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Francesco Somaini (1926-2005)

Born in Lomazzo, Italy, on August 6, 1926, Francesco Somaini embarked on his artistic journey after completing a law degree at the Università di Pavia in 1949. He sought guidance from Giacomo Manzù by attending his courses at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. Making his debut in the world of art in 1948 at the Rassegna di Arti figurative sponsored by the Rome Quadriennale, Somaini made his first appearance at the Venice Biennale in 1950. During the mid-1950s, he crafted sculptures made of iron conglomerate, which foreshadowed his involvement with the Italian Art Informel movement.

Somaini’s artistic achievements took center stage during the late 1950s at both the Venice Biennale in 1956 and the São Paolo Bienal in 1959. His outstanding talent garnered him the First International Prize for Sculpture at the latter event. This success in Brazil led to numerous exhibition invitations throughout Italy, including a showcase of his work at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York in 1960. In 1961, he was honored with the esteemed French Art Criticism prize at the Deuxième Paris Biennale. Adhering to the principles of Art Informel, Somaini aimed to expand his sculptural language by incorporating a broader range of materials. He actively participated in a multitude of national and international exhibitions throughout the 1960s.

By the late 1960s, as his Informel phase neared its end, Somaini shifted his focus to creating large-scale works. In the 1970s, he produced a series of drawings and photomontages envisioning the integration of sculptural elements within urban settings. Notable among these were the Bridge–Square design proposal for Gustav Gründgens Platz in Düsseldorf (1980) and the Anthropomorphic Garden and Baignade for the Parc de la Villette in Paris (1982). Concurrent with these explorations, Somaini developed a novel carving technique utilizing high-pressure sand jets.

The dynamic element was introduced in his work during his Tracce series in 1975. This involved rolling a matrix along a clay trench, resulting in an imprint called traccia (trace). Somaini showcased these new works in his solo room at the Venice Biennale in 1978. From the mid-1980s onwards, the artist returned to creating large-scale compositions. Notable solo shows by Somaini included exhibitions organized by the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg in 1979, Palazzo di Brera in Milan in 1997, Castel Pergine in Trento in 2000, and the Somaini, Sculture, dipinti e disegni 1950-2001, exhibition held in Como in 2002. On November 19, 2005, Francesco Somaini passed away in Como. In 2007, the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome hosted Somaini’s first retrospective exhibition after his death.

www.ftn-books.com has the 1986 Bologna catalog now available.

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Peer Veneman (1952)

a classic photo of Peer Veneman

It must have been written in the stars since many dutch artist swho became household names in the 80’s and 90’s were born and raised in the city of Eindhoven. There are of course Henk Visch and Piet Dirkx to whome i have devoted multiple blogs and now you can add Peer Veneman to that list. Also born and raised in Eindhoven, but this time with a different career. Where Dirkx and Visch stayed initially in Eindhoven, Veneman moved to Amsterdam and soon became part of the LIVING ROOM art scene. Here he had his first successful exhibitions and later his name would become more familiar and his works more successful resulting in exhibitions at galerie Onrust and at galerie Hafemann.

He became known in the 1980’s with colorful sculptures that somehow filled the space between abstraction and figuration. Ever since he took the liberty to make abstract and figurative works at the same time, denying the traditional gap between the two. One constant factor evident throughout all his work is his apparent refusal, even within a single piece of sculpture, to do the same thing twice. He aims to give new meaning to sculpture (form), painting (the surface) and architecture (spatial construction). Not only are the formal aspects of visual art questioned by Veneman in his work, but his connotative intentions also undergo that process as well.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice Living Room and Veneman publications available.

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Roelof Mulder (1962)

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Roelof Mulder is a multidisciplinary artist, operating in the field of graphic design, type design, interior and exhibition design. He studied fine art at the Academy in Arnhem and he attended the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht for a year in order to underline his love for the graphic arts. Mulder’s departure from the academy was quickly followed by the announcement that he was to be the first winner of the Rotterdam Design Prize.
His graphic and editorial work includes books for Droog, MVRDV architects, Marcel Wanders, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, E&Y, and artists Yasumasa Yonehara, Marijke van Warmerdam and Marlene Dumas. He was member of the editorial staff and designer of Forum magazine and he has been art director of Frame magazine twice. Mulder also did campaign work for fashion brands such as Takeo Kikuchi and Diesel, various exhibition and communication work for incubator Platform21, and stamps for the Royal Dutch Post.

From his early years http://www.ftn-books.com has a nice book in its inventory

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Roberto Fanari (1984)

 

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Italian artist Roberto Fanari  imagined such a vivid story-telling collection of sculptures Seconda B 2012. Each piece forms itself  in a barely visible outline. Sweet subjects are wrapped in iron wire, appearing more dense toward the feet, hands, and head. Royal placement sets some high on a pedestal where a bit of romance introduces a ceramic glazed gentlemen.

An excellent expose on the art of Roberto Fanari is found at this site:

The sign of the material

a signed copy of his Nella MIa Foresta publication is available at http://www.ftn-books.com

fanari

 

 

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Piet Tuytel (1956)

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I just “discovered” Piet Tuytel and his art and made my first acquisition. I have encountered his works on numerous auctions and always thought his work to much random, but now that i have read more about the artist and have seen some of his works exhibited, i must alter my opinion. This is far from random. He varies on a theme and uses the materials you can find at construction markets in a way nobody does. Using colors to enhance and constructing/ welding materials to make his sculptures and multiples. The multiple i have acquired is one from a series of 3. Signed numbered and dated 1990. In this period he uses rubber hoses. mesh, constructing steel and in this case a baking form for cakes. The impression he makes with this ‘ ADONIS” is a strong person perhaps a body builder , just the outline and one keeps being fascinated by the materials used. Rough , but a joy to look at and admire. The “Adonis ” sculpture is now available at www.ftn-books.com

tuytel adonis

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Susana Solano (1946)

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Susana Solano’s creative structure has taken shape all throughout her career like one of the metallic meshes that are a constant feature of her works. It has shaped a map of communicating vessels in which material, space, senses and life experience make up a fluid continuum. Susana Solano’s works, regardless of the materials used and their size, correspond to an underlying idea of witnessing existence through its materialization as a memory of her emotional relationships with spaces, shapes and people. For this reason, every sculpture absorbs and expresses personal experiences that radiate out over the setting and transform them, as if it were a cosmic game.

Jack Shainman Gallery, West 20th St Susana Solano A Meitat De Cami-Halfway There-1My ideal space is a unique space, empty of stories, with which I could fall in love. A space unknown to me, an atmosphere of thought. I want now to concentrate on a life in which there is nothing and to work with the minimum possible.

–       Solano, Susana. Susana Solano: Dibuixos, Escultures, Fotografies, Instal·lacions : Muecas. Barcelona: Museu D’Art Contemporani De Barcelona, 1999.

Solano is best known for her abstract sculptures made from a range of materials that includes iron, steel, lead, glass, rattan and wire mesh. She belongs to a generation of pioneering female sculptors who expanded a realm conventionally dominated by men. Within the traditions of post-minimalism, Solano’s work conveys a connection to personal memory, domestic space, and the natural world. With the artist’s hand leaving traces of her process, the rigidity of the materials is counterbalanced with the personal. Her approach is one that channels architectural forms and consideration of space with a delicate quality that balances the natural and the industrial.

Susana Solano lives and works in Barcelona. Her group exhibitions include Skulptur Projekte Münster and Documenta 8 in Kassel, Germany (1987), São Paulo Biennial (1987), the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1988), the Carnegie International (1988), and the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid (2007). She has also had solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (1989-90), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1991), the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (1992 and 2003), Whitechapel Gallery, London (1993), the Museu d’art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) (1999), and Museo Casa de la Moneda, Madrid (2012-13). Her work is included in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, among others.

www.ftn-books.com has one Solano title avaialble.

susana solano

 

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Leo Vroegindeweij (1955)

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The first time i encountered the name of Vroegindeweij was at the time i started to take an interest in the students who visited the”Ateliers 63″ academy. Leo Vroegindewij was a student at Ateliers 63 in the years 1976-1978 and finshed his studies around the time i started my publishing years at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. It is also the years i took an interest in the Art & Project gallery which was one of the f

irst to show the works by Leo Vroegindeweij. I like his sculkptures however they are not very suited for the living room and really need space and only galleries and museum s can presdent them in a proper way and for me that is the reason i never considered buying a work by Vroegindeweij. They need “room to move” and it is hard to realize such space in a family home. Still, his works must be admired and whenever a small one comes to the market i promissed myself to reconsider buying one.

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Herzl Emanuel (1914-2002)

Schermafbeelding 2021-03-23 om 15.56.51As a teenager, Herzl Emanuel studied art at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York. Emanuel quithigh school in 1931, and, with the assistance of several patrons who recognized his talent, went to Paris, hoping to study with Emile-Antoine Bourdelle. Although the French master died with Charles Despiau and Fernand Léger and attended lectures given by André Lhote. He was soon joined by Hananiah Harari, then a student at Syracuse University, with whom he shared a studio and later accompanied to Palestine. In Paris, the two young men were intrigued by contemporary art. They felt its validity and power without fully understanding why Picasso, Matisse, and others could so successfully do such violence to the figure.(1) Believing the answer to their questions lay deep in the history of art, Emanuel and Harari spent a year drawing from the collections at the Louvre. Beginning with Hittite and Egyptian art, they worked their way chronologically to the nineteenth century, seeking to understand the structure and logic of the art of the past. In the Louvre, Emanuel says, we learned the grammar of art. We learned its syntax, its alphabet, until contemporary art represented no mystery. We learned its rationale, where it came from, the basic language. We saw its connection with the art of the past.”(2) Although in Paris whenAbstraction-Création wasbeing formed, Emanuel and Harari saw such publications but paid little attention to the theories or the movements germinating around them.

emanuel x

 

As fascism threatened Europe, Emanuel and Harari left for Palestine where they worked on a kibbutz for over a year. Although the kibbutz regimen left little time for art, the experience enriched them philosophically. After a brief stay in Jerusalem, Emanuel returned to the United States and in 1936 joined the sculpture division of the New York Federal Art Project.(3) During the mid 1930s, Emanuel was sympathetic with leftist political causes. By participating in the WPA, he said, ​we felt we were working directly for society.”

When war came, Emanuel went to work for a shipyard, and afterwards made his living doing display work. Later he worked as an illustrator. During the mid 1950s he taught illustration, sculpture, and a foundation course at the School of Visual Arts in New York. After six years, he gave up his teaching position to return to Europe. In Rome, he set up a studio that he still maintains.

Throughout his career, Emanuel’s art has been centered in a deeply felt humanism. Art for him offers a way to come to terms with the human condition. Though he still finds inspiration in Romanesque and Italian Renaissance art, it was Picasso’s Guernica that had the most dramatic impact in his life. Calling it the most significant work of art of the twentieth century, Emanuel has sought to achieve in his own work a fusion of abstracted form with tragic content that parallels Picasso’s powerful statement. Since the 1930s, his sculpture has evolved from an Analytical Cubist format to an Expressionism in which the human form is distorted to convey the human condition. Yet by intertwining limbs and connecting gazes in multifiguralcompositions, he offers up human relationships as notes of hope that temper the effects of a tragic existence. www.ftn-books.com has the Kuhlik 1972 catalogue now available

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galerie Neuendorf and Hans Neuendorf

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Galerie Neuendorf is one of those iconic galeries that was active in the Eighties and early Nineties selling the very best works by the very best artists.

It nowadays is a private fine art dealership and advisory service based in New York, London, and Berlin, offering expertise on modern and contemporary art and specializing in sourcing the highest quality artworks for clients.
Founded as a gallery by Hans Neuendorf in 1964; Neuendorf represented, and was instrumental in the development and present artistic legacy of renowned artists including Georg Baselitz, Lucio Fontana, David Hockney, Francis Picabia, Cy Twombly, and others.
Since closing the gallery in 1995, Neuendorf has continued to work with a select group of clients to build and manage their collections. With over 70 years combined experience in the art market, we offer our clients a direct, personal, and discreet option to buying and selling artworks, but this is all “old school”….he probably will be remembered as the founder of Artnet.

When Hans Neuendorf created his online art company in 1989, he had little inkling that providing transparent art-market data would transform what was then a boutique art business into, 30 years later, a global industry that regularly transacts in $100 million sales. But that is exactly what has happened.

neuendorf

www.ftn-books.com has some of the Neuendorf catalogues availabel. The best one is the 1992 book, which included the list of available works and their prices. It shows exactly what Neunedorf predicts for the future. Prices of great art will rise in the decades to come

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Niek Kemps (1952)

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Niek Kemps has been a part of the international art scene since the eighties. The artist wants to stimulate the spectator with his conceptual work, to process images in a different way; a statement about the attention span of modern day society and the accompanying image culture. Kemps’ work is like a laboratory, wherein he does both substantial as visual research to the social and cultural context, and how this relates to image, space, contemporary art and the concept of ‘museum’.

Sculpture becomes space, space becomes museum. A museological space can take diverse appearances: whether it’s static, collapsed, moving, hidden or even virtual. In his work, the artist questions, among other things, the more traditional configuration of the museum. From the need for a funded complexity, he analyses the different connotations, and this from a philosophical and visual stand point. In doing so, Kemps researches the impact of a full virtualization of the museological existence, wherein a virtual (read: fictional) museum merely displays digital work.

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Also in this imaginary constellation, the focus remains on the perception of context and space. An intertwining between fiction and reality is created. Virtual work is easily translated into a physical construction, a spaciousness, a sculpture, and vice versa. Kemps’ images never stand alone; they consistently show a sensitivity in relation to their surroundings, they interact so to speak with the space wherein they are located.

‘The narrow line between sight and seeing’, a work from 1986, is a speaking example of this. Until now, this illustrates the essence of his oeuvre. Originally it seems to be a sculpture. Yet the work is experienced as a space; a between area that questions all sorts of traditions and clichés. By continuously operating on this interface, the artist challenges the spectator to get out of their comfort zone, to explore the work, and to spend time with / in it. The artwork reveals itself only to the patient, attentive spectator. Every composition is formulated very precisely, like a poem. This form of complexity ensures that the work can never be apprehended at first glance. To fathom the different layers of meaning(s) takes time and effort. By defying fixed landmarks, meanings, perspective, and scale, every form of rational analysis is extracted or simply removed and it results in an astonishing artwork that invites to be lived and incites the spectator to reflect one self.