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The Van Gogh Museum invited the celebrated Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi to present recent work inspired by Vincent van Gogh. Although the two artists differ greatly in historical period and place of origin, their art is very similar in substance. This similarity is apparent in the themes that Van Gogh and Zeng both perpetually explore, such as style, identity and personality, and the question of self-control and the outside world's degree of control over the individual. It is evident too in their powerful, searing paintings. Van Gogh's original paintings became famous partly for their vigorous, seemingly inimitable brushwork - the painter's individual 'handwriting'. Zeng has responded to this same brushwork with handwriting from a very different cultural tradition, namely that of Chinese calligraphy. He has done so at a time when Van Gogh has become immensely popular in countries like China and Japan. The result is a Van Gogh seen through Chinese eyes, in a way Vincent himself could never have imagined. Zeng takes meanings from the past and reuses them, over and over again, to generate valuable new meanings. This book focuses on Zeng's recent work, inspired by Van Gogh's iconic self-portraits, and explores the position and importance of the self-portrait within his oeuvre.Text in English and Chinese.

Birdstones, small prehistoric stone sculptures shaped by Native Americans, are known for their simplicity and beauty. Mythical objects of the first art collections, these zoomorphic artefacts maintain similarities with the European prehistoric art, but also with the genesis of the sculpture of the 20th century. Through this unprecedented book Éric Genuese and Éric Mickeler, specialists in Native American art, chart the origin, the functions and the lapidary techniques of this old art of the American Indians of the North. Text in English and French.

An exhaustive catalogue of catalogues raisonnés and critical catalogues published on artists born between 1240 and today, consisting of two slip-cased volumes:A.C.I : Art Catalogue Index ‐ Catalogues raisonnés of artists, 1240‐1779 (new edition)A.C.I : Art Catalogue Index ‐ Catalogues raisonnés of artists, 1780‐2019 (new updated edition)Text in English and French.

The astonishing fame enjoyed by Manneken-Pis is inversely proportional to his size. However, as surprising as this may seem, his story is still largely unknown. During which period did the statue first appear? When did he receive his first costumes? When was he first used to symbolise that mischievous and irreverent spirit that the inhabitants of Brussels have claimed for themselves?In a more general sense, when did he first embody the city's image abroad? This book invites you to discover the many facets of the Manneken-Pis phenomenon.Text in English, French and Dutch.

"What more glorious claim to fame could there be than Milliner to the Queen? ", asks Stéphane Bern in his preface to this exclusive book marking the 30th anniversary of MAISON FABIENNE DELVIGNE.Thebook traces the exceptional career of Fabienne Delvigne, the Belgian entrepreneur, hat designer and craftswoman who creates highend luxury products. Across Europe, Fabienne Delvigne's designs sublimate the beauty of women. Her unique talent was recognised in 2001, when she gained the trust of the Belgian royal family, who awarded her the coveted title of Warrant Holder of the Court of Belgium.In this book, Fabienne casts a refined and joyful gaze on the world of fashion, and introduces us into her world, a world made up encounters, hard work,inspiring walks, and the joy of practising her craft every day. An original and exhilarating volume that not only looks back on the milliner's career, but also reveals a woman of character who defends an artistic heritage while being of her time. Since 2008, alongside her Haute Couture collections, she has designed, for each season, a Studio Collection composed of stylish, prêt-à-porter hats.The body of the text? The words that helped her fashion her creative universe. The spirit moving that body? Passion, her passions. Anecdotes,recollections, previously unseen projects, a behind-the-scenes view of the creator's artistry, a look back on her collaborations with such leading companies as Guerlain and BMW, and, of course, hats to go mad for!This book has been released to mark the 30th anniversary of Maison Fabienne Delvigne, with forewords provided by Stéphane Bern and Diane von Furstenberg. Readers will discover the passion that drives this Belgian entrepreneur, a perfectionist to the very tips of her scissors. A Warrant Holder of several European Courts, Fabienne also designs hats for all the élégantes who enter her Brussels boudoir workshop. Leafing through the book, readers will not fail to appreciate her unique and fascinating journey.

memymom is the mother‐daughter artistic collaboration of Marilène Coolens and Lisa De Boeck. Their transgenerational project, which first emerged in the 1990s, consists of intimate archives and family photos where Marilène urges her daughter Lisa to express and invent herself by improvising her own theatrical scenes. Since 2004, the protagonists have worked together behind and in front of the lens, simultaneously photographer and model. Over the years, memymom's dreamlike, partly directed portraits have matured into a conversation about metamorphosis, personal identity, potential, as well as a plea for sensual analysis and tragic romanticism, as irrefutably illustrated in their latest series Somewhere Under the Rainbow.In this book, which is the culmination and prolongation of their recent work, the two artists disclose the way in which their themes and visual language have remained constant over the past 30 years, while simultaneously evolving fascinatingly in terms of aesthetics and content, through recurring references and reflections. This exhibition also provides an opportunity to see how the inclusion of an assorted group of other people, each playing a different role, has always been part of their artistic process.Text in English and French.

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) is the most important painter of sketches in the history of European art. His Italian and Flemish predecessors had for the most part prepared their paintings by using drawings. Rubens transformed this process by systematically making sketches in colour, with oil paint, and nearly always on panel supports. Rubens's oil sketches were essentially a new form of painting. They brought together the design and colour stages of preliminary work. Because their purpose was to advance another work of art, oil sketches demanded less effort and time than the final products, and this translated into a less polished finish and smaller size.Rubens's sketches invite us to indulge in his art. They are powerful, vivid renditions of a variety of themes, from ancient history and mythology to religion, still life and portraits. They combine seriousness of purpose and a zest for life, transmitted through a masterly lightness of touch. Their small size and appearance of incompleteness draw us in and entice us to look closely. Their sheer quality is a great source of pleasure and learning. This catalogue presents detailed studies and superb illustrations of eighty-two of Rubens's most eloquent oil sketches, and two essays explaining the historical context from which they emerged, their salient features and how they were viewed by contemporaries.

With the help of 100 artworks, this book guides you through the collection of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Learn more about Kazimir Malevich's groundbreaking abstract paintings, the ingeniously knotted chair by Marcel Wanders, nearly kitschy art by Jeff Koons, and Rineke Dijkstra's intense portraits.Ten introductory texts impart everything you need to know in 1,000 words about modern art, photography, and design. For instance, why waste and junk can also be art. Or why something skillfully appropriated in art is better than badly conceived. Or why these days an unsuspecting visitor can suddenly join in a work of art. We lined up the 100 featured works from the collection on the included sheets of stickers. Pick your favorites and give the cover your own twist! With this guide, every curious visitor can be well prepared for their next encounter with modern art.

In 1912-1913, James Ensor produced a series of 32 drawings in coloured pencil titled Scènes de la vie du Christ [Scenes from the life of Christ]. Each drawing on paper measures about 15 by 21 cm. The series depicts different episodes from the lives of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. In it, Ensor managed to combine the sublime and the grotesque in an unsurpassed manner. Some compositions are quite conventional, others typically 'Ensorian', and some even humorous. Among the works in the series is a drawing in which Ensor portrays himself as Christ, confronted with a dozen Belgian art critics who have gathered before him. In 1929 the drawings were made into lithographs and published in the form of an album by Galerie Georges Giroux in Brussels. These drawings can be considered as a link between the Ostend master's early and later oeuvre. The series combines various motifs which Ensor also executed in oil paint. The author of the work, Xavier Tricot, also pays close attention to the figure of Christ in James Ensor's work. From 1885 onward, the figure of Christ occupied a central position in Ensor's oeuvre. In some of his works, the artist identified with the Messiah.

"Tomy mind, Koen is the photographer of the instant. Whatever the subject,the format, the colour may be, the emotion that is implied is always expressed vigorously; either with a sense of humour, seriousness, or with lots of tenderness. Unlike other photographers, he is not the prisoner of a style; his goal is to express the sincerity of the moment in its widest variety. Koen's freedom also lies in a real physical need to be in motion, on a journey. In this way, systematically taking pictures beyond the borders allows him to focus, to find himself, and tocome as close as possible to the essence of his soul." Antoine Reyre, CEO CAPA PicturesShot in Timeis the first anthology by the Belgian photographer Koen Lauwaert, who displays his talent for developing an original and poetic language that alternates the different registers of contemporary photography, from portraiture to abstraction through reportage. Partly academically trained, studying at the Brussels Filmschool and the Photo Academy Rhok,Koen Lauwaert devised his own language in the field, working as a film operator during his military service and for an agency specialising in portraits of children and families as well as a cover author for rock band albums. Shot in Time is an autobiographical narrative in which the passion for photography goes hand in hand with Koen's nomadic soul, the images are taken all over theworld, notably in Italy, a country for which the author has a predilection.Text in English and Italian.

The book In the Deep Present by Craigie Horsfield contains the series of portraits made for Utrecht and Lugano on the occasion of the exhibition organised there in 2016 and 2017. More than 160 pieces are represented, along with various as-yet-unpublished illustrations of Horsfield's most recent work.Explanatory texts about the work of Craigie Horsfield by Bruno Fornari and Nancy Princenthal feature, as do the texts In the Deep Present by the artist himself.Text in English and Italian.

This book reveals that James Ensor did not develop his fantastic and grotesque universe of masks and skeletons out of his melancholic soul, but that he re-used and transformed an old image tradition that was collected and published by the French author and art critic Jules Champfleury in his History of Caricature. A second essay analyses how these weird creatures infiltrate the image borders and the frames of Ensor's paintings in order to disturb the 'normal' world.

What is real? What is true? Picturing Figures and Faces collects theoretical essays and artists' studies, published between 1988 and 2019, devoted to the artistic representation of the human figure. They deal with the portrait and the death mask, the body and suffering, and with Egon Schiele, René Magritte, Balthus, On Kawara, Paul De Vylder, Jan Vercruysse, Bill Viola, Anthony Gormley, Jan Fabre, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Dirk Braeckman and Elly Strik. The texts are richly illustrated, the book is designed by Antoon De Vylder.

"'Globalization', a commonly used word these days, is the reason of changing global landscapes. Larger firms buy small, authentic companies, the small companies that want to keep doing what they do, and don't want to be bought by larger firms, struggle to compete, eventually they disappear. My view on this phenomenon is displayed in my first book 'Bus Stop'. For decades, sons and daughters kept alive the bus company started by their mothers and fathers. These past 2 years I travelled through Belgium to document their activities, to feel the atmosphere on board and to show who they are. What's evolving and what could be lost in a few years." - Nick Claeskens.Text in English and Dutch.

Even though Gerard Verdijk (1934-2005) passed away at the beginning of this century, many still remember him as a striking and versatile artist. From the middle of the 20th century until the beginning of the 21st century he was active within a wide area of the visual arts. He was a poetic and philosophical man who manifested his creativity through a wide range of materials and techniques. He was a curious man, eager to learn, who travelled through Europe, Turkey, The Middle-East, North-America, Africa and Japan to get acquainted with other cultures. He cannot be placed within one art-historical movement. The ever-changing world around him influenced his style and the use of his materials. When generalised his works can be placed in a few style periods: Abstract/Informal, Zero/Pop-Art, Fluor/ Perspex and Zen/Haiku. In all these periods spaciousness, movement and repetition are recognisable elements. In the 13 years after his passing in 2005, the life and works of Gerard Verdijk were meticulously documented by his wife Josephine Sloet. This monograph, a true "life's work" of 396 pages with 200 large images of his works came into being at Gerard's own request. He was also clear about the book's motto: The Mountain of Einstein. According to Albert Einstein, the creation of some something new can be compared to climbing a mountain, where one would obtain changing and growing perspectives along the way and would discover unsuspected connections between our customs and the rich variety of our environment.

Kris Fierens (born 1957) uses the character of a preliminary study or a sketch as an enduring thing. Or, in their possibility they imitate the character of a preliminary study. Reality and emotion reach a virtual zero point. The gestures that he makes simply become the 'objets trouvés'. The object 'on his own' is never present. It's the included matter that enables him to savehis dream. Traces of something that still needs to happen. Of which a disappearing memory can already behold.Text in English and Dutch.

Music For The Deaf II is the second book by concert photographer Koen Keppens. His first book Music For The Deaf was published in 2010, exactly 10 years ago. Koen Keppens (1967, Dendermonde) is a photographer with an undying love for music. He has been shooting musicians for more than 30 years. In the summer of 1996, he became the first photographer of "Go for music", a team that reports online and live from Rock Werchter and Pukkelpop. Keppens has developed a very idiosyncratic style throughout the years. This culminates in the publication of Music For The Deaf in 2010, putting him on the map as one of the most distinct music photographers active today. The book, collecting the best of 20 years of music photography, receives rapturous reviews and underscores how different and unique Keppens' body of work is. And how unfair it is that he has remained under the radar for so long, for lack of a more prominent and visible medium as an outlet for his talent. 'Keppens belongs up there with the best of them', the prominent Dutch music magazine Oor states in its review. 'Most of all he calls to mind Rembrandt, with his deft use of light (and shade as well), and with a knack for capturing the most unique facial expressions.' Keppens' work has been published in Focus Knack and Humo, and he is one of the resident photographers for Rock Wercher.Text in English and Dutch.

Tinka Pittoors (b. 1977) is a Belgian visual artist, who regularly exhibits her work in Flanders, Wallonia, the Netherlands and France. Anyone who crosses the threshold of her studio will feel as if they've stepped into an artificial secret garden. An explosion of shapes and colours awaits in a place where everything has the potential of becoming an artwork. In her sculptures and objects, Pittoors examines the utopia of a malleable world, often using the nature‐culture divide as her starting premise. Each presentation is a moment in time, a snapshot, that is tailored to the venue.Les Voyageurs is published on the occasion of her eponymous exhibition in the gardens of Château Seneffe. Many people in Flanders have yet to discover this hidden gem. And yet the castle and gardens of Seneffe are Wallonia's equivalent of Versailles, with fountains, pavilions, pristine nature, and dreamy paths on 22 hectares of land. For this exhibition, Pittoors created a trail that reflects on the various possibilities of travel, displacement and detachment, arriving and leaving, escapes and quests.The introduction was written by Pieter Vermeulen. Other contributors include Marjolaine Hanssens, Veronika Pot, Carine Fol, Isabelle Pouget, Dominique Legrand, Stijn Tormans, Marc Ruyters, Jan Braet and Saskia De Coster.Text in English, French and Dutch.

The Wirtz Gardens Part III is the third in a series of books on the gardens of landscape architect practice Wirtz International Landscape Architects. It contains 30 gardens, a mixture of private, public and corporate projects in Belgium, Japan, France and England. Private projects in the USA and Switzerland are shown, gardens which enchant by their beautiful setting, their scale or their exclusiveness. Unusual projects like the cloister's gardens of the Hauterive Abbey (Switzerland) or the Haute Couture fashion show stage set for Dior in 2012, and, a secluded Japanese garden with views to Mount Fuji will surprise the reader.

Plantin travelled a lot, to Paris, where he had a bookstore and lace trade, to Leiden where he had a second business, to Frankfurt for the buchmesse, ... He was on his way almost half of the year. He was an experienced traveller. How did people travel in a time without motorways, GPS, smartphone or trip advisor? Plantin had tables available that calculated how long the trajectories lasted. Unfortunately, he did not keep track of where he slept, ate, and how much he spent. Fortunately, there are other contemporaries, such as Dürer and Montaigne who did take extensive notes during their travels. In the wake of Plantin, we send young photographers on different journeys with various means of transport. How do travel distances and travel times differ from journeys in the 16th century?

This book was published as part of the Glass in MAS project, a multidisciplinary research project on the glass collection of the MAS collection Vleeshuis (Antwerp, Belgium).Never before has the collection of archaeological glass of the MAS Vleeshuis Collection in Antwerp been described and disclosed in its entirety. This hidden treasure is part of a valuable study collection on 20 centuries of glass production, a wealth of information that has remained underexposed. The archaeological part is presented for the first time in this extensive catalogue.

This beautifully illustrated book is an ode to art restoration. It takes the secrets of this special profession from the studio and sheds light on its art‐historical and scientific aspects. It zooms in on meticulous restorations of centuries‐old paintings, complex treatments of contemporary works, but also the use of innovative technology for the analysis, treatment and consolidation of works of art in the most diverse materials.Based on 40 high‐profile restorations, this book takes a look behind the scenes of the art restoration profession. Restorers testify about the challenges of their profession, while collection managers and art professionals delve deeper into the importance and future of restoration. Handled with Care pays tribute to the profession and offers a glimpse into an often hidden world.With text contributions by, among others, Philippe Van Cauteren, Robert Read, Claire Tillekaerts, Peter De Wilde and about works of art by none other than Peter Paul Rubens, Antoon Van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Henry van de Velde, Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Sol LeWitt, Luc Tuymans etc.This book is published on the occasion of 10 years of IPARC (International Platform for Art Research and Conservation Ltd).Text in English and Dutch.

The Royal Museum for Central Africa, in Tervuren, Belgium, was founded in 1898, but its current building was inaugurated in 1910 and is characterised by many symbols reflecting the colonial propaganda of the time. The grand rotunda, designed to serve as the museum entrance, plays host to a series of statues that are strong examples of such imagery, reflecting fundamentally racist stereotypes.Between 2013 and 2018, the RMCA underwent a major renovation that saw a substantial redesign of the permanent exhibition, with the involvement of members of the African diaspora in Belgium. A major challenge of the renovation was to demonstrate the will to decolonise a listed building that is legally protected against changes. As removal of the colonial statues was not allowed, the museum was forced to find innovative solutions, notably by inviting contemporary African artists to create installations to dialogue, contrast, and discuss with colonial messages.Congolese artist Aimé Mpané was chosen to make such an installation in the rotunda in 2018 with New breath, or Burgeoning Congo. Public reaction helped the AfricaMuseum realise that it needed to go further. Along with the creation of a second sculpture, Aimé Mpané, in co-creation with Belgian artist Jean Pierre Müller, proposed the RE/STORE project: a permanent installation of transparent veils, each bearing a contemporary message, hung in front of every statue in the rotunda. The themes addressed in this collection of veils interact with the viewer in a powerful and eloquent manner.This richly illustrated book is a compilation of texts written by renowned experts about the history of the rotunda and its statues, as well as the semantic and artistic analysis of RE/STORE, providing a full catalogue of the installations, sculptures, and veils.

Magritte, Bacon, Ensor, Moore, Jordaens, Rubens … These were just some of the world-famous names on display at the MAS. The not-to-be-missed exhibition 'Rare and Indispensable' brought a unique selection of masterpieces from the Flemish masterpiece list and has been captured here in this accompanying catalogue. Works of art you normally would have to travel all over Flanders to see, or which were never even publicly accessible, could be temporarily admired in one museum hall. All in honour of the 20th anniversary of the 'Flemish Masterpiece Decree'.'Rare and Indispensable' was an absolute must-see that took the visitor on an art-historical walk along several masterpieces from Flemish collections. Some 35 large and small museums, as well as churches, libraries and private collectors temporarily lended masterpieces from their collections. All of them works that have been included in the Flemish Masterpiece List since 2003.Famous paintings by Hugo van der Goes, Rubens, Jordaens, Ensor, Magritte and Bacon, sculptures by Lucas Faydherbe and Henry Moore, as well as precious silver, medieval manuscripts and a rare piece of furniture by Pierre Gole, ébeniste du roi of the French king Louis XIV, were available to be admired in one place at the same time.Curators Thomas Leysen and Ben Van Beneden, members of the 'Topstukkenraad' (Masterpiece council), selected all the masterpieces for this exhibition.

In Richard Deacon's solo exhibition Some Time, a refabricated version of his sculpture Never Mind takes pride of place among more than twenty-five other works. Over time, the original sculpture, made in 1993, proved to be incompatible with the natural environment of an open-air museum. Now, after a period of critical reflection and discussion with the artist himself, what he calls a 'refabrication' has taken place. Follow the artist and the museum's quest for an innovative, sustainable solution to the renewal of (or variation on) a monumental sculpture that offers a potentially new line of approach for the future.This book not only represents the Some Time exhibition, but thanks to its diversity of material, ranging from original sketches and intimate correspondence to construction photos from the workshop and installation shots, it also gives a unique insight into Deacon's working process. At the same time, it provides a moment of critical reflection from the perspectives of the various authors who have contributed to it.Text in English and Dutch.

Indonesia and its more than 17,000 islands are spread out over a surface area equivalent to that of the European Union. As an area of confluences and encounters, the Indonesian archipelago has always been one of the most important crossroads of world trade, where Austronesian ships, Arab dhows, Chinese junks, Iberian caravels, and other ships of the East India Companies berthed long before the container ships and oil tankers of today. The history of this archipelago is that of a multitude of links and connections, where the near and the far intermingle, forced to compete in a ubiquitous maritime world. The sea brings together more than she separates, and the monsoon winds have made this intersection a mandatory stop for merchants, clerics, and foreign diplomats, whose presence has left traces in the myths, monuments, arts, and traditions of contemporary Indonesia. Overlapped, blended, reinterpreted by rich and complex societies, these inflows have forged multiple worlds that the relationship with the sea has finely coloured and chiselled. Archipel invites us to discover this world, with the sea as the common thread, and an exceptional collection of major artworks as markers of a history to be discovered and admired.

From the 17th - 20th century, the "voyage to Rome" established itself as a source of infinite inspiration where prevails the connections to Antiquity artworks. The former capital of the Roman Empire exercised a powerful hand of seduction through its monuments such as the Coliseum, its nearby sites (Pompei, Herculaneum) and its art depicting ideal beauty, which was inherited from the Greeks.This book addresses all the singularity of a city of contrasts and pleasures, to the light of the South: its different neighbourhoods, its palaces, galleries, restless life of the population, and even gastronomy which stroke new colours to Art in Europe.Published to accompany an exhibition at the Liege Museum.

From the Ivory Tower: 200 Years of Ghent University tells the story of Ghent University and its societal impact, from its foundation in 1817 to the present day. From the very beginning, the university was closely involved in major social issues through its professors, students and former students, who sometimes played a leading role. In eleven thematic chapters ranging from pluralism and democratisation to gender and sexuality, the environment and biotechnology, historian Gita Deneckere outlines two hundred years of history. Each chapter ends with a point of contention for the future. In addition to archival and other sources, the author also obtained information from interviews with privileged witnesses. Their personal stories combine with the 'big history' to provide a monumental synthesis. The author does not avoid controversy. She makes clear why the university is important, for everyone. This jubilee book is thus an example of how scholarship and societal engagement go hand in hand under the motto 'Dare to Think'.This book is a must for all those who are involved with UGent or who want to get to know the university better, and for those who are interested in the role of the university today.

Patrick Van der Stricht, author of this book, is an architect, illustrator and Belgian. He began drawing when he was a boy and has never stopped. This book is a collection of his best automobile illustrations, from the most realistic and romantic to the zaniest. His love of drawing and cars is nourished by his equally extensive knowledge of the history and technique of the automobile, spiced up with his boundless imagination and humour. Most of the drawings are accompanied by a short explanatory text or narrative. Text in English, French and Dutch.