Meta4Books vzw – förlag

In 2019, Cuba celebrated the 60th anniversary of the revolution. In 1959, Fidel Castro and Ché Guevarra ousted dictator Batista and the country entered a utopian future. But Soviet communism and the American embargo forced Cuba to survive because the country remained fundamentally committed to the socialist values of the revolution.

Against this background, an extensive photography project was set up with four Cuban and four European participants. Taking the current reality of the island as a starting point, they each developed a project, which together provide a nuanced picture of the complex country. The eight projects pit the photographic interpretations of the local artists against those of the Europeans. The project starts from 'heritage' in the broadest sense of the word and focuses on the past, present and future of Cuba.

Cuba Photography Missions proposes an approach to reality in the country from the personal poetics of our artists and their European counterparts, assuming Cuban contemporaneity as a topic of reflection, among universal aspects that specify the thematic and formal coherence of the exhibition. Participating photographers: Ossain Raggi Gonzalez, Bert Danckaert, Linet Sanchez, Charlotte Lybeer, Liudmila & Nelson, Ulla Deventer, Ricardo Elias and Simon Roberts.

Text in English and Spanish.

UNO was made in collaboration with PLUS-ONE Gallery on the occasion of Kapser De Vos’ exhibition ‘Pushing And Pulling The Center To The Mirror’ at M HKA's Inbox.

Kasper De Vos (°1988) gained attention with installations and sculptural interventions that referred to consumerism and its associated food culture in a way that was both humorous and sculptural. Often, his sculptures combine found objects or materials with modeled elements. His sculptures and installations seem to stem from a kind of tactile and visual pleasure, a play of formal and substantive associations and a mild form of humor that takes the form of an open, playful, imaginative dance with materials, techniques, things and thoughts. His work evokes stories without being illustrative or pedantic. It is a kind of thinking with shapes, which in turn makes us think and dream. Surprising, inventive, generous, plastic, virtuosic, open and oneiric.

In English and French.

Mudlarking' is the act of searching the riverbed for historical treasures. Mudlarks comb the river’s foreshore, which is only accessible for a few hours a day at low tide, in their hunt for objects, untouched since they were lost hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Jutten is about men in boots mudlarking the bank of the Scheldt river in Antwerp, in search of shards of the past, the larking, the scouring, the scavenging. One tea towel after another filled with coins, marbles, pipes.

"Finds have a strange hold over us. There’s a magic to them that shines on a lot longer than the soon fading glimmer of things we intentionally choose. That purposefulness is probably what kills our enthusiasm after a week or so. Because when we make a choice, there’s too much of ourselves in the object already. We don’t deem a consciously picked item deserving of a tea towel display. The more trash we’ve dug through to get to our treasure, the more it becomes. Hence the mud-crusted trouvailles. So we go hunting for crap that’s out of place. Crap that becomes a find, simply because it was lost." - extract from a text by Annelies Desmet & Jill Mathieu

Using the formalist conventions of an ironic heritage, William Ludwig Lutgens attains the expression of something sincere. Like the philosophical idiot who did his utmost best to unlearn all the fallacies he was acquitted with since birth and now only knows he knows nothing, the artist made the world into his own theatre wherein he can stomp around like a bull in a china shop with the grace of a prima ballerina. Forcing a pathway to possible exits by presenting us with the alloy of his observations, imagination and scattershot references. Not merely asking questions, which seems to be the hype in contemporary art nowadays, he is unraveling the framework wherein these questions originate. The image deconstructed by the story of its creation, alternating between the power and impotence of the theatrical madness at the end of the world as we know it. William Ludwig Lutgens presents with his Comedy of Humours the dysfunctional family of man.

Text in English and Dutch.

The exhibition Nasi Per L’Arte was born from the encounter between two curatorial noses belonging to Joanna De Vos and Melania Rossi. The nose is a navigator, guiding us through life; a delicate vehicle that detects and determines. It narrows and dilates at the same time, creating circular communication between the inner and the outer world. For this exhibition and book, a selection of contemporary artists such as Francis Alÿs, Michaël Borremans, Maurizio Cattelan, Laura de Coninck, Mariana Ferratto, Peter de Cupere, Jan Fabre, Mariana Ferratto, Sofie Muller, Luigi Ontani, Daniele Puppi and others, were in dialogue with artists of the permanent collection of Palazzo Merulana, Roma, and with loans of works by Oscar Jespers, René Magritte, George Minne, Constant Permeke, Léon Spilliaert, and others.

Text in English and Italian.

Please Look in the Basement is a quirky collection of posters of lost cats, dogs, birds and other pets, carefully curated from the collection of Maarten Inghels, Jan Lemaire, Jean-Michel Meyers, Denis Meyers and Nicolas Marichal from Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. Fellow collector and writer Maarten Inghels took the posters as the starting point for conversations with the owners. Apart from the posters, this maverick collectible bundles whimsical anecdotes about loneliness and friendship in the big city. How do you find an escaped animal? Does a cat survive a fall from the fourth floor? And did the fortune-teller really see the location of the lost dog in her crystal ball? Please Look in the Basement is an ode to the bizarre occurrences of our four-legged friends and the doltish typography of homemade posters. Inghels tells the stories of pets who one day decide to go their own way.

Text in English, French and Dutch.

“I draw every day. Every morning begins with a sketch. Drawing and sculpting are closely related activities. I am a drawer in everything I do."

Drawing First by Peter Jacquemyn shows his sketches, drawings and sculptures from recent years, in which he depicts birds and people: loved ones and the injured, dancers and the dead, rebels and the homeless. He brings them to life on paper with a few strokes of a pen or frees them from tree trunks with a chainsaw. Spontaneous and razor sharp. Apparently brutal, at the same time vulnerable and playful with his intuition as a compass.

Text in English and Dutch.

The Belgian artist Sergio De Beukelaer has been working on a self-confident and uncompromising oeuvre of paintings for over twenty years. Leaf through his archive of sketches, designs and preliminary drawings made between the years 1997-2023. (cat.)(draw.) follows our first book published with Sergio called (cat.) and presents the prequel to the final result. Discover how an artist plots his designs, and handles his archive of drawings. This book gives a greater insight in the heart of the matter behind Sergio De Beukelaer’s artworks. Sergio’s drawings expose him indiscriminately, hence why he has waited until 2023 to reveal them. “What mathematics is to an engineer, drawings are to an artist. It is the seedbed from which an idea springs. When I am in a gallery or a museum, I want to gain insight and be nurtured. To paraphrase Umberto Eco, a work of art “is a machine for generating interpretations”. Sergio De Beukelaer is represented by PLUS-ONE Gallery.

Text in English and Dutch.

Shot over three years from 2019 to 2022, Thank You For Playing With Me by Yolanda Y. Liou is an intimate look at two plus-size models, Enam Ewura Adjoa Asiama and Vanessa Russell. Liou first came across Asiama’s Instagram in 2019 and was blown away by her confidence and charisma. It was the type of confidence that Liou struggled to have about her own body due to her upbringing in Taiwan. “Growing up in Taiwan, I was consistently exposed to the relentless beauty standards that prioritised being skinny... This obsession led me to believe that I was never beautiful enough, and consequently, I felt unworthy of love. I constantly sought ways to conform, believing that only then would I be accepted and appreciated.” Liou’s main aim with this photo book is to help people embrace their individuality.

Have you ever wondered who your favourite artists admire and who they want to shine a spotlight on? Wonder no longer.

In this first volume of Accolades, a wide range of musicians, composers, and songwriters praise and present their treasured gems. Contributors from Steve Albini to "Weird Al" Yankovic, from Julien Baker to Margo Price, present accolades to cherished colleagues, to amazing actors and authors, to admired activists and athletes, to precious poets and esteemed engineers. Belgian‐based illustrator Tom De Geeter thoughtfully curated this line-up of contributors. He interviewed close to 200 artists and asked them just these two questions: who do you want to honour and why? De Geeter's vivid, bold yet delicate line drawings accompany their answers in style and make Accolades a more than exceptional project for you to dive right into.

Close to 200 contributions by musicians like Steve Albini, Julien Baker, Jehnny Beth, Dan Deacon, Feist, Steve Gunn, Tim Heidecker, Page Hamilton, Joan As Police Woman, Lambchop, Larkin Poe, Ian MacKaye, Mark Mothersbaugh, Margo Price, Mauro, Sun Kil Moon, Mike Watt, "Weird Al" Yankovic, but also from members of bands like Amenra, Bad Company, Bauhaus, Efterklang, Fleet Foxes, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Grandaddy, Grizzly Bear, Guided by Voices, The Hold Steady, Khruangbin, Royal Trux, Unsane, Xiu Xiu, and many more.

A selection of 85 Flemish drawings gives an astonishing and representative overview of the art of drawing in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The publication focusses on the drawings subjects and compositions but also on how and why they were created and why an artist chose specific materials, techniques, formats and even sizes. It provides a framework to allow to see drawings in the functional context for which they were created.

Renowned specialists in Flemish drawing discuss rare artworks by famous draughtsmen as Frans Floris, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Jacques Jordaens, Otto van Veen, Jan Fijt but also hidden treasures such as the 10 metres long Panorama of Zeeland by Antoon van den Wijngaerde, a sketchbook of the 12-year-old Rubens, recently discovered drawings by Hans Vredeman de Vries, the extremely rare Italy-sketchbooks by the sculptor Pieter Verbruggen and a newly discovered book-illustration design by Rubens for the Plantin Press.

Dutch artist Theo Jansen (b. 1948, The Hague) has achieved worldwide recognition for his imposing and ingenious strandbeests, which are much more than art objects. They actually try to create dunes themselves. Taking his inspiration from the theory of evolution, Jansen has taught his strandbeests to float on the sea breeze and to walk independently along the beach. Using PVC tubing, adhesive tape and PET bottles, he has brought a completely new life form into existence. In so doing, he seeks insight into the origins of life itself. His ultimate aim is to have herds of his creations roam the beach all on their own. ‘Give me another couple of million years, and my strandbeests will live completely independently.’

Text in English and Dutch.