minimal – Page 6

Posted on 14.11.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Mangold versus Leblanc

Yesterday, i wrote the blog on SEVEN MAXIMS by Robert Mangold and when i searched on my harddisk for the pictures it struck me that there is a great similarity between these 2 artists. Specially the forms they use in their compositions resemble each other. Because the number of years between them is almost 20 years it is not likely that Walter Leblanc was influenced by Mangold, but the other way around is a real possibility. ….judge for yourself.

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Publications on both artists are available at www.ftn-books.com

Posted on 13.11.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Robert Mangold ….SEVEN MAXIMS (1996)

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This is one of the highlights in my inventory. Not because it is expensive, but i think this is outright beautiful and has everything what a great art limited edition should be. Slipcase, loose sheets. prints spread over double pages , best possible print quality, very limited edition, signed and numbered. This is really superb and needs to be presented in this blog on SEVEN MAXIMS by Mangold.

You can find the publication over here:

https://ftnbooks.myshopify.com/admin/products/443439185

and to give an impression here are the pictures

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Posted on 26.09.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Václav Cigler (1929)

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“I still do recall experiences from my childhood, and not only deeply human experiences but also experiences of places, experiences of nature related to the specific landscape of Vestín, its shape and composition, and the constant variability of light and color. I’m still working with those impressions today… I’m always thinking about the viewer and how I can evoke those feelings that go back to the free atmosphere of my youth.

…I was fascinated by the light and color properties of glass. Once I got into the glassmaking environment, I quickly realized that the material inspired me so much that I wanted to work with it for a long time. Optical glass, which I’ve worked with since the 1950s, is a material through which one can peer into the mystery of the universe on both a macro and a micro level, discovering things that had been hidden up to that point. For me, it reveals a world made unique with new shapes, light, and colors. Glass is a magic material, and in a certain sense a spiritual one. Glass is at once tangible and intangible. Like man, it is both material and spiritual. It has mass and yet it defies mass. Pure like water, transparent like air, it is thought and reality bringing into doubt our sensorial experience and at the same time enriching it with a new understanding. Glass is a box, an envelope, a tool, a mediator, a memory.

… Glass is the most imaginative material that man has ever created. The presence of glass in a human space conditions not only the space itself but also an as the user. Glass is for me a pretext for expressing a different spatial and emotional perception of the world. A perception made unique by the optical means offered by this material, as well as by the new possibilities for using it in space… in glass, there’s the authenticity of the material, the discovery that it has uncommon optical and material properties, such as malleability. Glass by itself is a sufficient source of inspiration.”

This is what Václav Cigler says about his own work. A gifted (Glass) artist/sculptor who uses glass and light to make the most beautiful minimal objects possible. publication available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 10.07.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Ad Dekkers (1938-1974)…. dutch Minimal art

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Ad Dekkers was probably the first dutch minimal artist and even is somehow related to the dutch NUL / ZERO art of the sixties and because of his age 36 , on the day he died, there are not too many works by Dekkers. His oeuvre is limited and most of the important works are to be found in dutch ( museum) collections. ALL important dutch museums have work(s) by Ad Dekkers in their collections and these works prove to be more and more important when you look at them in conjunction with other art from the sixties and seventies. Dekkers announced his own death. He was manic depressed and his suicide was no surprise to the ones that had known him. He left us a great and important oeuvre and many of the publications are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 12.05.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Robert Morris, a true visionary (1931)

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Time to dedicate a blog to another icon of minimal art, but not only minimalism , but also Land Art was one of the key parts within his oeuvre. Robert Morris was one of the central figures of Minimalism. Through both his own sculptures of the 1960s and theoretical writings, Morris set forth a vision of art pared down to simple geometric shapes stripped of metaphorical associations, and focused on the artwork’s interaction with the viewer. However, in contrast to fellow Minimalists Donald Judd and Carl Andre, Morris had a strikingly diverse range that extended well beyond the Minimalist ethos and was at the forefront of other contemporary American art movements as well, most notably, Process art and Land art. Through both his artwork and his critical writings, Morris explored new notions of chance, temporality, and ephemerality. This makes him one of the most important contemporary American artists alive. As early as the early sixties thre has been an interest in his minimal and land art in the Netherlands. The Kroller Muller, Stedelijk Museum and van Abbemuseum all held exhibitions on Morris. Some of these publications are still available at www.ftn-books.com. Lately the interest in his works has decreased, but that does not mean that his projects are not epic. This is an artists of whom people say in the 23rd century…….a true visionary.

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Posted on 01.05.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Robert Ryman (1930)

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People who follow this blog know of my admiration for Minimal Art and for me Minimal Art includes the work by Robert Ryman. I hesitated to start with this sentence because many believe Robert Ryman is not a Minimal painter but more of a painter who makes monochrome works of art. Still ,when searching on Google for Ryman he is by many categorized as “Minimal”.

Often allied with Minimalist, Conceptual Art, and Monochrome Painting, Robert Ryman has painted works in which theme and medium are one. A majority of his paintings feature only white or off-white paint on square canvases, varying in scale and texture and draw the eye toward the nature of the brush strokes and the depth of paint. To further heighten the effect of subtle variations in technique, Ryman manipulates how each work is hung on the wall, playing with the frames themselves as well as with each painting’s distance from the wall. For example, the eleven-panel Vector (1975/1997) comprises 11 wood units of the same size painted in white and hung equidistant from one another, the empty spaces on the walls between the panels echoing the nuanced texture and forms of the panels themselves. A great painter and one of the last from his generation of Minimal artists. www.ftn-books.com has some nice publications on Ryman available.

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Posted on 10.04.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Niele Toroni (1937)

Born in Switzerland in 1937, Niele Toroni rose to fame in an era that other Swiss artists were very much under the influence of constructivism…. Lohse and Honegger among them. Toroni left that stage behind him and developed a minimal style of his own. The main difference between these two and Toroni is that Toroni progressed his art into a form of MINIMAL ART in which he altered the space by painting with a regular space between them brushstrokes in squares onto a surface using one specific color. He usually uses one specific brush no 50. The imprints made with this n°50 paintbrush are repeated at regular intervals of 30 cm. His works are found in many modern art museum collections including the Stedelijk museum and the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. In which one of the 4 Staircases is painted by Toroni ( the others by LeWitt, Forg and Tuzina).

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These four staircases are there for over 25 years now and have proven to be very important In Situ works of art. All artist have become famous contemporary artists and really make one look at these staircases with different eyes. They are not ordinary staircases any longer , but works of art and part of a great collection.

Books on Toroni can be found at www.ftn-books.com

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Posted on 01.04.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Donald Judd and the Chinati foundation

Marfa Texas…that is where the Chinati Foundation is settled. The Foundation was an initiative by Donald Judd who founded this in 1979. Since buildings were eerected and exhibitions were being held with friends and admired artists. There were exhibitions with works by John Chamberlain, an installation by Dan Flavin occupying six former army barracks, and works by Carl Andre, Ingólfur Arnarsson, Roni Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Richard Long, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, David Rabinowitch, and John Wesley. Each artist’s work is installed in a separate building on the museum’s grounds.

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One of the main buildings is called the Arena. It was built in the 1930s as a gymnasium for the soldiers at Fort D.A. Russell. After the fort closed in 1946, the gym floor was torn up for the wood, and sand was laid to provide an indoor arena for horses. In the mid 1980s, Judd restored the building, which was largely dilapidated. Judd left the long strips of concrete that had originally supported the wooden floor, and filled the intervening spaces with gravel. For practical considerations, Judd poured a large concrete area by the kitchen at the south end, and a smaller area at the north end of the building’s interior. These two areas comprise half of the total area of the building. Judd also added a sleeping loft and designed the outer courtyard, which includes areas for eating, bathing, and a barbecue. There are two works by David Rabinowitch installed in the building: one on the ground floor (Elliptical Plane in 3 Masses and 4 Scales, 1971-72) and one in the loft (6-Sided Bar, III, 1969). These works are on long-term loan from the Judd Foundation.

Chinati is like a Disney park for the Minimal art admirer. Everything breathes Minimal Art and the Judd designs make it even more special. There are some very nice Donald Judd books available at www.ftn-books.com including one publication by the Chinati foundation.

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Posted on 31.03.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Minimal Art by Judd, Andre and LeWitt

I chose these 3 artists to tell you something on Minimal Art in the Netherlands. These 3 artists were the first to be invited to have an exhibition on Minimal Art in 1968,. The exhibition was curated by Enno Develing and the catalogue published with this exhibition has become one of the rarest of dutch museum catalogues from the last half century. I am fortunate to still have it available in PDF, because this one was so rare i decided, at the time i was working as a bookseller/publsher for the Haags Gemeentemuseum to buy one to turn it into PDF files and so making it available for collectors and visitors. Thanks to Ap Gewald, who had the original copy and lent it to me for this purpose, this project became possible. A good decision, because it has become a very hard to find catalogue and because of its importance it is still available for students and collectors alike in PDF.

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For all customers ordering in the next week, i make this catalogue available on request and sent it by Wetransfer. But because of this long time relation of these 3 artists, all three of them have made special editions with the museum shop. Sol LeWitt made painted tiles, Carl Andre small copper plates in editions of 1/1 and Donald Judd, made brightly colored furniture for the bookshop in the early nineties. Of course these products are all completely sold out, but what is still available, but is increasingly becoming more scarce every day, is the Museum publications and artist books by these artists. Specially Sol LeWitt works are harder to find each

month, but i am proud to have one of the 1972 editions by Sol LeWitt in my inventory. It is the Macerata edition of 8 original /signed silkscreens by Sol LeWiit in its original white plastic container.

https://ftnbooks.myshopify.com/admin/products/448412805

And because we have to celebrate a milestone on Facebook there is of course a discount code (valid for only 2 days) , which gives a 10% discount : FBminimal10

Please take a look at the many beautiful Minimal Art books that are available at:

www.ftn-books.com

Posted on 22.03.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Lawrence Weiner (1942)

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Lawrence Weiner is one the the leading artists within Conceptual Art .

The first time i daily encountered a work by Lawrence Weiner was when curator Flip Bool of the Gemeentemuseum had bought a magnificent large one for the entrance hall. I noticed the forms and strong meaning of the sentences used and learned to appreciate it.

Since, i have been collecting books on Weiner in every possible way . Other museum publications, abroad art locations, galleries and auctions all had some in them, so over the years a small collection was formed and some are available at www.ftn-books.com

Later i realized that so many publications were published in the Netherlands, because he frequently stayed over here and made contributions to many other museums in the Netherlands. Notably tothe van Abbemuseum and the Stedelijk Museum have. Both have several works by Weiner in their collections.

The last time i encountered a work by Weiner (unexpectedly) was in Ljubljana, where at the facade of the Modern Art Museum a large Weiner was fixed. It gave me the same feeling as the one in the Gemeentemuseum. It changes the way you look at something and makes you think about its text…..it is great art.