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Eadward Muybridge (1830-1904)

The importance of Muybridge is not the artistic way he made his photographs, but because he recognized that he could catalogue motion and movement by placing photographs in sequence. This find was important because in detail one could study all movements. From athletes to birds….everything was photographed ,recorded and placed in sequence, making this in the 19th century the reference guide for all movement. The quality of his studies and photographs is shown in this excellent animation

Conclusion must be that not only serious art lovers, but also directors and animators are tributary to Eadward Muybridge.

And of course www.ftn-books.com has some nice books available on the subject.

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Joel Peter Witkin (1939) and Erwin Olaf (1959)

 

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1983, well before the fame and celebrity status of Erwin Olaf, there was this photographer who was presented in an exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum…Joel Peter Witkin was his name and his photographs balanced between absurd realism and surrealism. The same kind of photographs Erwin Olaf made in one of his first series CHESSMAN (1988). This series must have been strongly inspired by Witkin, since it depicts the same kind of absurd subjects, props and even the tone/color and atmosphere in the photographs are the same.

This series by Olaf was the first to make his work known among collectors and since, he has developed a style of his own, with completely staged photographs with a typical sixties/seventies atmosphere, but if you think his first series CHESS MEN was original and typically Erwin Olaf, than first have a look at Joel Peter Witkin and than judge again. Both mentioned publications and others on Witkin and Olaf are available at www.ftn-books.com.

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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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Kho Liang Ie ( 1927-1975) and dutch design

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It was the late 50’s and early sixties that a new generation of dutch designers stood up and almost all of them have been of great influence on corporate, furniture and book design all over the world. Kho LIang Ie was one of them. Less known than Sandberg and Crouwel , but still one who’s influence on design is still there. As i understand Pastoe is still making his couch C653, but not only furniture was designed by Kho Lian Ie.

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He designed complete exhibitions and ofcourse some beautiful catalogues  of which some are available at www.ftn-books.com

To get a good idea of the importance of Kho Liang Ie, visit his website on which is explained in an excellent way the project which he was responsible for and for which he made some great designs. http://www.kholiangie.com

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Seven of the items from the above picture are available at www.ftn-books.com

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Gary Hill (1951)

Personally I find it an art form which is hard to understand, but sometimes there are Video installations which i appreciate. For instance the Erszebet Baerveldt ..Requiem is one of the most fascinating video’s i know ( search it on Youtube). Gary Hill’s video’s are more direct. In many cases filmed at close range with an intriguing voice over make these video’s very direct. They are not beautiful but highly intriguing and once you have seen them you will remember them.

It is not easy to find publications on Gary Hill and even more …is a book a suitable medium to promote a video artist?..i do not think so, but what makes the publications on Gary Hill i have at www.ftn-books.com worthwhile is the way these are published and designed. Great collectable books on a great video artist.

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Ilja (Ilya) Kabakov (1933)

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Born in Ukrainia in 1933, he later immigrated in 1987 to Graz in Austria and after that he became an American citizen and moved to New York. Since 1987 his works /installations are executed by him and his niece Emilia, whi=o would later become his wife. Kabakov s considered to be one of the foremost installation/conceptual artists in the world and because of this status his works were presented and collected by the Stedelijk Museum. Many publications, including HET GROTE ARCHIEF,

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are still within in the collection, but rarely exhibited. Kabakov is one of those artists who are lesser known with the great public, but who works will become more and more important in the years to come. What his works make for me more interesting is the beautiful books which and catalogues which are published with his exhibitions and 2 of them are for sale at www.ftn-books.com

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Walter de Maria (1935-2013)

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Wim Beeren was the first curator /director of the Stedelijk Museum who bought for the collection of the SM a Walter de Maria. Others in the Netherlands, ao the Museum Boymans van Beuningen, would follow, but still there are not many works by de Maria to be found in dutch collections. Probably the main reason is not their appeal, but these works are hard to collect because of their sheer size and complexity. They need space….. a lot of space……

Complete rooms or even outside spaces have to be dedicated to one work ( see lightning field, de Maria’s most famous work) and that is for many Museums and collectors the main reason not to include a de Maria. Still whenever there is a retrospective in a museum, visitors are impressed and one can easily see why. Look at the video and get a nice impression of his qualities of his form of LAND ART.

https://youtu.be/Vpw_UC7sUN0

and of course visit www.ftn-books.com for some nice publications.

 

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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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Vito Acconci (1940-2017)

 

Source: Blouin Art info

The performance artist and designer Vito Acconci has passed away. yesterday.

He was 77 years old.

Details of are still emerging, but it is believed that the cause of his death was a stroke. The news was first broken on Instagram by writer, curator, and collector, Kenny Schachter, a friend of the artist who has shown his work.

Acconci was born January 24, 1940, in Bronx, New York. He first came to prominence in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s as part of the underground art scene in lower Manhattan. He is perhaps best known for his provocative performance work from this period, such as his infamous 1971 piece, “Seedbed,” in which he laid under a concealed wooden stage at Sonnebend Gallery and masturbated while uttering sexual fantasies about the visitors walking above him.

The artist continued to work steadily up until his death. Last year, a survey of his influential works from the 1970s, titled “VITO ACCONCI: WHERE WE ARE NOW (WHO ARE WE ANYWAY?),” was shown at MoMA PS1.

for publications on Acconci see www.ftn-books.com

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Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985)

It was early February that we visited Paris and ended our 3 day’s in this city with a visit of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Situated next door to the Louvre it is much less known, but the reason to visit was the Bauhaus exhibition which was held over there.  However , it was not the Bauhaus exhibition , but de exquisite Dubuffet collection which won me over. Because www.ftn-books.com has a large inventory of Dubuffet publications ( 24 available items) i searched for this blog the internet and found a great short synopsis on this Art Brut artist.

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Jean Dubuffet disliked authority from a very early age. He left home at 17, failed to complete his art education, and wavered for many years between painting and working in his father’s wine business. He would later be a successful propagandist, gaining notoriety for his attacks on conformism and mainstream culture, which he described as “asphyxiating.” He was attracted to the art of children and the mentally ill, and did much to promote their work, collecting it and promulgating the notion of Art Brut. His early work was influenced by that of outsiders, but it was also shaped by the interests in materiality that preoccupied many post-war French artists associated with the Art Informel movement. In the early 1960s, he developed a radically new, graphic style, which he called “Hourloupe,” and would deploy it on many important public commissions, but he remains best known for the thick textured and gritty surfaces of his pictures from the 1940s and ’50s.

Key Ideas

Dubuffet was launched to success with a series of exhibitions that opposed the prevailing mood of post-war Paris and consequently sparked enormous scandal. While the public looked for a redemptive art and a restoration of old values, Dubuffet confronted them with childlike images that satirized the conventional genres of high art. And while the public looked for beauty, he gave them pictures with coarse textures and drab colors, which critics likened to dirt and excrement.
The emphasis on texture and materiality in Dubuffet’s paintings might be read as an insistence on the real. In the aftermath of the war, it represented an appeal to acknowledge humanity’s failings and begin again from the ground – literally the soil – up.
Dubuffet’s Hourloupe style developed from a chance doodle while he was on the telephone. The basis of it was a tangle of clean black lines that forms cells, which are sometimes filled with unmixed color. He believed the style evoked the manner in which objects appear in the mind. This contrast between physical and mental representation later encouraged him to use the approach to create sculpture.
http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/francais/musees/musee-des-arts-decoratifs/parcours/galeries-thematiques/galerie-jean-dubuffet/