Tag: suisse

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Hans Erni (1909-2015) …a 1947 publication

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I am always looking for special publications on art and artists and this one i found with a Prague antiquarian. It is a publication on Hans Erni. There are nowadays many of Erni publications , ( Erni has become the oldest artist i have ever written about), but at the time of this publication in 1947 , Erni was hardly known and with this Czech publication had one of his very first publications realized. It is in its kind spectacular because the art within is presented in a small portfolio with 16 offset prints. Published by Vladimir Zikes in 1947 t….. a very nice and highly collectable Erni item.

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( wikipedia ays about erni) Erni was commissioned by the Lucerne Museum Fine Arts to organize an exhibit about Pablo Picasso. The Spanish artist remained grateful for that opportunity to show his art in Switzerland. In 1936 Erni started to work with abstract art. From 1940 to 1945 he was a soldier in the Swiss army and was engaged as a camouflage painter because of his experience with large-size murals. In 1948, he was a competitor in the 1948 Summer Olympics’ painting competitions.[5] Between 1950 and 1952 he participated to exhibitions in Latin America. However his participation in the Biennale of São Paulo was not authorized by Federal Councillor Philipp Etter. After a stay in Mauritania and Guinea he painted African topics. In 1960 he organized with Alfred Pauletto, Celestino Piatti, Hugo Wetli and Kurt Wirth an exhibition in Olten about graphic design and painting. He participated to the 1964 Documenta exhibition in Kassel, in the graphic design department.

On 15 September 1979 the Swiss Museum of Transport opened a large personal collection of Erni’s works. He realized a 30 meter long mural for the Museum. Erni was very interested in sport and received the United States Sports Academy award of sport artist of the year in 1989. In 1993 his works were exhibited at the Pence Gallery in San Francisco.

He celebrated his 100th birthday in 2009. His sister, Maria Strebi-Erni (January 14, 1907 – January 29, 2014), died at the age of 107.[6] Erni died on March 21, 2015, aged 106.

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Valérie Favre (1959)

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Born in Switzerland , but working for most part of her artistic life in Berlin, Favre has gathered a loyal following of collectors. Her work is a typical feminal mix of abstraction and story telling.

Within the composition there are always recognizable elements, but background and even some of the props in the painting can be purely abstract.

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Valérie Favre makes up stories and tells us these stories, gradually mixing in their sociopolitical influences: war, death, suffering, as well as a few well-known suicides mingling with hybrid creatures in quest of sex, both masculine and feminine. In this way, her works can be seen as a kind of index of the world’s fears and anxieties. Yet, as the artist treats these anxieties with the derisory irony of a piece of paper, she also imposes a distancing from them, a distance from which rises humor.

Outside Germany her art is hardly known and certainly deserves to be known much better.

www.ftn-books.comwww.ftn-books.com has a nice Valerie Favre title available

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Basel…the perfect museum city

 

We always travel the Alsace in the second half of the year between September and December, visit the Christmas markets and pick up some wine at our preferred wineries. If ever we have some spare time and only if there is a nice exhibition, we go to Basel city. You do not need a special “vignet” if you do not travel beyond the Basel / Bale city limits. Certainly do not lunch or drink a coffee in Basel because prices are far too high, but instead visit one of the 3 famous museums within the Basel city limits. First there is the Beyeler Museum ( By Renzo Piano), which is beside the Gemeentemuseum my favorite museum of all time, second there is the Kunstmuseum and third but not least there is the Tinguely Museum ( by Mario Botta). All worth visiting. Entrance fee of all three museums is steep too, but when you save on your coffee and lunch these three museums are well worth visiting. www.ftn-books.com has publications from all 3 museums available.

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Ben Vautier / Fluxus and Basel

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People who follow this blog , know of my love for Ben Vautier. Not only because he is one of the most original and consistent artists from the last 100 years, but also because there is always some humor just around the corner. Unfortunately  I have missed the most important Vautier exhibition from the last 10 years. It was held at the Tinguely Museum in Basel :

Ben Vautier. Is everything art?

21.10.2015 – 22.01.2016

Ben Vautier has been on the scene since the late 1950s as an artist, performer, organizer, linguistic inventor, and re-thinker of art. He is one of the pioneers of the Fluxus movement in Europe and, as a comrade-in-arms of the École de Nice, a close friend of artists such as Arman, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, and others. He is known for his text images, which, using brief, pithy phrases, equally question and challenge life and art. Ben Vautier has the first comprehensive retrospective in Switzerland dedicated to him at the Museum Tinguely. Alongside an overview of the first 20 years of his creativity, Ben sets up in Basel more than 30 rooms as he comments on various social, artistic, and political topics and takes a stance. In total, the show exhibits far in excess of 400 works by the artist, who is still very active to this day.

Still what remains is one of the best and certainly one of the most beautiful books on Vautier’s art. It has a simple brown cover, but is filled with iconic Ben “paintings” from hs first 20 years as an artist and published as only the Suisse can publish art /museum catalogues. The print is exceptionally good, the lay out superb and the contents…..well all BEN, making this one of the most collectable books i recently offered on www.ftn-books.com

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Gianfredo Camesi (1940)

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A Swiss born artist who had at the age of 30 a solo exhibition in 1970 in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Catalogue and poster were designed by Wim Crouwel.

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Camesi painter/sculptor who operates as an avant garde artist pur sang deserved at that time a presentation in the Stedelijk Museum. His works intrigue and it is a pity that he has not become as famous as some of the others from his generation. Still the catalogue published with the exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum is one of the very best designed one from the early Seventies and the art by Camesi within it is still fresh and contemporary and of course available at www.ftn-books.com

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Pipilotti Rist (1957)… another great Suisse artist

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Today i realized that there have been so many great Suisse artist during the last 100 years and certainly Pipilotti Rist is one of them a deserves a small blog to draw attention to her works.

As a video and installation artist she has one element which returns in every one of her projects and it is the use of bright colors. The use of color makes them like 60’s halucinations.

During her studies Pipilotti Rist began making super 8 films. Her works generally last only a few minutes, and contained alterations in their colors, speed, and sound. Her works generally treat issues related to gender, sexuality, and the human body.

Her colorful and musical works transmit a sense of happiness and simplicity. Rist’s work is regarded as feminist by some art critics. Her works are held by many important art collections worldwide.

Because of the use of Video in most of het installations it is hard to find good publications on Rist, but there are some on the market and certainly one of them is available at www.ftn-books.com

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