BAI NV – serie

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.

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.

The fate of these people who are constantly on the move is an issue which we cannot face with indifference. The photographer and videographer, Jean-Dominique Burton, offers us another viewpoint relating to refugees and what they represent: a viewpoint which is beyond stereotypes, and fundamentally respectful and human. This artistic and altruistic reflection is based on the welcome, the opening up to others and the amazing interaction that can happen when different cultures come together.Text in English, French, and Dutch.

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.

Antwerp artist Eugeen Van Mieghem (1875-1930) documents the pulsating life around the port of Antwerp at the turn of the twentieth century. Dockers, sack sewers, passengers, local communities and general labourers are the subjects of his lifelong fascination with Antwerp port. His affinity with his subjects makes his work direct and sincere and is unique in the genre of social realism. The port is one of the great gateways to the city, facilitating the constant movement of goods and people - migrations that are essential for the economy as well as for the evolution of people and society. Ports also are scenes of human tragedy, witnessing the forced emigration of families and communities fleeing persecution and poverty, as immortalised in the paintings and drawings of Eugeen Van Mieghem.Antwerp does have strong associations with Irish artists in the late nineteenth century, many of whom, attracted by the pioneering developments in art practice on the Continent, travelled to Antwerp to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts artists, including Roderic O'Conor, Walter Osborne and Norman Garstin. The result was light-filled fleeting images painted out of doors, en plein air, a radical departure from the official teachings of the established art academies.It is not known if Van Mieghem and any of those Irish artists ever came in contact with each other, but this exhibition shows for the first time Van Mieghem's oeuvre alongside that of his Irish peers, proving yet again how vital are ongoing migrations of culture and people in illuminating and understanding our contemporary society.

Designed by Axel Enthoven. Day after day he proves that elegance still exists. He demonstrates that statements, sloganesque formulations, cutting corners, taking an obtuse attitude to people are not his thing. That kindness is not synonymous with weakness. That taking the time to think things through properly should not be the exception. Taking responsibility for the impact of actions and words is not a rare occurrence. Striving after timelessness and sustainability is given a lasting interpretation. For him, combining aesthetics and functionality is a matter of course.Thanks to Axel Enthoven we are reminded that things can be different. And how important design is.

The museum's collection includes paintings, sculptures, objects, drawings, prints and photographs - as well as a large number of Surrealist publications, magazines, manifestos and pamphlets. This dream collection has now been brought together in a catalogue raisonné for the first time.

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.

"'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.

This book consists of three parts. First, a panorama (without perspective) of the Normandy coast between Franceville-Merville plage and Quinéville is shown. This 90 km panorama is displayed from page 7 to page 224. This part is followed by a historical introduction and a list of landing troops per landing sector (page 225-262). Finally, there is a more detailed panorama per assault zone with a panorama below of 1943-1944. These two panoramas are supplemented by old pictures of the landing. There is an indication where the first assault wave has landed. The reader will find the exact location of the landing and the Atlantikwall in the book.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.

This unique introduction to Indonesia starts from a cultural heritage perspective, but also poses topical questions about the place of traditions and rituals in contemporary society.

For more than thirty years, Jazz Hot, the world's oldest jazz magazine (launched in 1935, as DownBeat), has regularly published Pascal Kober's photos, breakfast interviews, album and festival reviews and feature articles.

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.

Hereto unknown statues of great significance to the art world will be revealed in this publication, their aesthetic features thoroughly analysed. Quite exceptionally, Treasures of Stone Uncovered also encompasses a full chapter explaining the scientific methodology that was employed to authenticate the objects. The goal of this publication is, on the one hand, to let the artworks capture the gaze of the reader with their splendour and refinement, and on the other, to increase the knowledge and understanding of the underexposed Buddhist art of the Northern Qi.Text in English and Chinese.