pont – FTN-blog

Posted on 01.04.202305.03.2023 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Raoul de Keyser (1930-2012)

Growing more important every year since his death in 2012 , de Keyser’s subtly evocative paintings are at once straightforward and cryptic, abstract and figurative. Made up of simple shapes and marks, they invoke spatial and figural allusions, yet remain elusive of any descriptive narrative. Despite—or precisely because of—their spare compositions, De Keyser’s works convey a visual intensity that inspires prolonged contemplation. Individually as well as collectively, they revolve around the activity of painting, but also move beyond its physical means to become more than the sum of their parts.

De Keyser was born in 1930 in Deinze, Belgium. Since 1999, his work has been represented by David Zwirner. Previous solo exhibitions at the gallery in New York include Come on, play it again (2001); Remnants (2003); Recent Work (2006); Terminus: Drawings (1979-1982) and Recent Paintings (2009); Freedom (2011); and Drift (2016), which was first on view at David Zwirner, London. A solo exhibition at the gallery’s Hong Kong location in 2021 marked the artist’s first solo presentation in Greater China. In 2022, David Zwirner, Hong Kong presented Raoul De Keyser: Replay Again.

Since the mid-1960s, the artist’s work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions at prominent institutions. In 2000, a large-scale retrospective was presented at The Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, which traveled to the Goldie Paley Gallery, Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. A major survey of the artist’s paintings traveled extensively from 2004 through 2005 to the Whitechapel Gallery, London; Musée de Rochechouart, France; De Pont Museum for Contemporary Art, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Museu de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; and the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland. In 2009, his paintings were exhibited in a retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany and his watercolors were presented jointly at the Museu de Serralves, Porto, Portugal and the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin.

www.ftn-books.com has currently;y some interesting de Keyser titles available.

Posted on 03.06.202107.03.2021 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

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.

Posted on 08.09.201903.06.2019 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Anish Kapoor (1954)

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It was about 3 months ago that we visited DE PONT in Tilburg. Our friends from the US wanted to visit the Bauhaus Textile exhibition and Linda and I decided to make the visit to DE PONT. An important museum and it struck us both that their collection is of the greatest quality. This is quite an accomplishment for such a small museum. So the Pont is worth visiting and what strikes you immediately at the entrance is a bend mirror like sculpture that reflects the sky. It is majestic in its appearance and of course the reflection is alway different so the sculpture present itself in a different way constantly.

A visit to remember since this is an excellent museum with ao. this Anish Kapoor, who is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation. Perhaps most famous for public sculptures that are both adventures in form and feats of engineering, Kapoor manoeuvres between vastly different scales, across numerous series of work. Immense PVC skins, stretched or deflated; concave or convex mirrors whose reflections attract and swallow the viewer; recesses carved in stone and pigmented so as to disappear: these voids and protrusions summon up deep-felt metaphysical polarities of presence and absence, concealment and revelation. Forms turn themselves inside out, womb-like, and materials are not painted but impregnated with colour, as if to negate the idea of an outer surface, inviting the viewer to the inner reaches of the imagination. Kapoor’s geometric forms from the early 1980s, for example, rise up from the floor and appear to be made of pure pigment, while the viscous, blood-red wax sculptures from the last ten years – kinetic and self-generating – ravage their own surfaces and explode the quiet of the gallery environment. There are resonances with mythologies of the ancient world – Indian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman – and with modern times. www.ftn-books.com has some nice Kapoor titles available

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Posted on 04.06.201903.06.2019 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Go to the Richard Long exhibition at DE PONT

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Last week we were in Tilburg to visit the Textielmuseum with the Bauhaus Textiles with our friends David and Monica from the US. Linda and I preferred to see the modern art at the DE PONT instead and we were treated to one of the best contemporary art exhibitions from the last years. In DE PONT there was a special exhibition by Richard Long, who took full use of all the spaces available. The cabinets were all filled with smaller Long works ( except for the Kapoor cabinets ) and the great hall served as the exhibition space for his stone circles, lines and crosses.

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The result….impressive. Here are the pics i took from the space. I gladly share these with you since these pictures do not justice to the real experience.

The ” look and feel” of the space is so impressive, that you must see this yourself and to prepare your visit you can chose one of the nice Richard Long publications www.ftn-books.com has for sale. This is not meant as a spoiler. Just hurry up and go there as long as the Richard Long exhibition is there.

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Posted on 03.08.201711.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Jeff Wall (1946)…coincidence or staged?

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The scenes that Jeff Wall photographs look random and by chance, but reality is …..they are completely staged.

Since the 1980s, Wall ( Born in Vancouver/Canada) has produced critically acclaimed work in the form of color transparencies backlit by fluorescent light strips and presented in lightboxes. He was one of the first artists to make photographs on a large scale. The standard lightbox was created for the primary purpose of outdoor advertising. In Wall’s work, this medium became a platform for his figurative tableaux, street scenes and interiors, landscapes and cityscapes. Wall explores themes such as the relationships between men and women and the boundary between metropolis and nature. He offers social commentary on violence and cultural miscommunication, and conjures seductive nightmarish fantasies and personal memories. These scenes provide the basis for photographic reconstructions of Wall’s experience. They derive their inherent suspense from a combination of extreme realism and sometimes elaborate artifice.

www.ftn-books.com has some important publications by Jeff Wall available.

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Posted on 04.02.201712.02.2018 by ftnbooks — Leave a comment

Jan Dibbets (1941)

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One of the first dutch modern artist i learned to appreciate and admire. Also an artist who has had exhibitions all over the world, so a nice selection of his publications is available at www.ftn-books.com

Conceptual artist in the beginning, he began to alter perspectives with modifications of and cutting out elements from photographs and with these new elements he created a new comopistion. A fascinating proces resulting in practically all cases a new way of looking at an object, building or landscape.

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Because i had to read something on Dibbets i encountered something i did not know before. Thanks to Dibbets , the republic of Albania has a small collection of Modern Art. When Dibbets visited Triana in the early nineties he noticed there was no Modern Art at all. He invited his artist friends to make a donation in art and 57 of his friend donated one or more works to start a collection of Modern Art in Triana. Dibbets himself coordinated the transport and thanks to Dibbets, Triana now has its own collection of Modern Art. A great success and important to know that such a small initiative by an artist can give great results.

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Posted on 28.07.201612.02.2018 by ftnbooks — 1 Comment

Marc Mulders – A travel to rome part I

In 1989 Marc Mulders published a Travel to rome part 1. For me it was the starting point to follow Mulders as an artist. We met shortly after i visited the Picaron editions stand and made an appointment with Marc Mulders to see if we could collaborate and present his publications in the Museumshop of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. I still remember where we met and shortly after this meeting publications by Mulders were sold in the Museumshop of the Gemeentemuseum. This one I bought for myself because i was so impressed with the photographs and original ballpoint drawings in this portfolio. I do not not know anything about the size of this edition, but every portfolio must be different because of the original drawings which are included.

From that date on i followed Mulders and was impressed with his painting which looks “rough” but has such finesse in technique and result that one can only admire Mulders. The DE PONT museum in Tilburg has probably the largest collection of Mulders and they even have another copy of the A TRAVEL TO ROME, so you can get an excellent impression of the works by Mulder and see how he evolved during the last 3 decades.

To give the best impression of this classic Mulders publication i photographed all its pages and you can see for yourself why this Mulders is such an important publication.

Of course there are many more publications by Marc Mulders and for those that are interested take a look at my site: www.ftn-books.com