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Fashion with Claudia Schiffer (1970) and Chanel

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As Monty Python would have said ” and now for something completely different”…..

but is it really different?…. when you consider true fashion is great art and know that Karl Lagerfeld is not only a great fashion designer, but also one of the great photographers from the last century, you may consider Claudia Schiffer his “muse” and being that, she is an almost perfect work of art and therefore i am delighted to write this blog on one of my favorite fashion models of all time, Claudia Schiffer.

In the early 1990s, she starred in campaigns for Guess?.Guess? co-founder Paul Marciano said in E! Forbes Top 15 Supermodel Beauties Who Made Bank, “Guess? name became really much more known around the world because of Claudia”. After several other magazine appearances including the cover of British Vogue, shot by Herb Ritts, Schiffer was selected by Karl Lagerfeld to become the new face of Chanel. In May 1997, Schiffer was featured on the cover and in the pictorial of Playboy.

Schiffer appeared on the November 1999 millennium cover of Vogue as one of the “Modern Muses”. Named one of the most beautiful women in the world,[by whom?] her ability to appeal to a global audience assured an internationally successful career spanning over 25 years. Other magazines Schiffer has appeared on the covers of include Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, People, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Cosmopolitan and Time. Schiffer has walked in fashion shows for numerous fashion houses, including Versace, Karl Lagerfeld, Chloé, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, Fendi, Michael Kors, Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren, Balmain, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Valentino.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice books on Schiffer, Fashion, Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld

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Willi Baumeister (1889-1955)… a constructivist?

 

Personally i consider, like Jurrie Poot, ( he wrote a short article on Baumeister in the Stedelijk Museum Bulletin) a constructivist. But a constructivist who became more free with every painting finally resulting in a style which was a cross between Malevich, Miro and in the Netherlands …Willy Boers.

Born at Stuttgart, where in 1911 he enrolled at the Art Academy as a pupil of Adolf Hölzel. Trip to Paris in 1912 where he discovered the work of ToulouseLautrec and Gauguin. Another trip to Paris in 1914 with Oskar Schlemmer; this time he became an enthusiastic admirer of Cézanne. From 1919 date his first Mauerbilder (wall pictures). A third stay in Paris in 1924, where he came into contact with Ozenfant, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger and, some years later, the Abstraction-Creation group ( 1932). He taught at the Fine Arts School in Frankfort from 1928 to 1933, when he was dismissed by the Nazis and condemned as a “degenerate painter.” Thereafter he lived a retired life in Stuttgart and worked on in solitude until the end of the war; earned his living during this period by working in a printing plant. Appointed to a professorship at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts in 1946. In 1947 he published a book, Das Unbekannte in der Kunst, written four years earlier. His work has been represented in most of the major post-war exhibitions in Europe, and also at the exhibition of German Art of the Twentieth Century, held in 1957 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Baumeister retrospectives organized at Documenta ll ( Kassel, 1959) and at the 1960 Venice Biennale.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice titles on Willi Baumeister

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Domenico Gnoli (1933-1970)… is Italian Pop Art

Died at the age of 37 , too young to die and leaving so much to admire. From his own perspective Gnoli enlarged daily objects and transformed them into large paintings, a little bit like Konrad Klapheck does, but with a much more gentle approach to the subject. Focussing on the extreme details , like stitchings and tissues he makes highly recognizable paintings.

Gnoli was born in Italy but moved at a very young age to the US where he stayed and worked in New York for the better part of his life. Painting and as a Stage designer to make a living, he got his first exhibitions in New York. Gnoli was presented in a large exhibition in the Netherland at the Boijmans van Beuningen museum, but it is of late that his name keep surfacing as one of the more important and influential Italian artists from the sixties and it is this raised interest in his works that it makes harder and harder to find good publications on Gnoli. www.ftn-books.com has two books available.

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Joan Jonas (1936)….only one book

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Joan Jonas was born in 1936 in New York. A pioneer of performance and video art, Jonas works in video, installation, sculpture, and drawing, often collaborating with musicians and dancers to realize improvisational works that are equally at home in the museum gallery and on the theatrical stage. Drawing on mythic stories from various cultures, Jonas invests texts from the past with the politics of the present.

Just a short biography which can be found everywhere on the internet, but a visual example of her work says more than a thousand words.

and the interview she has done with Art21

 

www.ftn-books.com has only one book available by Joan Jonas. It is the exhibition catalogue for her Stedelijk Museum exhibition in 1994.

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Gabriel Orozco (1955)

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Yes ….it takes time to appreciate the works by Gabriel Orozco, but fortunately we have had the chance to experience his works on several occasions including the exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential contemporary artists of his generation. Employing a diverse practice that includes installation, sculpture, painting, and video, Orozco’s work is characterized by its focus on reinterpreting everyday objects: in his seminal La DS (1993), the artist cuts out the middle third of a Citroën car, resulting in an object that is at once familiar and totally alien. “What is most important is not so much what people see in the gallery or the museum,” he has said, “but what people see after looking at these things, how they confront reality again.” Born on April 27, 1962 in Jalapa, Veracruz, his father was the Mexican muralist Mario Orozco Rivera. Through him, the younger Orozco was exposed to the world of galleries and artists at a young age, and he went on to study at the Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. He has been the subject of several major exhibitions, notably including a 2009 mid-career retrospective at The Museum of Modern Art in New York which went on to travel to the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and finally the Tate Modern in London in 2011.

Only one monographic publications on Orozco is available at www.ftn-books.com, but his importance is growing every year and he has participated in some major exhibitions which catalogues are available too.

 

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Markus Lüpertz ( 1941)… a dandy painter

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Another of the artists Rudi Fuchs presented at the Stedelijk Museum was Markus Lüpertz . Fuchs is one of his biggest fans and because of that Lupertz was presented in 3 large retropsectives in the Netherland in the last 3 decades. There were exhibitions at the Stedelijk, Gmeentemuseum and van Abbemuseum. Lupertz was and is considered by many curator a true master painter known for his expressively rendered paintings and sculptures, which often merge abstraction and representation. His career first gained traction in the early 1960s, and he was the head of the Düsseldorf Art Academy, one of Germany’s most acclaimed art schools, for 22 years. In his work, Lüpertz combines references to popular culture, biblical and mythological themes and protagonists, and his country’s history and culture, including the Nazi era. His series of paintings of military helmets and other wartime symbols caused controversy in the 1970s, initiating a fraught relationship between him and the viewing public. “You cannot understand the artist in his time, you can only love or hate him,” Lüpertz has said.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice Markus Lüpertz publications available.

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Benno Premsela (1920-1997)…dutch design

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What is the importance of Benno Premsela? Is it because he was one of the first chairmans of the COC ,….or is it because he was one who represented a generation of dutch designers in the seventies and eighties? The story behind Premsela is not just an ordinary story, because as a jew and homosexual he was despised during and right after the war, submerged during the war and had a rough time right after the war because jews and homosexuals still were not accepted in society.

Raised as a humanist he could not understand the way people thought about the jews and homosexuals. This was one of the reasons he decided to become active in the liberation of the homosexuals and eventually became chairman of the COC. the “Nederlandse Vereniging tot Integratie van Homoseksualiteit COC”. An active chairman, who made his contributions to the liberation of the homosexuals in the Netherlands.

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But now i tend to forget that Premsela was also a very gifted designer, who’s designs were executed all over the world and even at one time he had a retrospective in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. This exhibition recognized his qualities as a designer and made his name forever. Benno Premsela was a man to be admired for his ideas and designs. www.ftn-books.com has some nice Premsela designed publications available.

 

 

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Ulrich Rückriem (1938)… a rectangular work

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It must have been in the mid nineties and because of my contact with Jan Jongepier, who worked for Drukkerij Lecturis, i was proposed to acquire some works for my personal collection. It were the works artists used for a partial payment of the printers services and were now for sale. One of them was a rectangular stone sculpture by Ulrich Ruckriem and ….i did not buy it. ( if i remember it well it looked something like this)

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At that time i thought it to be too expensive for only 1.5 meters of stone and secondly and even more important  ..where would i put it? Both were reasons not to buy the work and now 20 years later i am sorry that i did not buy it, because now i appreciate in full the simplicity , but also the strength of Ruckriems works. The only thing that is left is that the memory is still there and every time i pick up a book from www.ftn-books.com on Ruckriem i am reminded of the work i once could have bought.

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Piet Zwart (1885-1977)…dutch design

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There is so much to be told about Piet Zwart, but a short blog on him can only indicate his importance to the world of design and typography. If ever there was a designer who’s influence is of worldwide importance, it is Piet Zwart. I wish my friend David took care of this blog, because he is far more knowledgable on Zwart than any other person i know of. About 40 years ago, shortly after Piet Zwart died, he received some major exhibitions in the Netherlands. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Boijmans van Beuningen museum all had their Piet Zwart retrospectives  of which the one curated by Flip Bool for the Gemeentemuseum was probably the most important one. There was a long relationship between the Gemeentemuseum and Piet Zwart, which resulted in an extensive gift from the Zwart family and several exhibitions on Piet Zwart and his designs in the Gemeentemuseum of which some publications are still available at www.ftn-books.com. For all collectors of Zwart… i want to inform you that there are some very nice catalogues of Piet Zwart items still available at Bubb Kuyper in Haarlem. Bubb Kuyper held special Piet Zwart auctions during the last 3 years in which they auctioned many rare Piet Zwart items.

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One more things on Piet Zwart that you possibly did not know of. Because of the relationship with Piet Zwart , the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag placed a bench in its garden. design?….yes, Piet Zwart and to memorate his 80th Birthday , Willem Sandberg designed a special publication which is also available at ftn-books.

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PS.

I almost forgot. The street lightning in some of the older parts of Den Haag…yes , also Piet Zwart’s design.

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Imi Knoebel (1940)…a minimalist abstract painter

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Imi Knoebel is a minimal abstract painter, but certainly not a minimal painter, because his compositions and sculptures are far more exuberant and less structured than the ones from his minimal colleagues. The result is a “happy” kind of art in which there is place for abstraction and primary colors resulting in something pleasing for the eye. His art must in some way be influenced by the suprematistic ideas of Malevich.

Knoebel’s work explores the relationship between space, picture support and color. The style and formal concerns of his painting and sculpture have drawn comparisons with the ideas of Suprematism and the Bauhaus.

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Knoebel is now known all over the world , but not appreciated by many. It will take some time , but my prediction is that he will be as well known as Mondrian in the decades to come. A great artist , who makes great works of art. www.ftn-books.com has some publication on Knoebel in its inventory.