Andre. There was a very large retrospective exhibition travelling the US, Germany, Spain and France and the catalogue which was published with this exhibition is by far the the most complete on Andre ever.

Perhaps it is not the best, since i value myself the 1988 by Fuchs and Gracia Lebbink to be the best of all Andre catalogues, but it is a worthy addition to any Minimal Art library and still at a very affordable price. The second addition is the ART & PROJECT Bulletin 85, which is one of the rarest of all Carl Andre publications. Both are now available at www.ftn-books.com

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Jan van Munster (1939)

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Jan van Munster stands for me personally as the artist who experimenst with Neon and Pyrographics and using these to create Minimal objects and sculptures. I noticed his works for the first time when a work of him was presented at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. It weas a neon sculpture and made in an edition of a few copies and for sale at the museum shop. Unfortunately i did not have the insight at that time to buy it, but the memory remains, because it was the first van Munster i had seen. This is not the easiest of art to admire, but once you follow his career and search back throught the decades that he has made his art, you conclude that he always stayed true to his origins. One of the characteristics that keep reappearing is that he uses frequently two elements on his covers of the catalogues that are published with his works.

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First…many of his covers are embossed and second. ….in many cases there is a special Pyrographic made/burnt into the cover of his catalogues, making these original, one of a kind works of art at a more than reasonable price. http://www.ftn-books.com has some nice van Munster titles available.

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Charlotte Posenenske (1930-1985)

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The works of Charlotte Posenenske (Wiesbaden, 1930-Frankfurt am Main, 1985) consist of series in an unlimited edition. According to a number 0f rules, they can be made and repeated – also by others – and combined with each other. With her radical and ‘democratic’ ideas about material, production and authorship, Charlotte Posenenske influenced and shaped conceptual and minimalist art of the sixties.

Minimalist series

Charlotte Posenenske began as a painter, but she felt limited by the flat surface and soon moved on to creating spatial works. The forms of Series B (1967) are hung as reliefs on the wall, but also placed as objects in the spatial environment. This is followed in 1968 by Series D and Series DW, whose format and shape are reminiscent of ventilation shafts.

Participation

Although Charlotte Posenenske did not consider herself to be a political artist, she had a clear and strong vision of societal relations, which in her view had to be rational, concrete, accessible and democratic. With her work she wanted to set a standard for this: the materials which she used like cardboard and steel are cheap, the works are sold for a fixed low price and the assembly and installation of her modular systems can be done by ‘everyone’: buyers, exhibition makers, and even the public. Posenenske’s social engagement is also expressed through the installations she created in public spaces, such as airports, train stations, conference rooms and on the street.

Contemporary artists and Posenenske

Disappointed in the social scope of art, Charlotte Posenenske left the art world in 1968 to study sociology. Her work and views remain however points of reference for younger generations of artists. The text above comes from the Museum Kroller Muller site. This Museum has a retrospective exhibition on Posenenske until the 15th of September

www.ftn-books.com has some nice publications in which Posenenske made some contributins. Since there is a longtime connection between the Netherlands  and the artist it happens that some of the most important publications have been published in the Netherlands. Specially the former Art & Project has presented her works on several occasions.

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Donald Judd – sculpture, Untitled object

 

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It must have been somewhere around 1985. After a trip to the US and whta must have been a visit to Donald Judd’s studio, Flip Book, curator of the Modern Art department of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag came back with the story of a purchase he had made of a Donald Judd sculpture. I heard that the price paid was around 60.000 guilders and personally i thought it unheard that a sculpture like this would have such an elevated price tag. I thought it much to expensive for a sculpture like this, but as time progresses. i became wiser and it became clear to me that Flip had made a wonderful and very important acquisition for the Gemeentemuseum. The sculpture has been since in the Beeldentuin of the Gemeentemuseum and is still as, or perhaps even more, impressive as it originally was.

I realized that the important purchases for the collections of the Gemeentemuseum were all done from the late Sixties until the first years of the Nineties. It started with Minimal art by LeWitt, Judd and Andre, continued with some Schoonhoven, Weiner in the Eighties and perhaps the last important acquisition is the carrousel by Bruce Nauman. Since very little important acquisitions have been made, with one exception. I think the Paul Thek object will prove to be important in the future.

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On all the mentioned artists, publications are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Sol LeWitt- Horizontal Brushstrokes

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It is a long history that Sol LeWitt has with Den Haag. In the early days of his career he became befriended with Enno Develing who in 1967 organized as cuartor a breathtaken and important first Mininal exhibition with Sol LeWitt. In later years Sol LeWitt made some tiles in a open multiple edition for the shop of the Gemeentemuseum and again a decade later he designed the staircase and a shopping bag for the Gemeentemuseum. At the end of his career he stayed loyal to Den Haag and had a very nice exhibition in 2002 with his brushstroke paintings and prints at the Livingstone gallery. This catalogue is now available at www.ftn-books.com

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John Zinsser (1961)

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A master in Blue . A bit like Yves Klein had his favorit color too  and executed many of his paintings in Blue. Zinsser uses the available commercial paints with their standard bright colors.

John Zinsser’s abstract paintings investigate formal properties of gestures, supports, color, and paint through simple actions and two-toned compositions that explore the relationship between figure and ground. After studying art history at Yale, Zinsser relocated to New York, where he has remained since the 1980s. Color is a preeminent concern for Zinsser; he typically works with naturally occurring commercially available colors such as cobalt blue or cadmium red. The properties and values of the ground determine what colors and forms he chooses to include in the foreground. “I always put a faith in materials first—that paint has a kind of authority of its own,” he says. “Paint has a unique power to assert tactile reality, pushing toward a larger visual and bodily response.”

For me personally il compare his paintings with the one Tomas Rajlich has done in the last 2 decades / also monochrome paintings with working the paint over that it the paint is moulded into a shape. Both arftists i like very much, but for me personally i prefer the Rajlich paintings , because i have met Tomas on several occasions and beside an excellent painter he is a an aimable person.

www.ftn-books.com has a nice Zinsser catalogue available.

zinsser

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Art & Project bulletins (1968-1989)

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Adriaan van Ravesteijn and Geert van Beijeren are in my opinion the most important gallery owners in the history of (dutch) Modern Art. Their gallery was for decades the venue for conceptual art and many important artists have found  in this gallery their starting point for their career.

Art & Project was an institution in the art scene and this was emphasized by publication of their Bulletins , which were published on a regular basis between 1968 and 1989.

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In total there were 156 bulletin published and i am proud to say that http://www.ftn-books.com has BULLETINS available by the following artists: Andre, Antonakos, Boezem, Breuker, Brouwn, Buren, Berghuis, Barry, Camesi, Charlton, Clemente, Chia, Cucchi, Cragg, Dibbets, Darboven, van Elk, Fulton, Flanagan, Giese , Gilbert & George, Knoebel, Leavitt, Long, Lord, Maconey, Mclean, Paladino, Pope, Ryman, Ruckriem, Rosenthal, Ruppersberg, Rajlich, Struycken, Salvo, Tremlett, Tordoir, Visser, Verhoef, Weiner, Yamazaki and the 1972 Catalogue of our Bulletins

( for more information and the “Bulletin” numbers available please inquire)

43 artist of the gallery Art & Project now available at www.ftn-books.com

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Jo Baer (1929)

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There is a firm relationship between the Netherland and Jo Baer, because since the early years of her career she has had her exhibitions in Amsterdam. She is considered to be a Minimal artist, but personally i am not so certain about this. In her early days she was more related to the Hard Edge mouvement, but in later paintings a great emptiness fills the canvasses only enhanced by a painted frame or a simple scarce geometrical object making these paintings as typical Minimal paintings and in the last 2 decades she turns again completely and produces lyrical abstract expressionist paintings. When you look at these 3 stages of her career you can destinguish 3 completely different styles and approaches to painting, but with one constant…the artist Jo Baer

www.ftn-books has some of the dutch Jo Baer publications available

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Robert Ryman (1930-2019)

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One of the greats in Abstract Modern Painting died at the age of 88 on the 8th of February 2019. White was his “color” and he painted on every material with his “white”. Impressed by the Rothko paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where he was working as a museum guard, he started to paint himself and finding in the process the strength of “white” when used as the only color in his paintings. This approach made him famous within a period of 5 years. After these initial years he had had his first gallery exhibitions and soon after his his first major exhibition at the Guggenheim museum. Rymans paintings are highly recognizable abstract paintings and can be seen as the link between abstract expressionism and minimalism ( btw. Sol LeWitt also started his career as a museum guard). We are lucky to have al large collection of his paintings iin the Netherlands since the Stedelijk Museum started collecting his paintings from the very first years of his career. The result an impressive 11 paintings from all periods of his artistic life. Robert Ryman publications are available at www.ftn-books.com

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