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Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001)…erotic and bizarre

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Pierre Klossowski (1905-2001)

Pierre Klossowski’s art has always been on the border of what is  acceptable for the main stream art lover. As a viewer you almost feel always like you are intruding in an intimate scene . A little violent …and one which is drawn in delicate colors and therefore is pleasant to look at….but study it and you see what is happening and it is less pleasing

Pierre Klossowski came from an artist family and was the younger brother of the famous Balthus. You can see that they influenced each other but the works by Pierre are far more explicit as where the works by Balthus always depict a scene from which the viewer can make his own story. Klossowski   was a multi talented artist who made movies and wrote essays, but his claim to fame is his drawings and sculptures which are highly recognizable and original.

From 20 September to 19 October 2006 there was a display of Klossowski’s drawings and life size sculptures made after them with sculptor Jean-Paul Réti along with the art of Hans Bellmer at the Whitechapel also presented at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne and the MNAM Paris with a film retrospective. Since, many publications have been published on this artist, but some of the earlier ones are available at www.ftn-books.comwww.ftn-books.com

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James Turrell…a magic place in the dunes

Nearby the city of Den Haag, close by the beach of Kijkduin you can visit one of the most important works of art in the Netherlands. Stroom has commissioned James Turrell some 20 years ago to realize a Turrell masterpiece in the dunes of Kijkduin titles CELESTIAL VAULT. You can enter through a tunnel a beautiful shaped bowl covered with grass , with in the middle a stone bench, which functions as a bed. When laid down, you can experience the serene surroundings and look at the sky, which of course is always different. Dutch landscapes are renowned for their skies and because of the focus on the sky when you are lying down you can experience this for the full 100%

An absolute must for the Turrell admirers and good to know that the CELESTIAL VAULT has been restored to its original splendor some 5 years ago.

www.ftn-books.com has some nice titles on Turrell including the one on this masterpeice in the dunes. This one is signed and from a limited signed edition. Beautiful publication and today for the special price USD 150.00

 

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Jakob Bill….son of Max Bill

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The title sounds like a sequel to a popular horror movie, but it isn’t.

Somehow i have developed a liking for Swiss contemporary KONKRETE artists. Almost all are constructivists and Richard Paul Lohse and Jakob Bill are two of them. This time i will blog on Jakob Bill the son of the famous Max Bill and belonging to the group of Zurich Konkrete Kunst.

Outside Switzerland and Germany , Bill is not very well known, but when you visit the collections in Switzerland you encounter many works by Bill. The Zurich Museum/ Haus Konstruktiv organized some exhibitions with Bill, but his most important major exhibitions were all in Swiss Museums . Except for one…..Organized by one of the best galleries in the world. Galerie Denise Rene organized an exhibition in 1972. Denise Rene was the perfect gallery for an artist like Bill, they already represented great artist like Vasarely, Arp., Agam and Jesus Rafael Soto. Bill fits in perfectly. Perhaps this exhibition was a step forward for the popularity of the works by Jakob Bill, but still the artist is not very well known outside Switzerland and certainly deserves better.

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Anton Stankowski

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What is the best book on Anton Stankowski? ….Without any doubt this is FREE and APPLIED 1925-1995. A two volume publication which gives the very best possible overview on the works by Anton Stankowski. A hard to find book in these days and sold out at www.ftn-books.com, but if you are willing to pay for it there are still some to be found. Because of the weight of almost 5 kg, shipping is very expensive, so be careful where you order. This said there are many more nice publications on this great artist to be found. Some on his photography others on his designs, but most on his paintings and graphics. Stankowski is such an artist who is recognized as being important by a small group of admirers, but when you look into his history you become more and more aware of his importance to his fellow artists and within a decade or so his works will become extremely important in relation to others ( like Albers is to Minimal art) and with that too expensive to collect.

For those interested in Stankowski , please look at my small inventory i have at www.ftn-books.com including some nice signed and numbered graphic art.

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There Will be Blood…Hermann Nitsch

 

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There will be blood….This is the title of one of the most exciting movies from the last decade with a brilliant Daniel Day-Lewis. Violent, colorful story of a family followed over 60 years in the oil business…definitely a must see.

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But this title also refers to the performances of the Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch . From the early 60’s on he made well over 100 performances within his cycle of the Orgien Mysterien Theater. Bloody performances, but meticulously executed and well thought over. Naked people, audience, blood and canvases , registered on Video or film and directed by Nitsch himself make these  true works of art. The performance is one part of the art work, the other part are the canvasses which were made with material from these performances and sold by galleries worldwide. When you visit Vienna visit the Tourist Office to see if there is a performance planned. When visiting Napoli ( Italy) realize that outside Austria In Naples is the largest Nitsch collection assembled in the http://www.museonitsch.org

Blood is not only used by Nitsch, but others use blood as well. Marc Quinn uses blood to freeze it into a sculpture of a human head and Eric Orr uses it as paint for his paintings. Do not be horrified by the use of blood in art, but see the beauty of the art which is made by the use of blood.

wilfried

NItsch titles available at www.ftn-books.com

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Josef Koudelka….not only a Magnum photographer.

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Czech nationality and now 78 years of age, spanning a photography career of over 55 years, multiple exhibitions all over the world, Koudelka has become one of the most important photographers in modern photograph. Street scenes and the Romani ( Gypsies from Romany) are subjects he has become famous for. Not only a Magnum photographer but also a photographer who found his subjects among people he cared about. They were not only his subjects. In the photographs you could see that he could come very close by and had become more of  a friend than the photographer who followed his subject.

I thought about Koudelka because i found a very interesting article about Koudelka in which is explained what the 10 most important lessons were Koudelka has taught a fellow photographer.

http://erickimphotography.com/blog/2013/03/28/10-lessons-josef-koudelka-has-taught-me-about-street-photography/

this is what the author Eric Kim says about Koudelka and i totally agree with him.

“To me, Josef Koudelka is one of the most brilliant photographers out there and a true master of black and white. Not only does his work carry a strong sense of composition, form, and geometry but they also carry an emotional impact. His photos are raw, gritty, and show both the hope and melancholy of life”

If you are interested in modern photography you must look at these breathtaking and intriguing photographs and certainly you will agree with me that this is a true master of black and white photography.

wilfried

book below is available at www.ftn-books.com

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Niki de Saint Phalle…Lost and Found

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I told you about our visit to the Tinguely and Beyeler Museum in Basel about 8 years ago. There was a special exhibition on Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle and on this occasion a sheet with Niki de Saint Phalle iconic figures was published. I bought 10 of them , but lost them……..

Last week i ruffled through and looked into a Niki de Saint Phalle book and surprise!….found these sheets that i had bought several years. ago. You Rub over it and the figure is transferred to the underlying piece ( like rubbing letters)  I totally had forgotten about them, but looking at them closely again I noticed that these were still very special and for Niki de Saint Phalle collectors true collectables. The sheets were still mint and now i that found them i can offer 5 of them at a special price to my readers.

Including worldwide shipping price is USD 15.00 for each sheet ( only 5 available ).

Please send a mail to wvdelshout@ziggo.nl to order.

wilfried

www.ftn-books.com

PS. Of course a picture of the “guilty” book where the sheets were hiding for eight years.

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George Grosz ….the artist reporter in the “Interbellum”

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The period between the two World Wars in the 20th century is called the Interbellum. George Grosz lived and worked in those years and reported in print and drawings the daily and night life of the people surrounding him. Brothels, whores, artists, friends….. everybody worth as a subject was drawn or painted by him. These works show daily life on the fringes of society. Rough, sensual and sometimes even ugly, but always fascinating.

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Gallery van Voorst van Beest presented a nice selection of these drawings 2 decades ago and published a beautiful catalogue with it. ( see pictures ), but beside this one there are many more Grosz books to be found at www.ftn-books.com

 

wilfried

 

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Francis Bacon

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If you ask me which artist was represented with the most beautiful and best catalogues published for every exhibition organized with his works…. the answer is Francis Bacon.

Oversized catalogues with several hundreds of pages, excellent print quality and because of its content in many cases with multiple fold out pages to show Bacon’s Triptych’s in the best possible way outside a museum.

I followed Bacon closely because in 2001 the Gemeentemuseum organized its most expensive and logistically one of the most difficult exhibitions ever ….the one on Francis Bacon. The plan was to print the catalogue in Singapore, but because of a promised book publication to the former director, he decided for a dutch publisher. An initial publication run was set in relation with the expected number of visitors. Soon after opening it proved a wrong estimate, because fortunately, the works by Bacon proved to be far more popular than expected. 3 editions of the catalogue were printed during the exhibition and in total almost 8.00o copies were sold . A huge commercial succes, but even more important a great succes for Bacon as one of the leading modern artists from the 20th century.

This was one of the last times so many large Bacon paintings ,including many Triptychs, were presented in one Bacon exhibition. The exhibition showed the importance of Bacon and because of this, the Gemeentemuseum got on loan the Bacon which is in the collection of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and one from the estate of Francis Bacon. Nowhere in the Netherlands so many Bacon paintings can be seen in one spot and  and the sixties acquisition  of the PARALYTIC CHILD WALKING ON ALL FOURS proved to be a worthy addition the collection of the Gemeentemuseum. ( in the JAARBOEK a study by Josephus Jitta is published on the “Paralytic child”)

 

wilfried

www.ftn-books.com