Hannibal Books 2023-2024 English & French Publications

CONTEMPORARY ART

PHOTOGRAPHY

ART HISTORY

Drôles de têtes Bruegel, Rubens et Rembrandt

Depuis des siècles, les artistes des Pays-Bas sont fascinés par le visage humain. Les maîtres anciens ne peignaient pas seulement des portraits, mais aussi des visages où l’identité du modèle n’avait pas d’importance. Il suffit de penser aux têtes grotesques de Quentin Metsys, aux têtes de paysans de Pieter Bruegel, aux études de tête de Pierre Paul Rubens et aux gueules expressives d’Adriaen Brouwer et de Rembrandt van Rijn. Ces œuvres, également appelées « tronies », ne représentent pas une personne spécifique, mais un archétype, un sentiment ou un trait de caractère.

L’exposition Drôles de têtes – Bruegel, Rubens et Rembrandt examine pour la première fois l’histoire de ces têtes intrigantes et les montre dans toute leur diversité, avec des dizaines d’œuvres de maîtres flamands tels que Metsys, Bruegel, Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens et Brouwer et d’artistes internationaux de premier plan comme Dürer, Bosch, Rembrandt et Vermeer.

Catalogue accompagnant l’exposition au KMSKA à Anvers (du 20 octobre 2023 au 21 janvier 2024) et à la National Gallery of Ireland à Dublin (du 24 février au 26 mai 2024).

Turning Heads

Bruegel, Rubens and Rembrandt

Artists in the Low Countries have had a centuries-long fascination with the human face. The Old Masters didn’t just paint portraits: they also depicted faces of models whose identity didn’t matter – the grotesque heads of Quinten Metsys, the peasant heads of Pieter Bruegel, the head studies of Peter Paul Rubens and the expressive faces of Adriaen Brouwer, and Rembrandt van Rijn. These works, for which the old Dutch word ‘tronies’ was also used, represent not a specific person but an archetype, a feeling or a character trait.

Turning Heads - Bruegel, Rubens and Rembrandt investigates the story behind these intriguing faces for the first time and shows them in all their variety, with dozens of works by Flemish masters such as Metsys, Bruegel, Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens and Brouwer, and by leading international artists such as Dürer, Bosch, Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Unique view of the ‘tronies’ in art from the Netherlands

Catalogue of the exhibition at the KMSKA in Antwerp (from 20 October 2023 to 21 January 2024) and the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin (from 24 February to 26 May 2024).

NICO VAN HOUT, LIZZIE MARX, KOEN BULCKENS E.A.

NICO VAN HOUT, LIZZIE MARX, KOEN BULCKENS E.A.

Un regard unique sur les « tronies » dans l’art des Pays-Bas

Dieric Bouts Creator of Images

Dieric Bouts (1415–1475) is perhaps the most important artist Leuven has ever had. Influenced by Jan van Eyck’s virtuoso technique and Rogier van der Weyden’s innovative visual language, he created a unique synthesis. Bouts used to be seen as an enigmatic figure, and is not easy to categorise. M Leuven focuses on this enigma in an exceptional exhibition. Why has this painter always been so special? What characterises his work? To what extent was Bouts determined by the zeitgeist in which he lived, and how did the social and urban context influence his work?

Among the Flemish masters, Dieric Bouts is regarded as an outsider because he consistently avoided the dramatic in his works. His typical low-key style earned him the name ‘the painter of silence’.

The Avant-Garde in Georgia (1900–1936)

In the turbulent global context following the fall of the Russian Empire and the October Revolution, Georgia declared its independence in 1918. Between then and the beginning of Soviet rule in 1921, an avant-garde creative scene burgeoned. Artists met, mainly in the many taverns and cafés in Kutaisi and the capital Tbilisi, to organise multidisciplinary events. Their frequent collaborations and interactions, which bore the imprint of Georgian tradition and Western and Eastern influences, took various forms: paintings, drawings, films, photos, performances and typographical experiments. Divergent movements such as Symbolism/Neo-Symbolism, Futurism, Dadaism, Zaum, Expressionism, Cubism and Cubo-Futurism existed side by side in unprecedented creative turbulence.

This book tells the unknown story of a vibrant avant-garde in the Caucasus, born in the taverns of Tbilisi – artistic laboratories where anything was possible, but where Soviet censorship lurked.

This monograph includes the whole of Dieric Bouts’ oeuvre, accompanies the exhibition at M Leuven that runs from 20 October 2023 to 14 January 2024 and is supported by a major international media campaign.

More than 150 works by Gigo Gabashvili, Alexander Salzmann, Shalva Kikodze, the brothers Kirill and Ilya Zdanevich, Sergei Sudeikin, Igor Terentiev, Elene Akhvlediani and David Kakabadze are discussed in detail in various academic articles.

The publication coincides with the exhibition of the same name, The Avant-Garde in Georgia (1900–1936), which runs at BOZAR, Brussels from 5 October 2023 to 14 January 2024 and is part of the Europalia arts festival.

German edition: Belser Rights BE & NL: Hannibal Books World rights: Prestel

Contemporary view of the masterly works of Dieric Bouts

Exceptional publication about Georgia’s little-known avant-garde culture in the context of Europalia Georgia

PETER CARPREAU, STEPHAN KEMPERDICK, TILL HOLGER-BORCHERT E.A.

NANA KIPIANI, IRINE JORJADZE & TEA TABATADZE

Une histoire de rencontres

Patrimoine culturel, artistique et historique de Géorgie

BERNARD COULIE & NINO SIMONISHVILI (ÉD.)

Une histoire de rencontres explore l’art, la culture et l’histoire de la Géorgie depuis le néolithique. La Géorgie se trouvait sur les voies commerciales reliées aux routes de la soie et était entourée de superpuissances expansionnistes. Elle fut un trait d’union entre l’Orient et l’Occident, creuset de nombreuses rencontres et échanges ayant donné naissance à un patrimoine d’une richesse inconcevable. En particulier pendant l’« âge d’or » de la Géorgie unie, entre les XIe et XIIIe siècles, le pays connut un essor culturel et économique extraordinaire.

Le vin, le plus ancien patrimoine culturel de la Géorgie, est un élément récurrent du livre et de l’exposition. La métallurgie joue également un rôle crucial : une orfèvrerie sophistiquée et opulente est produite sur le territoire depuis l’âge du bronze.

Cet ouvrage est publié à l’occasion de l’exposition Géorgie : une histoire de rencontres, présentée du 27 octobre 2023 au 18 février 2024 au Musée Art et Histoire à Bruxelles, dans le cadre du festival d’art Europalia.

Publication officielle dans le cadre d’Europalia Géorgie.

Premier catalogue général sur la riche histoire culturelle de la Géorgie

A Story of Encounters

Georgia’s Cultural, Artistic, and Historical Heritage

BERNARD COULIE & NINO SIMONISHVILI (ED.)

A Story of Encounters explores Georgia’s art, culture, and history since the Neolithic era. Georgia lay on trade routes connected to the Silk Roads and was surrounded by expansionist powers: a link between East and West where numerous encounters and exchanges took place, resulting in an inconceivably rich heritage. Particularly during unified Georgia’s ‘Golden Age’, between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, the country experienced an exceptional period of cultural and economic flourishing.

As Georgia’s oldest cultural asset, wine is a recurring element in the book and the exhibition. Metallurgy also plays a crucial role: refined and sumptuous metalwork has been produced in this part of the world since the Bronze Age.

This book accompanies the exhibition Georgia: A Story of Encounters, which runs at the Art & History Museum in Brussels from 27 October 2023 to 18 February 2024, and is part of the Europalia arts festival.

Official publication on the occasion of Europalia

Georgia. First catalogue to offer an overview of Georgia’s rich cultural history

Josef Hoffmann

Sous le charme de la beauté

ADRIÁN PRIETO & CHRISTIAN WITT-DÖRRING

L’architecte viennois et « designer touche-àtout » Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) est bien plus que le fondateur de la Wiener Werkstätte. Cet ouvrage offre une vue d’ensemble de son œuvre, laquelle s’est étalée sur pas moins de 60 ans.

La beauté intemporelle des créations d’Hoffmann témoigne non seulement de son importance en tant que personnage historique, mais aussi en tant que source d’inspiration pour plusieurs générations.

Richement illustré de pièces de mobilier, d’objets, de dessins, de textiles, de photographies, de dessins et de documents. Une attention particulière est accordée à son processus créatif et à son utilisation méconnue de la couleur.

Cette monographie paraît à l’occasion de l’exposition Josef Hoffmann – Sous le charme de la beauté, qui se tiendra au Musée Art et Histoire à Bruxelles du 6 octobre 2023 au 14 avril 2024. Le projet a vu le jour en collaboration avec le Museum Angewandte Kunst (MAK) de Vienne et constitue l’un des points d’orgue de l’Année de l’Art nouveau 2023 à Bruxelles.

Josef Hoffmann

Falling for Beauty

ADRIÁN PRIETO & CHRISTIAN WITT-DÖRRING

The Viennese architect and ‘allround designer’ Josef Hoffmann (1870–1956) is much more than just the founder of the Wiener Werkstätte. This book offers a wide-ranging look at his oeuvre, which took shape over no less than sixty years.

The timeless beauty of Hoffmann’s creations demonstrates his importance not just as a historical figure, but as a source of inspiration for several generations.

Richly illustrated with furniture, objects, designs, textiles, photos, drawings and documents. Special attention is paid to his creative method and his misunderstood use of colour.

This monograph accompanies the exhibition Josef Hoffmann – Falling for Beauty, to take place at the Art & History Museum in Brussels from 6 October 2023 to 14 April 2024. The project was developed in collaboration with Vienna’s Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) and is one of the eye-catchers of Art Nouveau Brussels 2023.

Innovative introduction to the iconic work of architect and designer

Josef Hoffmann

Josef Hoffmann fut un innovateur, tout en étant également très conscient des traditions. À l’Académie des beaux-arts de Vienne, il reçut l’enseignement de Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer et d’Otto Wagner. Il fut l’un des fondateurs de la Sécession viennoise et cofondateur de la Wiener Werkstätte (1903-1932). Ses réalisations les plus marquantes sont le Sanatorium Purkersdorf (1904-1905) et le Palais Stoclet à Bruxelles (1905-1911). Jusqu’à sa mort, il travailla sous cinq régimes politiques successifs. Faisant fi de la mode, Hoffmann resta toujours fidèle à ses propres normes créatives exceptionnelles.

Josef Hoffmann was an innovator who was also deeply conscious of traditions. He was taught by Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer and Otto Wagner at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, and was one of the founders of the Wiener Secession and co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–1932). His most notable achievements are the Sanatorium Purkersdorf (1904–1905) and the Palais Stoclet in Brussels (1905–1911). By the time of his death, he had worked under five successive political regimes. Standing apart from the prevailing fashion, Hoffmann always stayed true to his own exceptionally creative standards.

Une introduction innovante à l’œuvre emblématique de l’architecte et designer

Josef Hoffmann

Raphael Revolution in Tapestry Design

KATJA SCHMITZ-VON LEDEBUR

In 1515, Pope Leo X commissioned the Italian painter Raffaello Sanzio (1483–1520), now generally known as Raphael in English, to make the cartoons for a series of ten tapestries with scenes from the lives of Saints Peter and Paul. This commission played an instrumental part in the stylistic development of the Flemish tapestries, a marvellous illustration of princely splendour in the sixteenth century. Under Habsburg rule, Brussels soon emerged as a leading manufactory for exquisite products. Raphael’s designs are among the most successful series in the history of tapestry production.

This publication shows the enormous richness of the tapestries through dozens of details. It accompanies a collection exhibition of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, home to the former imperial tapestry collection, from 26 September 2023 to 14 January 2024.

Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna

The Official Museum Book

With its aesthetically powerful interior architecture, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna on Maria-Theresien-Platz is completely unique in terms of architecture and interior design. Showcasing the museum in all its glory, this luxurious volume is the definitive reference to the museum and a sumptuous showcase of the permanent collection. The book creates a fascinating dialogue between the greatest artists and their works from antiquity to the nineteenth century.

This book tells the story of the building and the interior splendour and presents the museums most seminal works, including the Bruegel collection and the outstanding masterpieces by Velázquez, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Rubens, Van Eyck, and many others.

An indispensable resource for anyone who loves art history, this is a richly illustrated record of one of the world’s greatest collections of European art.

Unique insight into one of the world’s largest collections of European art

The spectacular beauty of Raphael’s tapestries as you have never seen it before

Vermeer

PIETER ROELOFS & GREGOR J.M. WEBER (ÉD.)

Depuis des siècles, Johannes Vermeer fascine les amateurs d’art de génération en génération. Ses toiles de renommée mondiale, comme La Laitière et La Jeune Fille à la perle, ont fait de lui un peintre de légende. Quant aux scènes d’intérieur, d’une réserve tout intimiste, elles figurent au rang des œuvres les plus magistrales grâce à leur illusionnisme étonnant et à la maîtrise unique d’une lumière vive et colorée.

En vue de l’exposition Vermeer au Rijksmuseum, une équipe internationale d’experts du maître de Delft, dirigée par Pieter Roelofs et Gregor J.M. Weber, a mené des recherches approfondies sur la vie et l’art de ce grand peintre du XVIIe siècle. Elles ont ouvert des perspectives inédites sur sa position sociale, son ménage, sa foi religieuse, sa technique et l’influence de son milieu sur son œuvre. Autant de connaissances nouvelles, qui nous permettent de nous approcher plus que jamais de l’artiste magistral que fut Vermeer.

Publication officielle accompagnant la plus grande exposition Vermeer jamais réalisée

Cet ouvrage, conçu par Irma Boom, plonge le lecteur dans l’univers pictural immensément riche du maître de Delft. Y sont évoquées les 37 œuvres qui lui sont attribuées, et les nombreux détails de ces tableaux nous font voir l’art de Vermeer avec un étonnement toujours renouvelé.

Édité par Pieter Roelofs et Gregor J.M. Weber. Avec des contributions de Bart Cornelis, Bente Frissen, Sabine Pénot, Pieter Roelofs, Friederike Schütt, Christian Tico Seifert, Ariane van Suchtelen, Gregor J.M. Weber et Marjorie E. Wieseman.

Vermeer

PIETER ROELOFS & GREGOR J.M. WEBER (ED.)

Johannes Vermeer is the master of tranquillity. His intimate and introvert domestic scenes, with their persuasive illusionism and unique use of clear, colourful light, are counted among the most exquisite paintings ever made. His work has continued to fascinate new generations for centuries. With his world-famous pictures, such as The Milkmaid and Girl with a Pearl Earring, Vermeer has achieved legendary status.

In preparation for the Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum, an international team of Vermeer experts, under the direction of Pieter Roelofs and Gregor J.M. Weber, conducted extensive research into the life and art practice of the Delft painter. This has resulted in new insights about his social position, his household, his faith, his technique and the influence of his environment on his art.

By connecting the latest knowledge about his personal life to his work, we now come closer to Vermeer than ever before.

Official publication accompanying the largest Vermeer exhibition ever, in Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

This book, designed by Irma Boom, immerses the reader in the immensely varied pictorial world of the seventeenth-century Dutch master. All 37 of the works attributed to him are included here, and the extraordinary closeup details of these paintings afford us new opportunities to gaze in wonder at Vermeer’s artistry.

Edited by Pieter Roelofs and Gregor J.M. Weber. With contributions by Bart Cornelis, Bente Frissen, Sabine Pénot, Pieter Roelofs, Friederike Schütt, Christian Tico Seifert, Ariane van Suchtelen, Gregor J.M. Weber and Marjorie E. Wieseman.

Rights BE & NL: Hannibal Books

World rights: Thames & Hudson

© Akg-Images

Paris Souls

Unexpected Histories from the City of Light

DIRK VELGHE

In this book, reality always outdoes fiction and truth always outdoes myth. Get ready for a personal encounter with police inspectors and filles à la cuisse légère, Impressionists and art thieves, swindlers and bankers, poisoners and surgeons, collaborators and members of the resistance, Cubists and anarchists, painters’ models and curators, terrorists and duellists, Huguenots and Catholics, criminals and executioners. In intriguing, often forgotten histories such as ‘The Chanel versus Wertheimer’, ‘Lenin’s Yellow Jersey’ and ‘Selling the Eiffel Tower’, hundreds of Parisian souls are brought back to life behind the façades, in the passages, on the squares and along the avenues and boulevards of the City of Light.

In Paris Souls, the reader samples the idiosyncratic harvest of someone who, after many seasons in his favourite city, still takes delight in its fruits. Author Dirk Velghe recounts facts and stories about the unusual people and events that have coloured Paris, sometimes with paint, sometimes with blood. Histories the way only a true Parisian can tell them. Light-hearted but always drawing on thorough research, Velghe gives a completely new twist to the history of Paris. His no-nonsense prose and narrative flair make for compelling reading.

Big Bang Imagining the Universe

BARBARA BAERT, ABDELKADER BENALI, THOMAS HERTOG, JAN VAN DER STOCK E.A.

How did the Universe begin? Will it ever end?

The cosmos and Man’s place in it have fascinated humans for thousands of years. These mind-bending cosmic questions keep scientists awake at night but also fuel the imagination and fantasy of artists.

English edition of the bestseller about Paris

This unique book combines the insights of scientists and visual artists, offering a magnificent overview of the visualisation of the universe from the Neolithic to the present. In addition, dozens of stunning modern and contemporary artworks engage in a dialogue with the Big Bang theory in its various forms. Professor Georges Lemaître formulated his revolutionary theory about the origin of the Universe in 1931 at the University of Leuven. In 2021 our ideas about this Big Bang and the cosmos as a whole are still evolving. Our astonishment and desire to visualise what we are unable to fully comprehend, however, remain unchanged.

ISBN 978 94 6466 640 3

A fantastic look Size 31.3 x 21.5 cm Retail price € 55

at the imagination of the Cosmos English edition ISBN 978 94 6388 787 8

From Antwerp to Amsterdam Painting from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

KOENRAAD JONCKHEERE, MICHA LEEFLANG, SVEN VAN DORST E.A.

Seventeenth-century Dutch art is famed throughout the world. Yet how ‘Dutch’ are those paintings in actual fact? Did the countless history pieces, landscapes, portraits, still lifes and scenes from everyday life truly originate in cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem, Delft and Leiden? Or might the cradle of these genres actually be located somewhere else?

This book presents over ninety masterpieces by Flemish and Dutch artists to show how seventeenth-century Dutch painting could never have flourished the way it did without the foundations laid in sixteenth-century Antwerp. Thoroughly researched, it tells the story of the talented and accomplished artists and merchants who migrated north in search of religious liberty and new commercial opportunities after Antwerp fell to Spanish Catholic troops in 1585.

Discover how Flemish and Brabant masters made the Netherlands great

From Antwerp to Amsterdam is a timeless reference work containing unique paintings by outstanding masters such as Joos Van Cleve, Pieter Aertsen, Maarten De Vos, Frans Floris, Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Jan Steen and Rembrandt Van Rijn.

With text contributions by Koenraad Jonckheere, professor of art history at Ghent University and author of the bestseller A New History of Western Art, Micha Leeflang, curator at the Museum Catharijneconvent, and Sven Van Dorst, head of the restoration studio at The Phoebus Foundation, and others.

Baroque Influencers Jesuits, Rubens, and the Arts of Persuasion

PIERRE DELSAERDT & ESTHER VAN THIELEN (ED.)

In what ways did the Jesuits deploy the Baroque visual language of the time to persuade the public of their vision on humankind, religion and society? In this beautifully illustrated book, which includes numerous artworks by Peter Paul Rubens and others, diverse authors rise to the challenge of finding answers to this complex question.

The setting is Antwerp in the seventeenth century. At that time, the city was the Jesuit Order’s headquarters in the Netherlands and a bastion against the Calvinism in the Northern Netherlands Republic. The fine arts were flourishing there like never before. Painters such as Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck produced works for the Jesuits and participated in the Catholic community life organised by the order, with large groups of fellow believers.

Contemporary look at baroque masterpieces

This publication takes a close look at the Baroque Saint Ignatius Church, now the Saint Charles Borromeo Church on Hendrik Conscienceplein, for which Rubens created magnificent ceiling paintings. The authors also show how more modest forms of art, such as religious folk prints, illustrated lives of the saints, schoolbooks, emblemata books and prayer books, were used to kindle the enthusiasm of as many believers as possible, both in their own country and in distant overseas territories.

Baroque Influencers – Jesuits, Rubens and the Arts of Persuasion presents written contributions from researchers affiliated with the Universities of Antwerp, Louvain and Stuttgart and various heritage institutes.

978 94 6466 628 1

Anna Boch Un voyage impressionniste Anna Boch An Impressionist Journey

L’artiste polyvalente Anna Boch (1848-1936) n’est pas seulement une peintre de talent, mais aussi une collectionneuse avertie, une mécène de haut vol et une voyageuse enthousiaste, amatrice de musique et d’architecture. Seule femme membre des cercles artistiques d’avant-garde Les XX et La Libre Esthétique, elle est considérée par ses confrères sur un pied d’égalité. Inspirée notamment par Théo van Rysselberghe, Paul Signac et Georges Seurat, Anna Boch se consacre à une variante personnelle du néo-impressionnisme.

Les tableaux lumineux d’Anna Boch illustrent sa quête de la ligne et de la couleur. Sa passion pour la nature la conduit dans des endroits reculés, rêvant à la beauté de paysages bucoliques dont elle veut s’imprégner.

Fascinée par la mer, elle capte la lumière et ses reflets sur la côte avec une intensité inégalée et les convertit en compositions insolites, mais surtout intemporelles. Cet ouvrage, qui présente son œuvre à travers plus de 100 créations, inscrit résolument Anna Boch dans l’histoire de l’art des XIXe et XXe siècles.

Ce livre paraît à l’occasion de l’exposition Anna Boch, un voyage impressionniste, organisée du 1er juillet au 5 novembre 2023 au Mu.ZEE à Ostende et du 3 février au 26 mai 2024 au Musée de Pont-Aven.

Sous la direction de Virginie Devillez, avec la collaboration de Stefan Huygebaert et Wendy Van Hoorde.

The versatile Anna Boch (1848–1936) was not only a talented artist, but also a highly knowledgeable collector, generous patron, and enthusiastic traveller with a great love of music and architecture. She was the only woman to become a member of the prominent art societies Les XX and La Libre Esthétique, and she was treated as an equal by her fellow artists. Inspired by kindred spirits including Théo van Rysselberghe, Paul Signac and Georges Seurat, Anna Boch set about developing her own personal version of Neo-Impressionism.

Anna Boch’s lucid paintings chart her search for line and colour. Her passion for nature took her to remote destinations and imbued her with dreams of beautiful bucolic landscapes that she wanted to interpret.

Harmonious

use of colour and delicate paintwork

in a superb overview of the artist Anna Boch

She loved the sea and succeeded in capturing the light and its reflection upon the coast with unparalleled skill, translating it into intriguing but above all timeless compositions. This book presents her oeuvre with more than 100 works, and resolutely claims a place for Anna Boch in the art history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Anna Boch, An Impressionist Journey at Mu.ZEE, Ostend from 1 July until 5 November 2023, and at the Musée de Pont-Aven from 3 February until 26 May 2024.

Edited by Virginie Devilez, with the cooperation of Stefan Huygebaert and Wendy Van Hoorde.

Une utilisation harmonieuse des couleurs et une peinture délicate dans un superbe aperçu de l’artiste Anna Boch

KMSKA Le Musée Merveilleux KMSKA The Finest Museum

Après onze ans de rénovation, le Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts d’Anvers (KMSKA) a fait peau neuve. À tous points de vue, c’est désormais un nouveau musée, avec un espace muséal flambant neuf, un bâtiment historique qui a retrouvé tout son éclat, une façade restaurée et un jardin réaménagé.

KMSKA – Le Musée Merveilleux met en lumière à la fois cette rénovation à grande échelle et se focalise sur la deuxième innovation majeure qu’est la modernisation du fonctionnement du musée dans son ensemble. Vous trouverez ici des réponses à toutes vos questions, notamment : comment la collection du KMSKA est-elle devenue ce qu’elle est aujourd’hui et comment le KMSKA l’expose-t-il ? Comment s’adresser à un public aussi diversifié que possible ? Comment le musée se présente-t-il au monde extérieur ? Quelles sont les attentes d’un musée d’art au XXIe siècle ?

Découvrez l’histoire vivante d’un musée contemporain en constante évolution. Une histoire illustrée par la photographe Karin Borghouts.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) has undergone an eleven-year renovation resulting in a total makeover. The museum as it stands today is in all respects new: there is an entirely new museum volume and the monumental museum building has been restored to its historic magnificence, the exterior has been conserved and the garden newly landscaped.

KMSKA – The Finest Museum showcases this enormous renovation and also highlights a second innovation of equally massive scale: the entire operation of the museum has been brought up to date. In this book you can find the answers to questions such as, how did the collection reach its current incarnation? And, how does the KMSKA make its decisions about what to display? How do you appeal to as diverse an audience as possible? How does the museum present itself to the world? What expectations are museums faced with in our twenty-first century?

Discover the vibrant history of this modern and perpetually evolving museum. With images by photographer Karin Borghouts.

A unique glimpse behind the scenes of the KMSKA: an eleven-year renovation project presented in words and pictures

Un regard unique dans les coulisses du KMSKA : une rénovation d’onze ans en mots et en images

Borghouts

KMSKA Les Cent Merveilles KMSKA The Finest Hundred

Après une campagne de rénovation de plusieurs années, les portes du Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Anvers (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, ou KMSKA) sont à nouveau grandes ouvertes. Le musée possède une collection particulièrement variée comptant plus de 9000 pièces : peintures, sculptures, collages, dessins et gravures du XIVe siècle au XXIe siècle.

Les maîtres flamands, comme Van Eyck, Massijs et Rubens, y côtoient des artistes de renommée internationale comme Fouquet, Titien, Rodin et Modigliani. Le KMSKA abrite aussi la plus grande collection mondiale d’œuvres de James Ensor et de Rik Wouters.

Cet ouvrage richement illustré met en valeur sept siècles d’art depuis les primitifs flamands jusqu’aux artistes conceptuels. Cent chefsd’œuvre de la collection permanente y sont présentés en détail et commentés dans des textes clairs et accessibles. La contribution de scientifiques a également permis d’y intégrer les résultats des toutes dernières recherches.

The Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA) has reopened after several years of major renovation. It is home to an especially varied collection of art that runs to more than nine thousand items: paintings, sculptures, assemblages, drawings and prints from the fourteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

Old Flemish masters like Jan van Eyck, Quinten Massys and Peter Paul Rubens feature alongside internationally renowned artists such as Jean Fouquet, Titian, Auguste Rodin and Amedeo Modigliani. The KMSKA also has the world’s largest collections of work by James Ensor and Rik Wouters.

This richly illustrated book highlights seven centuries of art, from the Flemish Primitives to conceptual artists. A hundred masterpieces from the permanent collection are presented in detail and discussed in lucid articles that draw on the very latest research by KMSKA’s own in-house scholars.

Un regard exclusif sur une centaine de chefsd’œuvre de la collection permanente du KMSKA renouvelé

An exclusive insight into the finest hundred masterpieces from the permanent collection of the renewed KMSKA

A New History of Western Art From Antiquity to the Present Day

KOENRAAD JONCKHEERE

A New History of Western Art deconstructs and demystifies the long history of art in Europe to reveal how and why certain works of art become iconic and enduring in their appeal.

How has art evolved from the pursuit of the ‘ideal’ human form to a black square on a white canvas? Why is a banana duct-taped to a wall worth more on the art market than a beautiful seventeenth-century landscape?

By taking art for what it actually is – a piece of stone or wood, a sheet of paper with some lines drawn on it, a painted canvas – this lively and accessible account shows how seemingly meaningless objects can be transformed into celebrated works of art.

A reference work by Koenraad Jonckheere offering a new vision on the history of art

Breaking with conventional notions of artistic genius, Koenraad Jonckheere explores how stories and emotions give meaning to objects, and why changing historical circumstances result in such shifting opinions over time.

Tracing its story from ancient times to present, A New History of Western Art reframes the evolution of European art and radically reshapes our understanding of art history.

Face to Face with Hugo van der Goes Old Master, New Interpretation

MARIJN EVERAARTS, MATTHIAS DEPOORTER, GRIET STEYAERT E.A.

In this fascinating introduction to the life and work of Flemish Primitive Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440–1482/1483), several experts and researchers shed light on the virtuosity of the master himself. The Death of the Virgin is one of the most important works in Musea Brugge’s world-renowned collection of Early Netherlandish painting. After an intensive five-year restoration, the masterpiece has come into its own again, with many brilliant elements, a bright colour palette and newly uncovered details. Face to Face with Hugo van der Goes –Old Master, New Interpretation offers an insight into the timeless yet contemporary character of the masterpiece and pays attention to the iconic value of a work waiting to be discovered.

With text contributions by Matthias Depoorter, Lieven De Visch, Marijn Everaarts, Sibylla Goegebuer, Griet Steyaert and Anne van Oosterwijk.

Number of pages

English edition

ISBN 978 94 6436 630 3

Distributed by Yale

Fools and Folly in Flemish Art

LARRY SILVER

According to medieval theologians, faith is a deadly serious business. Humour and virtue are irreconcilable, because laughter is uncontrollable and escapes the control of reason. A modest smile is permitted. But laughing loudly, grinning and grimacing: these are the playing field of the devil – just as pernicious as other uncontrollable urges, such as physical love or the addiction of the gambler. That is the domain of the peasant or fool.

In the late Middle Ages, every right-thinking town-dweller knew the difference between the peasant and the fool. Peasants are innocently gullible, primitive, throwing themselves into feasting, gorging, drinking and sex. The peasant is the antithesis of the cultivated urbanite, who fastidiously controls his urges – and who therefore above all must not laugh too loudly. Only during Innocents Day parties or Shrove Tuesday celebrations is it permitted for urban partygoers to play the fool and to show their ‘underbelly’.

In contrast to the peasant, the fool escapes the existing order. He holds up a mirror to the self-declared wise citizens, because ‘the fool reveals the truth through laughter’, even though it may be hidden between piss and shit, sex and snot. It is for precisely this reason that Erasmus, in his In Praise of Folly writes not as

At Home in a Museum

The Story of Henriëtte and Fritz Mayer van den Bergh

ULRIKE MÜLLER

The Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp is a house full of art. Art which surprises, intrigues, moves. The museum today is internationally renowned as the home of the famous Dulle Griet (‘Mad Meg’) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

The museum is housed in a historic building which recalls two individuals, Henriëtte van den Bergh (1838–1920) and Fritz Mayer van den Bergh (1858–1901). The entire collection was assembled by Fritz, a man with a keen interest in the Medieval Renaissance periods. Following Fritz’s early and unexpected death on 4 May 1901, it was his mother, Henriëtte van den Bergh, who had the museum built to house his art collection. By doing so, she preserved this exceptional collection and at the same time succeeded in keeping alive a memorial to her son. The museum opened its doors in 1904. This book offers an insight into the history of the museum and its founders.

himself but through the persona of Folly, a broad back behind which the wise person can hide when he denounces social problems. Laughter thus alters the world.

In this context, the fool and irony became important motifs in medieval art, especially in the Low Countries. This original art book is illustrated with dozens of top-quality works by Flemish masters from worldwide collections.

Larry Silver is professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the monograph Hieronymus Bosch He is renowned worldwide as one of the most important art historians of our age. With an introduction by Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren, art historian and chief of staff at The Phoebus Foundation.

Over four chapters, the book explores the personalities behind the collection, their social background and networks, their interests, and their modi operandi.

ISBN 978 94 6388 781

In praise of folly: on the fool and the jester in Flemish art

The fascinating story behind Museum Mayer van den Bergh, one of the best-kept secrets in Antwerp

Dress

Continuity and Change in Egypt in the 1st millennium AD

ANTOINE DE MOOR, CÄCILIA FLUCK & PETRA LINSCHEID (ED.)

Egypt’s dry climate has preserved an exceptionally rich heritage of ancient textiles. Since 1996, the Textiles from the Nile Valley International Study Group has been conducting research into these Roman, Byzantine and early Islamic textile finds, many of which have found their way into European and North American museum collections.

The study group, consisting of curators, archaeologists, textile restorers and scientists, organises a biennial conference at the headquarters of Katoen Natie in Antwerp and publishes a series of unique books on the importance of Egyptian textiles.

This new volume brings together the findings of the twelfth conference, which took place from 12 to 14 November 2021. The focus is on textiles from the Nile valley, and in particular the tunic as evidence of social change in the late antique and early Islamic periods. Liturgical clothing, early Islamic children’s clothing and head coverings are also discussed in detail.

Explorers,

First Collectors and Traders of Textiles from Egypt of the 1st millennium AD

ANTOINE DE MOOR, CÄCILIA FLUCK & PETRA LINSCHEID (ED.)

Its dry climate means that Egypt boasts an exceptionally rich heritage of preserved ancient textiles. Since 1996, the international research group Textiles from the Nile Valley has been studying these Roman, Byzantine and early-Islamic textile artefacts, many of which have found their way into European and North American museum collections.

The research group, consisting of curators, archaeologists, textile conservators and scientists, organises a biennial conference at Katoen Natie HeadquARTers in Antwerp and publishes a series of unique books on the importance of Egyptian textiles.

This volume focuses on the history of textile excavating and collecting, which goes back to the late nineteenth century.

The book contains eighteen text contributions describing recent fieldwork, conservation treatments and scientific research worldwide, in collaboration with major universities and museums such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Voies de la modernité

MICHEL DRAGUET & MICHELANGELO VAN MEERTEN

Depuis son apparition au début du XIXe siècle jusqu’au milieu du XXe siècle, le train a constitué un sujet d’intérêt pour les artistes. Ses représentations font écho aux époques et aux sensibilités qui s’y expriment. Elles figurent l’angoisse et l’enthousiasme pour un monde nouveau, industriel, lancé à pleine vitesse mais désormais hors de contrôle. Elles étudient la gare et la ville qui se repense pour l’accueillir, les lieux nouveaux associés à la possibilité –tout aussi nouvelle – de voyager. Les artistes se fascinent pour les lumières et les volutes de vapeur. Ils se laissent hypnotiser par la vitesse et la toute-puissance de l’engin ; ils soulignent la beauté plastique de ses courbes, les pistons et la merveilleuse mécanique. Ils représentent l’outil et le fantasme, les pieds sur terre ou la tête dans l’univers onirique du voyage et de l’aventure intérieure.

Tracks to Modernity

MICHEL DRAGUET & MICHELANGELO VAN MEERTEN

From the time of their first appearance in the early nineteenth century through to the mid twentieth century, railway trains were a particular subject of interest for artists. Their depictions capture the sensitivities of their specific periods, illustrating both fear of and enthusiasm for a new industrial world launched at full speed but now seen as out of control. They portray railway stations and cities redesigned to accommodate trains, and new locations associated with equally new opportunities for travel. Artists are captivated by the lights and swirls of steam from the locomotives. They become worshippers of technology, mesmerized by the speed and almighty power of railway engines and rendering the plastic beauty of their curves, pistons and marvelous mechanisms. They depict variously the machine and the fantasy, their feet on the ground or their heads in the dreamworld of travel and inner adventure. Un parcours artistique et historique sur le thème du train vu à travers des œuvres d’artistes importants du XIXe et XXe siècle tels que Monet, Caillebotte, Spilliaert, Boccioni, Severini, Léger, De Chirico, Mondrian, Servranckx, Caviglioni, Delvaux et Magritte

An artistic and historical journey on the theme of the train through works by major artists of the 19th and 20th centuries such as Monet, Caillebotte, Spilliaert, Boccioni, Severini, Léger, De Chirico, Mondrian, Servranckx, Caviglioni, Delvaux and Magritte

De Memling à Rubens L’âge d’or de la Flandre

KATHARINA VAN CAUTEREN

Pourquoi Hans Memling peignait-il tout avec une telle minutie dans le détail ? Comment Rubens créait-il, en quelques coups de pinceau, des effets spéciaux qui feraient pâlir d’envie Steven Spielberg ? Et pourquoi les Pays-Bas méridionaux ont-ils été le centre artistique du monde durant trois siècles ?

De Memling à Rubens : l’âge d’or de la Flandre raconte l’histoire de l’art flamand des quinzième, seizième et dix-septième siècles comme vous ne l’avez jamais lue auparavant. Un véritable tour de montagnes russes à travers 300 ans d’histoire culturelle. Les chefs-d’œuvre époustouflants de la collection de The Phoebus Foundation, des joyaux inconnus de Hans Memling, Quentin Metsys, Pierre Paul Rubens et Antoine Van Dyck, vous plongent dans un monde de folie et de péché, de fascination et d’ambition. En chemin, vous croiserez des ducs et des empereurs, des citoyens riches et des saints pauvres, des galeries d’art comme des caves à vin, et Anvers comme Hollywood sur l’Escaut.

Il s’agit d’un récit passionnant sur l’image et sa signification, et sur le lien entre culture et société. L’ouvrage parle surtout de nous et de ce que nous sommes, aujourd’hui, en tant que personnes.

Dr Katharina Van Cauteren (°1981) dirige la Chancellerie de The Phoebus Foundation. Katharina est historienne de l’art et a déjà organisé de nombreuses expositions allant de la Belgique à l’Inde.

From Memling to Rubens

The Golden Age of Flanders

KATHARINA VAN CAUTEREN

Why did Hans Memling paint everything in such minute detail? How did Rubens, in just a few brushstrokes, create special effects that Steven Spielberg would envy? And why was the Southern Netherlands the artistic centre of the world for three centuries?

From Memling to Rubens: The Golden Age of Flanders tells the story of Flemish art from the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as you have never read it before. It is a rollercoaster ride through 300 years of cultural history. Leading the charge are breathtaking masterpieces from the collection of The Phoebus Foundation, unknown gems by the likes of Hans Memling, Quinten Metsys, Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck that plunge you into a world full of folly and sin, fascination and ambition. Along the way you will bump into dukes and emperors, rich citizens and poor saints, picture galleries like wine cellars, and Antwerp as Hollywood on the Scheldt.

This is a stirring tale about the image and its meaning, and the link between culture and society. Above all, it is about us and about who we are today – as people.

Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren (b. 1981) heads the Chancellery of The Phoebus Foundation. Katharina is an art historian and has already curated numerous exhibitions from Belgium to India.

A sizzling selection of masterpieces by Flemish masters, from Memling to Rubens

Une sélection exceptionnelle de chefs-d’œuvre des maîtres flamands, de Memling à Rubens

The Bold and the Beautiful in Flemish Portraits

KATHARINA VAN CAUTEREN, NILS BÜTTNER, MATTHIAS UBL E.A.

Men in stately black, women with huge ruffs, children with golden rattles, old women with wizened faces, and self-satisfied artists… These are the main players in just about every portrait ever painted in the Southern Netherlands. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, the tract of land that we today call Flanders was the economic, cultural, intellectual and financial heart of Europe. And money flows – with everyone who could afford it investing in a portrait. Today, these cherished status symbols of the past have largely lost their original significance. But beyond their functional and emotional aspects, these portraits turn their subjects into gateways to the past.

The Bold and the Beautiful takes masterpieces from The Phoebus Foundation collection and outlines the broad context in which they came into being.

Crazy about Dymphna

The Story of a Girl who Drove a Medieval City Mad

Whether captured in an impressive Rubens or Van Dyck, or an intimate portrait by a forgotten artist, the persons portrayed were once flesh and blood, each with their own peculiarities, hidden agendas and ambitions.

TILL-HOLGER

BORCHERT, STEPHAN KEMPERDICK, SVEN VAN DORST E.A.

Around 1505 Goossen Van der Weyden, Rogier’s grandson, painted a monumental altarpiece depicting the various phases of Saint Dymphna’s insane life. This Irish princess, who fled her incestuous father in the sixth century, was beheaded in the Kempen village of Geel. On account of her tragic end and uncompromising chastity, the princess was venerated from that moment on as the patron saint of the mentally ill. From the late Middle Ages, pilgrims flocked to Geel in large numbers to catch a glimpse of Saint Dymphna. To this day, Geel is known for its unique treatment of the mentally ill.

The masterpiece was intended for the church of Tongerlo Abbey. Today this work is characterized by a remarkable iconography and an eventful history.

It ultimately came into the hands of a team of specialists who subjected the altarpiece to a meticulous conservation. This gave the conservators unprecedented insight into the mind and workshop, of an early sixteenthcentury painter. This richly illustrated book is the result of years of research and contains essays by Till-Holger Borchert (Musea Brugge), Stephan Kemperdick (Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin), Katharina Van Cauteren (The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp), Lucinda Timmermans (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), Patrick Allegaert (Dr. Guislain Museum, Ghent) and many others.

The story of Flemish portraiture told through dozens of masterpieces

An exceptional art book about the altarpiece depicting Saint Dymphna’s insane life

Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren (b. 1981) heads the Chancellery of The Phoebus Foundation.

David Bowie’s Tintoretto The Lost Church of San Geminiano

CHRISTINA CURRIE, XAVIER F. SALOMON, BEN VAN BENEDEN E.A.

This lavishly illustrated book features Jacopo Tintoretto’s masterpiece Angel Foretelling the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria Commissioned by members of the Scuola di Santa Caterina for the Church of San Geminiano, the altarpiece was displayed in this central location for some 250 years. During its sojourn in San Geminiano the altarpiece was seen by many local and visiting painters.

Riccardo Lattuada tells us the fascinating story of the altarpiece. A scientific study from conservators at the Royal Institute of Cultural Heritage in Brussels reveals an astonishingly complete underdrawing. Xavier Salomon (The Frick Collection, New York) gives us an insight into what Leonico Goldioni, when comparing San Geminiano to other churches in the city, called ‘a ruby among many pearls’. Further, there is an essay by Maja Neerman on the Fiamminghi a Venezia, in particular the painter Maerten de Vos, said to have been a pupil of Tintoretto.

New light on Tintoretto’s ultimate masterpiece

Ben van Beneden (Director of the Rubenshuis, Antwerp) writes about the huge influence Tintoretto had on Rubens and Stijn Alsteens (former Curator of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) writes about Anthony van Dyck and Venetian drawing. The final chapter of this publication gives us a vivid insight into David Bowie as a true art lover.

Titian’s Hidden Portrait Unveiled after

500 Years

JAYNIE ANDERSON, LARRY KEITH, IRMA ARTEMIEVA E.A.

In the early 1550s, Titian made a portrait of A Lady and her Daughter, which he left unfinished. Soon after the master’s death in 1576, Titian’s black-sheep son, Pomponio, had the scene painted over, turning it into Tobias and the Angel: a religious subject was more likely to sell than a portrait of two anonymous sitters. In 1581, Pomponio sold off his father’s studio, including the newly overpainted canvas, to Cristoforo Barbarigo. This was the start of an incredible journey for the artwork. After the Second World War, the work was discovered in a garage in Bayswater, London.

The incredible history of the painting has been reconstructed in this volume through a number of fascinating details, in contributions from scholars of international renown starting with an essay by Jaynie Anderson which proposes the identification of the subjects portrayed, giving a history to the faces of those two figures to whom Titian chose to dedicate one of his most intense masterpieces. Larry Keith (Head of Conservation and Keeper at the National Gallery, London) writes about the decisions made to assure the conservation of the painting.

The incredible history of A Lady and her Daughter

by Titian

The picture’s presence in the Barbarigo collection is reconstructed by Riccardo Lattuada, while Irina Artemieva (State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg) traces the history of the purchase of the painting for the Hermitage.

ISBN

Bruegel and Beyond Netherlandish Drawings in the Royal Library of Belgium 1500–1800

DAAN VAN HEESCH, SARAH VAN OOTEGHEM, JORIS VAN GRIEKEN (ED.) E.A.

The Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels houses the largest collection of drawings in the country. Among its highlights are works by leading artists of the Low Countries, including Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Joris Hoefnagel, Hendrick Goltzius, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacques Jordaens.

As the library’s collection has been little studied up to now, it is largely unknown to scholars and the general public. To acquaint a wider audience with these important works of art, this richly illustrated publication brings together for the first time over one hundred master drawings from the Royal Library’s vaults. Not only new art-historical insights are presented, but also numerous rediscovered drawings and revised attributions to artists such as Maarten van Heemskerck and Karel van Mander.

Bruegel. The Hand of the Master

The 450th Anniversary Edition

ALICE HOPPE-HARNONCOURT, MANFRED SELLINK, RON SPRONK E.A.

Bruegel. The Hand of the Master was the firstever exhibition to unite paintings, drawings and prints by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It was the result of six years of research that also involved input from numerous experts in the fields of art history, conservation and science.

The focus is on insights derived from the artworks themselves. The results of the investigations into Bruegel’s drawings and paintings using modern imaging techniques, the natural sciences and dendrochronology, as well as the observations by the paintings’ restorers provide brand-new information. The analysis of Bruegel’s compositions and what he actually depicted (objects, clothes, gestures) is seen within the wider context of the lives and times of the artist and his patrons. Rounded up by the latest research into Bruegel’s life, the historical art market and previous attitudes to his oeuvre, the entire volume is intended to offer new directions for future study.

This carefully researched book, written by thirty specialists in the field, aims to make a significant contribution to our knowledge of the history of Netherlandish drawing from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.

Daan van Heesch is Head of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Library of Belgium. Sarah Van Ooteghem is an independent art historian. Between 2012 and 2018, she was Assistant Curator of Drawings at the Royal Library of Belgium. Joris Van Grieken is Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Royal Library of Belgium.

ISBN 978 94 6436 638 9

Distributed by Yale

Bruegel’s inventions and stories create artworks with a timeless power, and this volume, containing 24 essays and more than 500 illustrations, provides a comprehensive survey of the artist’s oeuvre and will be an indispensable resource for Bruegel fans and scholars alike.

‘Essays in Context’: all the results of the investigations into Bruegel’s drawings and paintings collected in a special anniversary edition

Awe-inspiring reference work on the Flemish and Dutch art of drawing from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, with masterly drawings from the collection of the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR)

The Ghent Altarpiece Art, History, Science and Religion

DANNY PRAET, MAXIMILIAAN MARTENS E.A.

The Ghent Altarpiece or the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, by the Van Eyck brothers (1432), is recognised worldwide as a great work of art and one of the most influential paintings ever made. It was the world’s first major oil painting, and it is laced with religious mysticism. The work almost reads like an A to Z of Christianity – from the Annunciation to the symbolic sacrifice of Christ, with the ‘Mystic Lamb’ on an altar in a heavenly meadow, bleeding into the Holy Grail.

For the first time, this book gathers together diverse insights on the Ghent Altarpiece, the monumental polyptych that the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck realised with the assistance of a large workshop and advisers on the painting’s subject matters.

The reference work about the peak of the Van Eyck brothers: the ‘Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’

This book has the same aim: to bring together experts from the most diverse disciplines. Only by combining the perspectives of (art) historians, philosophers, religious-studies scholars, mathematicians and specialists in optics can one fully understand the riches and depth of this masterpiece.

Lavishly illustrated, including details that have come to light using state-of-the-art techniques during the current conservation project and are not always visible to the naked eye.

Portraits de la Renaissance aux Pays-Bas

TILL-HOLGER BORCHERT & KOENRAAD JONCKHEERE

Le portrait fut le premier genre à se démarquer de la peinture d’inspiration religieuse caractéristique du XVe siècle. Par leur réalisme photographique pionnier, les portraits exécutés par Jan van Eyck, ses contemporains et ses successeurs firent la conquête de l’Europe. Leurs innovations, dont la technique de la peinture à l’huile et le portrait de trois quarts, se combinèrent au XVIe siècle avec celles de la Renaissance italienne. Il en résulta un genre artistique nouveau, axé, avec un minimum de moyens, sur la quête de l’âme humaine et de la matérialité de la vie. En ces temps d’humanisme et d’iconoclasme, d’émancipation intellectuelle et de querelles religieuses, le visage de l’être humain devint un véritable objet d’étude.

Sous la direction de Till-Holger Borchert (Musea Brugge) et de Koenraad Jonckheere (Universiteit Gent), des spécialistes belges et étrangers ont approfondi les différents

Cinquante rares portraits de la Renaissance à Flandre et aux Pays-Bas

aspects de cette forme artistique quelque peu négligée, et pourtant d’une richesse insoupçonnée. Joos van Cleve, Quentin Metsys, Jan Gossart, Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen, Pieter et Frans Pourbus, Frans Floris, Anthonis Mor, Willem Key, Adriaen Thomasz. Key, Maarten van Heemskerck – cet ouvrage fait la part belle à tous les grands portraitistes des Pays-Bas au XVIe siècle.

Pedro de Mena The Spanish Bernini

XAVIER BRAY & JOSÉ LUIS ROMERO TORRES

Pedro de Mena y Medrano (1628–1688) is nowadays the most highly regarded master of Spanish Baroque sculpture, on a par with his contemporaries, the great seventeenth-century painters Velázquez, Zurbarán and Murillo.

Mena’s contributions to Spanish Baroque sculpture are unsurpassed in both his technical skill and the expressiveness of his religious subjects. His ability to sculpt the human body was remarkable, and he excelled in creating figures and scenes for contemplation.

This first monograph on Pedro de Mena shows a lot of details and remarkable images of his hyper-realistic sculptures, full of Spanish passion.

Apart from the article by curator Xavier Bray, it also features important contributions by José Luis Romeo Torres, curator of the monographic exhibition Pedro de Mena, which was held in Málaga in 2019.

New Babylon. To Us, Liberty CONSTANT

A world without borders, capable of flowing out in all directions and allowing its residents to develop as freely as they do flexibly. This fascinating utopia of architectural and organic growth of the living environment forms the starting point of Constant Nieuwenhuys’ (1920–2005) lifelong project: New Babylon.

Between 1956 and 1974, the Dutch painter and co-founder of the avant-garde movement Cobra worked in a range of mediums to depict his vision of the nomadic city of the future. The catalogue focuses not only on the architectural aspects but embraces them as an artist’s synthesis of the arts. Beautiful models, drawings, maps, paintings, watercolors, and collages are interspersed with photographs, sketches, and other finds from his archive, together tracing the creative artistic process of an extremely dynamic artist. This not only provides extensive insight into utopian urban planning, but to a greater degree into a mode of thought and imagination – a source of great inspiration for many artists, thinkers, and architects.

Constant’s Urban Utopia – A State of Flux

With texts by Constant himself and contributions by Pascal Gielen, Rem Koolhaas, Laura Stamps, Willemijn Stokvis, Mark Wigley, and Trudy van der Horst.

The first monograph about Pedro de Mena, the greatest sculptor of the Spanish Baroque

CONTEMPORARY ART

Bram Demunter

BRAM DEMUNTER

“Everything exists side by side and can be shown as such.”

— Bram Demunter

Artist Bram Demunter (b. 1993) is a playful collector and researcher. He combines painting styles, techniques and subjects from different periods to create a unique visual language. In his oeuvre, Demunter alludes to classical masters such as Rogier van der Weyden, Matthew Paris and the Flemish Primitives, but also to artists such as James Ensor and Georg Baselitz. His work is about us humans and the place we occupy in the world, the stories and visual cultures we give rise to and the changes we bring about. Old hierarchies cease to apply, and new links are forged between present, past and future.

With text contributions by Tom Van Laere and Bram Demunter.

Long-awaited monograph on the artist Bram Demunter

Conversations

Contemporary and Historical Masters in Dialogue

This autumn, Museum Mayer van den Bergh invites 15 contemporary artists to enter into a dialogue with its impressive collection. The works of Bram Demunter, Marcel Dzama, Adrian Ghenie, Kati Heck, Leiko Ikemura, Edward Lipski, Jonathan Meese, Ryan Mosley, Muller Van Severen, Tobias Pils, Tal R, Ben Sledsens, Dennis Tyfus, Inès van den Kieboom and Rinus Van de Velde are placed alongside Pieter Bruegel’s world-famous Dulle Griet (‘Mad Meg’), but also next to the portraits of Cornelis De Vos and Alessandro Allori, still lifes by Antwerp masters such as Daniël Seghers and works by Jacob Jordaens, Joachim Patinir and Gerard de Lairesse. A number of artists have also been directly inspired to create new work, including Jonathan Meese, Tal R, Ben Sledsens, Bram Demunter, Rinus Van de Velde and Dennis Tyfus.

Publication accompanying the exhibition Conversations in Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp, from 10 November 2023 to 3 March 2024.

With a text contribution by Carl Depauw, director of Museum Mayer van den Bergh.

Unique cross-fertilisation between contemporary and historical masters in the Antwerp Museum

Mayer van den Bergh

Hans Broek

In recent years, Hans Broek (b. 1965) has immersed himself in the Netherlands’ slavery past, a bitter history which has largely escaped attention for a bafflingly long time. He visited slave forts on the Atlantic Ocean, worked in places such as Ghana and Senegal, conducted research in Suriname and devoured publications by historians and sociologists. This eventually led to an extensive series of paintings on this emotionally charged subject. Under the title The Things I Used To Do, De Pont Museum displayed this series for the first time in 2020. These are confrontational paintings in which dungeons, cell doors and plantation houses act as silent witnesses to what happened under Dutch rule. At the same time, they symbolise human failings.

Twenty-five years ago, when Hans Broek left the Netherlands for America, he created panoramic paintings of cities on America’s West Coast: rolling hills with stuccoed villas gleaming under a carefree blue sky. With these surprising interpretations of what he saw around him, he breathed new life into the landscape genre in the mid-1990s. The canvases have a cinematic and also slightly surreal quality: although there are no humans to be seen, you sense how the culture has the environment under control.

Work by Hans Broek will be exhibited in ROOF-A in Rotterdam from November 2023.

Dennis Tyfus

“Dennis Tyfus appears like a punk-blasted sprite bursting from his pantaloons, a charmed creature’s tongue lolloping the golden inspirations both fresh and world-weary amid the gallery of noise freaks and intellectual elites.”

— Thurston Moore, Sonic Youth

The practice of Antwerp-based artist Dennis Tyfus (b. 1979) encompasses a wide range of artistic media, including drawings, sculptures, installations, videos, magazines, books, music, vinyl records, tattoos, his own radio show, concerts and performances. In his oeuvre, everything flows into everything else, without a fixed definition, beginning or end. In doing so, he draws heavily on the work of artists such as Dieter Roth, Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw and Wim T. Schippers. By combining elements from his personal psyche with various aspects of high and low culture and approaching them on an equal

footing, Tyfus creates a universe in which the personal, the everyday and the uncanny come together. This book brings together a wide selection from his oeuvre.

With text contributions by Helena Kritis, curator at WIELS contemporary art centre in Brussels, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and artist Steven Warwick.

DENNIS TYFUS

A glimpse into the universe of the artist Dennis Tyfus

HANS BROEK

First book presenting an overview of the work of Hans Broek: ‘Turbulent painting and guilty architecture’

© Dennis Tyfus

© Hans Broek

Inès van den Kieboom

INÈS VAN DEN KIEBOOM

“Inès van den Kieboom paints in a remarkably anticyclical manner. Through the calm, unassuming conviction with which she pursues her artistic goals, as well as through her archaic, supratemporal pictorial inventions, she shows the present what art really is – and what it has the potential to be.”

— Markus Stegmann

Inès van den Kieboom (b. 1930 in Ostend; lives and works in Antwerp) has been painting since the 1960s, yet she only recently decided to exhibit her painting in the last two years. Van den Kieboom mainly finds inspiration for her works in her everyday surroundings, but also in art history, popular culture and current affairs. She paints or draws her subjects through the filter of her memories or impressions, which she depicts figuratively, abstracted to their essence. Van den Kieboom’s self-assured, lively and energetic paintings offer new perspectives on the way we observe the world.

In collaboration with Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp. With text contributions by Petra Maclot and Markus Stegmann.

The first monograph on artist

Inès van den Kieboom

Fred Bervoets – 2015-2019

FRED BERVOETS

Fred Bervoets (b. 1942) is a legend in the Belgian art world and revered by the younger generation of artists. For years he has made both expansive, teeming artworks and extremely traditional prints, the latter of which has seen him develop his own unique technique. In recent years, Bervoets has increasingly presented himself as a peintregraveur. This means he does not use the etching technique as a method of reproduction but as a means of expression. Each and every one of his chaotic and colourful works testifies to his pictorial passions, consummate skill and unbridled energy.

A simple anecdote from a friend in a café might provide the catalyst for a work in which the story assumes new proportions and adopts its own twists. His personal life also engenders self-portraits or other types of artworks, all crowned with an essential degree of selfmockery and irony. Bervoets allows everyday events to expand into miniature universes governed by their own rules and laws.

The horror vacui of his large works conceals countless details, all of which contribute to the narrative.

This book presents the evocative work produced by Fred Bervoets between 2015 and 2019, including his Night Drawings series, the masterful embodiment of the nocturnal reveries and memories that persistently haunt his mind.

With a foreword by Ernest Van Buynder and an essay by Paul Huvenne.

The playful, chaotic world of peintre-graveur

Fred Bervoets

Ben Sledsens

BEN SLEDSENS

Artist Ben Sledsens (b. 1991) combines an indepth knowledge of the visual tradition with his own mythology. With his large-scale canvases, he shows us fragments from his imaginary world, a Utopia in which he himself wants to live. His colors and reinterpretations of the landscape are reminiscent of artists such as Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard, Claude Monet, Henri Rousseau and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Although his landscapes, portraits, and historical and daily scenes have an idyllic appearance, there is also a certain tension and mystery in his scenes. He always builds up his compositions around a moment of climax with an open beginning and end. By reusing motifs, themes, objects and poses, Sledsens creates an intriguing puzzle of references and builds a recognizable, coherent, romantic and utopian oeuvre.

A stunning

monograph

on the colourful universe of artist Ben Sledsens

With text contributions by Herwig Todts (curator modern art KMSKA, Antwerp) and Stefan Weppelmann (director Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig).

COBRA A Pictorial and Poetic Revolution

PAUL HUVENNE (ED.)

With French as its working language, Cobra was pretty much the last truly European movement within Modernism. The group’s anarchic story is not just an important strand in art history – it remains as lively as ever and has inspired all sorts of artists who were never directly involved with Cobra. The work bequeathed to us by Karel Appel, Pierre Alechinsky, Constant, Corneille and other kindred spirits is as fascinating as ever, both raw and confronting, poetic and moving. It is with the same spirit of artistic joyfulness and freedom that this book showcases the masterpieces of Cobra art belonging to The Phoebus Foundation.

With text contributions by Paul Huvenne, Johan Pas, Hilde de Bruijn, Laura Stamps, Piet Thomas, Piet Boyens and Naomi Meulemans. The preface was written by Karine Huts-Van den Heuvel

A magnificent introduction to the Cobra art movement

Rinus Van de Velde

A Fictional Autobiography

Rinus Van de Velde is one of the most talkedabout contemporary artists. In his early period he was mainly known for his monumental charcoal drawings, but he soon developed into an all-round artist through his use of different media. Using installations, film, charcoal, ceramics and pencil drawings, Van de Velde explores his fictional biography. This book offers an overview of his more recent charcoal and oil pastel drawings.

Rinus Van de Velde – Drawings is published in conjunction with Frac des Pays de la Loire, Nantes.

With text contributions by Jan Postma, editor at De Groene Amsterdammer, and Laura Stamps, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag.

A

beautiful monograph

on the work of Rinus Van de Velde: charcoal, pencil, pastel drawings

“Rinus Van de Velde’s art touches us because the artist draws us into his confrontation with external expectations and internal emotions.”

— Fanni Fetzer, director, Kunstmuseum Luzern

Rinus Van de Velde (b. 1983) has built up an extensive oeuvre of drawings, sculptures, installations and films. Although he is best known for his monumental works in charcoal, he also uses film, cardboard sets and polystyrene objects to construct a sprawling universe – in which his figures and the viewer become equally entangled.

This is the first publication to offer an in-depth look into the making of Van de Velde’s video works; drawings; and cardboard, wood and

ceramic objects, providing insights that are as intimate as they are fascinating.

Photographs show the artist and his team at work in his studio, building ambitious film sets, composing complicated tracking shots, and more. Revealed to the public for the first time, these behind-the-scenes moments enhance the artist’s charcoal and coloured pencil drawings, and ceramic objects. The book contains more than 150 illustrations, showing how Rinus Van de Velde tells his inscrutable tales of failed heroes through a skilful interweaving of reality and fiction.

Texts by Fanni Fetzer and Koen Sels.

Rinus Van de Velde I’d rather stay at home, …

RINUS VAN DE VELDE

Over 150 exceptional images offer a fascinating insight into the making of Rinus Van de Velde’s video works, drawings and objects

Nick Ervinck Works, GNI_RI_2022

Nick Ervinck (b.1981) is an artist primarily interested in the field of tension between nature and culture, between tradition and innovation. In his work, he strives to push the boundaries of digital possibilities, always with respect for (art-)historical heritage. Nick Ervinck - Works, GNI_RI_2022 brings together Ervinck’s wellknown monumental sculptures and 3D prints, as well as drawings, ceramics, and new work in brick and bronze.

Includes a text contributed by writer and curator Jon Wood, a specialist in modern and contemporary sculpture, who led the Henry Moore Institute’s research programme for many years. Freddy Decreus, Professor Emeritus at Ghent University, and Michael Hübl also contributed texts.

Pélagie Gbaguidi

PÉLAGIE GBAGUIDI

In this publication, Pélagie Gbaguidi (b. 1965) presents new paintings as well as works with textiles and drawings. The artist calls herself a contemporary ‘griot’, which she defines as someone who functions as an intermediary between individual memory and ancestral past. Her work is an anthology of the signs and traces of trauma, and is centred on colonial and postcolonial history. She aims to reveal the process of forgetting by recontextualizing archives and histories. The images that Gbaguidi creates – through painting, drawing, performance and installation – seek to escape from binary thinking, archetypes and simplifications.

In 2021 Pélagie Gbaguidi created a fresco at the Centre Pompidou in Metz, inspired by the writings and works of Etel Adnan.

Pélagie Gbaguidi has participated in several international exhibitions. Her work has been displayed at the Centre Pompidou in Metz, Middelheimmuseum in Antwerp, WIELS in Brussels, Musée d’Art Contemporain de la Haute-Vienne in Rochechouart, the Stadtmuseum in Munich, MMK in Frankfurt and the National Museum of African Art – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

The committed oeuvre of Pélagie Gbaguidi

An impressive monograph on artist Nick Ervinck

Hyun-Sook Song: Where at Home Paint or Die

JOCHEN

HILTMANN

What role do home and cultural identity play in art? Long before she received international recognition as a painter, Hyun-Sook Song came to West Germany from South Korea as a simple migrant worker in the 1970s. She initially works as a nurse and experiences everyday xenophobia in the democratic Federal Republic. During this time, drawing and writing letters and diaries brought about a profound change for her life: the calligraphed signs in her mother tongue turned into an expressive script-picture language that developed into a unique painting which transcended national or cultural ascriptions of art.

In his biography, Jochen Hiltmann draws a multifaceted picture of Hyun-Sook Song’s path and her engagement with European modernity and contemporary art. He also documents how his own, Eurocentric understanding of art has changed and expanded in dealing with Song’s origin and painting.

In collaboration with Zeno X Gallery and König Books.

Song

Let’s Play It by Ear

NADIA NAVEAU

“In recent decades, Naveau has developed a highly personal formal language with a strikingly recognisable plastic vocabulary and idiom: a style she has maintained consistently, but with which she still manages to surprise us.”

— Paul Huvenne

Nadia Naveau blends seriousness with play, and her ability to seduce viewers while evoking a sense of strangeness is unmatched.

Let’s Play it by Ear is not only a retrospective of twenty years of artistic practice, but also, like her sculptures, a visual puzzle of materials and references to the past and present.

With contributions by Jon Wood, Paul Huvenne and Jeroen Olyslaegers.

A stunning overview of Nadia Naveau’s figurative sculpture

© Nadia Naveau

An impressive biography of South Korean artist Hyun-Sook

MIRROR MIRROR Fashion & the Psyche

YOON HEE LAMOT, ELISA DE WYNGAERT E.A.

In MIRROR MIRROR – Fashion & the Psyche, MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp and Dr. Guislain Museum examine how fashion, psychology, self-image and identity are connected. The personal experience of the body is the main theme of this unexpected dialogue between visual art and avant-garde fashion. Featuring work by Ed Atkins, Walter Van Beirendonck, Noir Kei Ninomiya, Genieve Figgis, Genesis Belanger, Hussein Chalayan, Comme des Garçons, Joseph Schneller, Ezekiel Messou, Giovanni Battista Podestà, Helga Goetze and Yumiko Kawai, among others.

With text contributions by curators Yoon Hee Lamot and Elisa De Wyngaert. Mara Johanna Kölmel, Lucy Moyse Ferreira, Monika Ankele and Renate Stauss also wrote text contributions.

A unique take on fashion

Strandbeesten The New Generation

THEO JANSEN

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.’

Theo Jansen began studying physics in Delft, then started work as an artist. Between 1986 and 2008 he was the author of a regular column in de Volkskrant. Jansen was named Artist of the Year 2018 in November 2017 and received The Hague’s Culture Award in 2018.

An ode to the worldfamous strandbeests

by Theo Jansen

Night Time

HANS OP DE BEECK

“It is clear to see that what invariably animates the pictures is light. Watercolour is transparent, so the white of the paper itself is the light source.”

— Hans Op de Beeck

Hans Op de Beeck has spent more than ten years working on a series of large, monochrome watercolours which he paints at night. The original works measure from 2.5 to 5 metres across and deal with both classical and contemporary themes. In many cases they are poetic scenes depicting mysterious night-time locations, sometimes populated by anonymous people. In common with his entire oeuvre, the mood of the image is the prominent feature.

This luxurious, large-format book, published in a limited edition of 800 copies, brings together more than sixty night-time watercolours which have never been published before. Together they create a sort of associative graphic novel.

Hans Op de Beeck makes sculptures, films, paintings, drawings, photographs, as well as writing and creating monumental installations. His work is lauded at home and abroad, and he has staged solo exhibitions in venues including M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Museum Wolfsburg and the Smithsonian in Washington. His watercolours can be found in a number of top collections, including at the Centre Pompidou and Museum Voorlinden.

“As we grow older, we filter out of our perception the details that we have been conditioned to believe are unimportant. It takes an exceptionally talented painter to pierce that veil and capture the essential richness and strangeness of the world. This, it seems to me, is Kati Heck’s gift.”

— Ben Eastham, editor-in-chief of art-agenda

Over the years, Kati Heck (b. 1979) has developed a highly personal vision of the everyday. Her works resemble fictitious projections from her own universe, and she uses the diversity that is inherent in painting to create a link with the potential of the imagination. Heck is principally known as a painter but also seeks expression in other media. Her colourful oeuvre is consistently characterised by irony, drama and a highly original sense of the grotesque.

Hauruck contains some 75 works that were created between 2013 and 2020, as well as a graphic short story written specially for this book.

The highly original universe of artist Kati Heck

With a text contribution from Ben Eastham, editor-in-chief of art-agenda

“If we say painting is a language, then Kati Heck speaks it in all dialects. The twentieth century saw painting analysed and deconstructed until we declared it dead. In her intuitive manner, Kati Heck revives and reconstructs painting into a new form, entirely her own, to create a universe that captivates us.”

— Makeal Flammini, artist

ISBN 978 94 6388 766 3

A large, imposing book containing the night-time watercolours of Hans Op de Beeck

Das Phantom der Malerei / The Phantom of Painting

WALTER SWENNEN

Walter Swennen is a painter, born in Brussels in 1946. Like others of his generation, he approaches and explores the medium in new ways by applying principles from other disciplines.

Swennen’s work constantly challenges the viewer. The layers of paint often hide a veritable battlefield of attempts, corrections, words and messages. His Dutch-speaking family suddenly began speaking French when he was five years old, and language games accordingly form an integral part of his art. A painting by Walter Swennen is not just a result, but also a process, which allows us to trace the path taken by the artist to achieve the ultimate ‘visible’ image. A key constant is the pleasure he derives from the battle with the paint. Non-conformist that he is, Swennen paints on anything: from canvas to wood to discarded camping tables, stoves and even washing machines.

Walter Swennen’s long and varied career deserves to be recognised for its radical nonconformism and the influence that the artist still exerts on young artists today.

A

retrospective monograph

on the work of artist Walter Swennen

Swennen is represented by the Brussels Xavier Hufkens Gallery and the Gladstone Gallery in New York, and won the prestigious Ultima award for life-time services to the visual arts in 2019. His work can be found in numerous museum and gallery collections.

With text contributions from Daniel Koep, Konrad Bitterli and Stephan Berg.

Armen Eloyan

ARMEN ELOYAN

“The paintings of Armen Eloyan convey an air of immediate familiarity. We recognizes familiar figures: old acquaintances like Pinocchio, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Sponge Bob, Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Krazy Kat, Pluto, and Goofy – an anthropomorphic community of mainly American animated cartoon and comic-strip characters. They are childhood figures, but what a peculiar childhood!”

— Anne Bonnin

The expressive paintings of the Armenian artist Armen Eloyan (b. 1966) are as cute and seductive as they are repulsive. According to Eloyan, a good painting is like a good joke: the pieces must fit together.

Noted for his large-scale, irreverent paintings of anthropomorphic animals and figures, he depicts absurd narratives in his darkly comic work.

Though Eloyan doesn’t define himself as a writer, his paintings tell sardonic, sometimes erotic stories. Inspired partly by cartoons and street art, as well as by European masters, his works are heavily impastoed with colorful paints and thick black outlines, adroitly balancing dark humor with a searing existential vision of a dystopic world.

With texts by art critic Anne Bonnin and Laurence Gateau (director, Frac des Pays de la Loire).

In collaboration with the Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp.

The dystopic world of artist Armen Eloyan

© Walter Swennen

Mark Manders Zeno X Gallery, 28 Years of Collaboration

Mark Manders – Zeno X Gallery, 28 Years of Collaboration offers an overview of the longstanding collaboration between the artist Mark Manders (b. 1968) and Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp. The review has been published to accompany his most recent solo exhibition in the gallery and highlights a number of important exhibitions and special projects in Belgium and abroad in which Manders was invited to take part from the 1990s to the present day.

Mark Manders has been working since 1986 on what he calls his ‘self-portrait as a building’. His oeuvre – consisting of installations, sculptures, works on paper and drawings – is ascribed the metaphor of a fictional building, divided into separate rooms whose precise shapes and sizes are undefined. There is no beginning and no end. Manders strives for timelessness and universality using archetypal forms and familiar-looking materials such as clay, bronze and wood. His bronze sculptures and installations consequently appear more vulnerable than they are in reality.

With text contributions from Mark Manders, Frank Demaegd (Zeno X Gallery) and Marjolein Sponselee.

A.F. VANDEVORST

A universe of fetishes, fur, leather, sensual folds and tight straitjackets: that is what Belgian fashion designers A.F.Vandevorst stand for. This publication celebrates the duo’s twentieth anniversary.

An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx met in 1987, on their first day of school at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Ten years later, they set up their company Blixa and presented their first collection as A.F.Vandevorst in Paris. They have grown to become one of Belgium’s most edgy cult designers, closely connected to the Antwerp Six (Dries Van Noten, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck…).

A.F. Vandevorst’s aesthetics are the result of their deep love for the visual arts, music and literature, and their great interest in cultural archetypes. This book focuses in hundreds of splendid images on their diverse inspirations, including Joseph Beuys, the military and the medical world, and on other artists to whom An and Filip feel strong connections.

Among the latter is Blixa Bargeld (Einstürzende Neubauten), who was the source of their first company’s name and has been a major inspiration ever since.

With an introduction by Alix Browne and contributions by, among others, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Braeckman, Tim Blanks, Blixa Bargeld, Hannelore Knuts, Sally Singer, Linda Loppa and Suzy Menkes.

An in-depth review of the oeuvre of the artist Mark Manders

A fascinating insight into the stimulating universe of Belgium’s cult-fashion designer duo A.F. Vandevorst

Kamikaze

With Kamikaze, the Hamburger Kunsthalle brings an extensive retrospective exhibition of Belgian artist Philippe Vandenberg (1952–2009), whose radical work increasingly receives international recognition.

Philippe Vandenberg created a diverse oeuvre that reflects his Zeitgeist and tries to bid an answer on fundamental questions. Kamikaze refers to the working method of the artist: the destruction of prior work and fixed ideas opened the way for him to create.

The principle explains the formal and substantive variety of his paintings and drawings. This publication, covering the period from 1995 to 2009, shows figurative works next to abstract geometric experiments and monochrome overpainting. In the last years of his life, the painter examined, among other things, the use of words and sentence fragments in his work.

Vandenberg touches on the dark side of human existence, to pain and violence, but also to our deeply human desire for intimacy and participation. His intense oeuvre is at the same time disturbing and exciting.

With much previously unpublished work and text contributions by, among others, Brigitte Kölle and Felicity Lunn.

Live or Die

PHILIPPE VANDENBERG & BRUCE NAUMAN

This publication combines the works of Belgian artist Philippe Vandenberg (1952–2009) and American artist Bruce Nauman (b. 1941). At first, it may seem startling to see Nauman’s small but dense selection of works alongside those by Vandenberg. The artists never met, and they could not be more different in their choice of artistic media. And yet there is something that links the oeuvre of these apparently divergent artists.

In this book, this extraordinary link is examined. The art of both Vandenberg and Nauman is direct, uncompromising and distressing. Their works are direct, raw and uncouth.

The work of Vandenberg and Nauman originates form the same source: frustration. They cry out despair about the dark side of people, about hatred and violence, and about the impossibility of communication between people and of engaging them. Both artists succeed in creating images that capture the abyss within ourselves, our failings and our cruelty.

‘It is said that art is about life and death. That may be melodramatic, but it is also true,’ Nauman said.

With texts by Dr. Brigitte Kölle (Head of Contemporary Art, Hamburger Kunsthalle), John C. Welchman (Professor of Art History, University of California, San Diego) and Anna Dezeuze (Lecturer in Art History, Ecole Supérieure d’Art et de Design Marseille Méditerranée).

The uncompromising art of Philippe Vandenberg and Bruce Nauman

© Philippe Vandenberg

PHILIPPE VANDENBERG

An extensive retrospective monograph on one of Belgium’s most radical artists

PHOTOGRAPHY

Atelier

STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

« La lumière est à l’origine de tout. Depuis plus de 12 ans, je vois ce phénomène envahir mon atelier. C’est un émerveillement dont je ne me lasse pas. »

— Stephan Vanfleteren

Ces dernières années, Stephan Vanfleteren (°1969) a photographié très intensivement dans le studio utilisant la lumière du jour dont il dispose à son domicile. Atelier est la somme de ce travail. Le rideau de théâtre gris y est systématiquement présent, en arrière-plan récurrent. Sous la lumière du jour comme sous la lumière artificielle, Vanfleteren recherche la beauté et le sens. Ses sujets forment une large palette englobant à la fois les personnes et les objets. Le photographe s’attache à des personnalités connues et à des anonymes. Il montre le visage d’un vieux pêcheur et inspecte la main de Nick Cave ou une bouteille jetée sur la plage. Il adore ses enfants qui grandissent et les artistes enflammés. Il observe le cadavre raidi d’un martin-pêcheur et le corps d’une danseuse élastique, ou encore la lumière du soleil qui se déplace lentement sur son rideau de théâtre.

Son travail se réfère à la peinture classique, avec sa lumière enchanteresse, sa lumière en filigrane ou son clair-obscur « à l’ancienne ». Si le sujet ne peut être photographié chez lui, il hisse les rideaux de théâtre gris et construit son propre atelier sur place.

Nouvelle monographie monumentale très attendue de Stephan Vanfleteren

Le projet Atelier de Stephan Vanfleteren s’inscrit dans la tradition des maîtres anciens et contemporains tels que Rembrandt, Géricault, Zurbarán, Claesz., Cézanne, Borremans, Penn et Roversi. Il constitue une ode à la capacité d’observer, d’imaginer, de sublimer et, enfin, de fixer. Ce faisant, Vanfleteren reste fidèle à son style caractéristique et à son esthétique. Avec son savoir-faire, son cœur d’artiste et sa vitalité, il nous rend à la fois témoins et complices d’un délit commis sous des reflets.

Avec des textes d’Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer et de Stephan Vanfleteren.

STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

“Light is the beginning of everything. For more than twelve years I’ve watched this phenomenon enter my studio. It’s a miracle I never tire of.”

— Stephan Vanfleteren

In recent years, Stephan Vanfleteren (b. 1969) has been engaged in intense photographical activity in the daylight studio at his home. This work is brought together in Atelier. Grey theatre curtains are present throughout as a recurring background. In both his natural light and his artificial light photography, Vanfleteren is on a quest for beauty and meaning. His extensive palette of subjects includes both things and people – wellknown figures and anonymous individuals alike. He shows us the face of an old fisherman and inspects both Nick Cave’s hand and a bottle washed up on the beach. He adores his growing children and inspired artists. He studies the stiffened corpse of a kingfisher and the body of a flexible dancer, or follows the sunlight as it moves slowly across his theatre curtain.

Long-awaited new monumental monograph by

Stephan Vanfleteren

His work alludes to classical painting, with its bewitching ‘old’ light, oblique light and chiaroscuro. If a subject cannot be photographed in Vanfleteren’s home, he raises the grey theatre curtains and builds his own studio on location.

Stephan Vanfleteren’s Atelier project follows in the tradition of old and contemporary masters such as Rembrandt, Géricault, Zurbarán, Claesz., Cézanne, Borremans, Penn and Roversi. It is an ode to the power to observe, to imagine, to sublimate and –ultimately – to fix, in which Vanfleteren stays true to his characteristic style and aesthetic. With his craftsmanship, artistry and vitality, he turns us into witnesses and accessories to a crime with incident light.

With text contributions by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and Stephan Vanfleteren.

Ara Güler A Play of Light and Shadow

“The power of Ara Güler’s photography lies in the way it creates a unique visual language within the practice of photojournalism, which may not necessarily demand a ‘personal touch’.”

Turkey’s best-known photographer, Ara Güler (1928–2018), depicted daily life in Turkey for three-quarters of a century. Güler captured the rough edges of Istanbul as well as all its splendour. Celebrated as ‘The Eye of Istanbul’, his poignant black-and-white images of his beloved city’s inhabitants, streets and docks remain his most celebrated works. But Ara Güler was far more than that. He created reportage photography all over the world, including in Somalia, Eritrea and Afghanistan. He photographed celebrities such as Alfred Hitchcock, Salvador Dalí, Maria Callas and Sophia Loren. His versatility can also be seen in experimental collages from the early part of his career and in more recent work when he plays with light and colour.

Being a testament to Turkey’s rich history, A Play of Light and Shadow offers a contemporary view of Güler’s work while also providing the opportunity to explore iconic and unknown parts of it.

ARNO Photographs (1972–2022)

DANNY WILLEMS

“We didn’t need words.” — Arno

Danny Willems stood at Arno’s side for fifty years (!) as a photographer and as a friend. Not for nothing was he called the sixth member of T.C. Matic. He took countless photos of Arno, from the time of his first band, Freckleface, to his very last solo outing. This book presents a large selection from his archive, including many images which are being published for the first time.

Danny Willems: ‘Arno was a free spirit. He lived for the moment and for pleasure, music and women. He was a loner, someone who knew what he wanted: to be a musician, a rock star, like the performers in the NME.

A beautiful monograph on photographer Ara Güler, aka ‘The Eye of Istanbul’

With text contributions by art historian Kim Knoppers, curator and head of photography department at Istanbul Modern Demet Yıldız Dinçer, photographer and filmmaker Ahmet Polat, curator and head of exhibitions at Foam in Amsterdam Claartje van Dijk, and the Ara Güler Museum and Ara Güler Archives and Research Center.

Publication on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name in Foam, Amsterdam, from 22 June until 8 November 2023.

Arno intrigued me. He was a shy eccentric who was usually to be found somewhere in the corner of the pub. But on stage, he was transformed from a stammerer into an entertainer. It was fascinating to watch.

What we had in common was that we had both had to find our own way. Nothing was mapped out, everything was new. I did the graphic design for Tjens Couter and T.C. Matic, went to buy letter sheets for the record sleeves and kept my eyes peeled in the graphic department of the photo studio.

Photographer and blood brother Danny Willems shows the true Arno in hundreds of images

A year after Arno moved to Brussels, I followed him there. It was an incredible period: the whole world opened up before us, and the wind was in our sails. Everything we’d always wanted was suddenly possible. We had succeeded.’

Simultaneously with the publication of the book, Danny Willems presents the exhibition of the same name at the Venetiaanse Gaanderijen in Ostend, which runs from 16 December 2023 to spring 2024.

With a foreword by Stephan Vanfleteren.

ISBN 978 94 6466 629 8

Rights BE & NL: Hannibal Books

World rights: Thames & Hudson

Setting the Stage - North Korea

EDDO HARTMANN

“Within North Korea’s collective character, the individual is just a pixel. It is exactly that pixel that I am looking for and their significance within the city.”

— Eddo Hartmann

Having made four trips to Pyongyang over the last few years, Eddo Hartmann has created this refined book of photographs to portray the North Korean regime’s ambition to construct the ultimate socialist city while completely shaping the lives of its inhabitants after this ideal model.

After the total destruction of the capital during the Korean War (1950–1953), the government seized the opportunity to rebuild Pyongyang from the ground up and convert it into the perfect propaganda setting.

An original view of North Korea by photographer

Eddo Hartmann

The Sacrifice Zone

EDDO HARTMANN

Eddo Hartmann’s new photographic project focuses on one of the first ‘sacrifice zones’ created by governments in the late modern era for the secret production, testing and maintenance of nuclear and chemical weapons of all kinds. The residents of these locations unknowingly became guinea pigs in the experiment. Today, these areas have become examples of ecocide: the irreversible destruction of nature on a large scale.

A remote area of Kazakhstan was once home to the Soviet Union’s main nuclear testing facilities. It became known as ‘The Polygon’. On this site, roughly the Finishing of Slovenia, more than 450 nuclear tests took place from 1949 to 1989, without regard for their effect on the local population and the environment. The full impact of the radiation only became apparent after the test site closed in the early 1990s.

Today, this corner of the Kazakh steppe is a place of desolation and decay. The landscape is dotted with strange lakes formed by nuclear explosions and the remains of giant concrete structures. It seems uninhabitable, and yet people live there, demonstrating incredible resilience.

Eddo Hartmann is one of the few Western photographers who have been given the exceptional opportunity to record Pyongyang’s artificial architecture. In a series of evocative images, he has captured the forced and almost unrealistic character of the North Korean aspirations. In this process, he places an original focus on the individual.

Eddo Hartmann’s work has been included in various Dutch photographic collections and has been awarded prizes by the London-based Association of Photographers (AOP) and the Dutch Photographers association (DuPho).

Eddo Hartmann (b. 1973) studied photographic design at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. He mainly focuses on long-running

documentary projects and is the author of Setting The Stage – North Korea, published by Hannibal Books. He currently also works as a lecturer in photography and visual grammar at KABK in The Hague.

Publication to coincide with the exhibition of the same name at Huis Marseille in Amsterdam from 28 October 2023 to 25 February 2024.

Eddo Hartmann captures the impact of the ‘sacrifice zones’ in Kazakhstan in beautiful, astonishing photos

© Eddo Hartmann

Eddo Hartmann

The Endless Coloured Ways

SANJA MARUŠIĆ

Intriguing self-portraits, desolate landscapes and vibrant colours: the Dutch-Croatian artist Sanja Marušić (°1991) creates new worlds with her images. She travels to the four corners of the globe, but just as easily she uses her own living room as a backdrop. Recurring themes are escapism, the relationship between man and nature, motherhood, and finding the balance in human relationships.

Marušić’s artistic practice is guided by her love of experimenting with shapes, colours and layers. Photography is the starting point for each work, but she then uses a variety of analogue and digital techniques, sometimes changing the image in such a way that it seems as if we are looking at a painting. The performances (staged by the artist herself), the creation of a set using handmade props, and the manual post-processing are just as important as the photo itself.

The majestic fantasy world of photographer-artist

Sanja Maruši

The stories she tells through her photography and films touch on her personal life; for example, the series Eutierria (2019) depicts her honeymoon, Before You (2020) documents her pregnancy, and Sasha and Sanja (ongoing) deals with her motherhood.

MOØDe

ANTON CORBIJN

“I photograph mostly personalities, but fashion is more and more part of it. We all make a decision in the morning about what to wear, even if it is just a hat or a black T-shirt. Fashion is not always spelled out in capital letters.”

— Anton Corbijn

MOØDe, by leading international photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn, presents images from his extensive oeuvre in which he explores the crossover – in the broadest sense of the word – between photography and the world of fashion.

Corbijn’s portraits of famous figures including Alexander McQueen, Tom Waits, Kate Moss, Björk and Clint Eastwood have achieved iconic status. As visual director for Depeche Mode and through his decades-long collaboration with U2 and other musicians, he has left an indelible stamp on how we look at a crucial aspect of contemporary culture. With MOØDe, Anton Corbijn shows that fashion is everywhere.

Iconic portraits and fashion imagery of leading international photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn

This publication features more than 150 images and collaborations from Corbijn’s rich body of work, many of them never seen before.

© Anton Corbijn

With a text contribution by author Selin Kuşçu.

With an essay by Karen Van Godtsenhoven, associate curator of The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Master photographer and director/filmmaker Anton Corbijn presents in his latest publication a series of striking images focusing on icons and how they are commemorated.

IKONEN contains three series: Cemeteries, a. somebody and Lenin, USSR.

Cemeteries is an intriguing collection of black-and-white photos of gravestones. In a. somebody, we can see dozens of self-portraits after past legends from the world of music, photographed in Strijen, the village of Corbijn’s birth – outdoors and in his studio. The book also shows previously unpublished series on Lenin’s visual presence in the former USSR from the early 1980s.

With a preface by Anton Corbijn and a text contribution by art writer Dominic Eichler.

Dominic Eichler is a Berlin-based freelance art critic, writer and musician. Since 1997 he has regularly written articles, editorials and reviews for leading international art publications. Between 2007 and 2011, he was “contributing editor” of Frieze magazine. He has also written catalogue essays for numerous European and US museums and institutions, including The Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, Kunstmuseum Basel, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and many art associations. In 2005 he was awarded the German AdKV Prize for Art Criticism.

Instanton

ANTON CORBIJN

Previously

In Instanton, photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn presents a series of images, most of which have never been published previously.

Corbijn gained his fame and reputation with his portraits of famous figures including Tom Waits, The Rolling Stones, Marlene Dumas, Gerhard Richter, Clint Eastwood, Kate Moss and a host of other influential musicians, artists, filmmakers, models and designers. But over the years, Corbijn has also captured a wealth of intriguing images on his mobile phone. Instanton brings together a wide selection of these snapshots from his private life, as well as shots taken whilst travelling, recording ‘the profane and the profound’.

A publication with five different manually applied cover images, randomly distributed across the publication series.

Anton Corbijn

Masterful phone photos by leading photographer Anton

Corbijn

ANTON CORBIJN

unpublished work on commemoration, effigies and iconic figures by master photographer

Erwin Olaf & Hans Op de Beeck

Inspired by Steichen

ERWIN OLAF, HANS OP DE BEECK & EDWARD STEICHEN

Published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of Edward Steichen’s death, this book presents the work of two eminent contemporary artists, the Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf (b. 1959) and the Belgian visual artist Hans Op de Beeck (b. 1969).

Art historian Ruud Priem, department head and curator of fine arts at the Musée national d’histoire et d’art in Luxembourg, came up with the concept and selected the works of Olaf and Op de Beeck, thus initiating a unique collaboration. It centres on the artists’ shared admiration for the oeuvre of the Luxembourg photographer Edward Steichen (1879–1973), and their mutual respect. The book juxtaposes Olaf’s series Im Wald with watercolours and sculptures by Op de Beeck and landscape photographs by Steichen. Although very different, surprising connections emerge between the three artists in this richly varied presentation of images in black, white and shades of grey.

Werner Mantz The Perfect Eye

WERNER MANTZ

Werner Mantz (1901–1983) was a prominent architectural and industrial photographer who began his career in the 1920s. His work occupies a unique historical position thanks to his visual language, technical prowess and use of natural light. As one of the most important photographers of the New Building movement, Mantz’s oeuvre bridges the gap between the often-anonymous nature of commissioned photography and the modernist , artistic avantgarde movements of the interwar years, such as the Bauhaus. In the 1970s, Mantz was even hailed as the ‘missing link’ in the history of international photography.

To date, only thematic selections from Mantz’s wide-ranging oeuvre have been exhibited. This monograph sets the record straight by showcasing, for the very first time, his immense versatility.

A retrospective publication that sheds new light on Werner Mantz’s innovative photography

Werner Mantz – The Perfect Eye contains over 300 predominantly vintage images, ranging from architectural photography, advertising shots and portraits of adults and children, to views of industry and mines, religious subjects, shops, restaurants and interiors, as well as roads, public spaces, landscapes and travel photographs. That Mantz’s oeuvre belongs to the canon of international photography is indisputable.

With text contributions by Frits Gierstberg, Stijn Huijts, Huub Smeets, Charlotte Mantz and Clément Mantz.

Edward Steichen inspires Erwin Olaf and Hans Op de Beeck

Erwin Olaf © Hans Op de Beeck

Collegium Vocale Gent – Philippe Herreweghe

PHILIPPE HERREWEGHE, STEPHAN VANFLETEREN E.A.

It was in 1970 that Philippe Herreweghe founded Collegium Vocale Gent, dedicated among other things to works by Johann Sebastian Bach and German Baroque music. The ensemble brought new insights on the performance of Baroque music to bear on vocal music and attained world fame within just a few short years.

Photographer Stephan Vanfleteren accompanied the ensemble and has produced a set of masterful images of the ensemble and its conductor. Religiosity plays a central role in his visual interpretation.

With text contributions from Joep Stapel and Luc De Voogdt on the lives and work of Philippe Herreweghe and the composers who have been his greatest inspiration, plus a personal contribution by Philippe Herreweghe on Bach and death.

Philippe Herreweghe (b. 1947) is Artistic Director of Collegium Vocale Gent. He is also conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, as well as being a highly sought-after guest conductor for orchestras including the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Staatskapelle Dresden.

A personal and visual retrospective of the life and work of conductor

Philippe Herreweghe and Collegium Vocale Gent

SERVAAS VAN BELLE

“STAL is the first and only book to serenade these nameless, often accidental, sculptures standing on their pedestals of wet grass in fields full of incense.”

— Stephan Vanfleteren

For this unique book, photographer Servaas Van Belle scouted every corner of Belgium to find just the right kind of shed, always photographing them in the same perfect lighting conditions. And for Van Belle ‘perfect’ means in a haze of fog.

Livestock shelters in meadows and fields are so common in the Belgian landscape and culture that nobody ever pays them any attention. Nonetheless, the countryside offers quite a range of architectural gems. These sheds and barns are the product of man and nature, quietly radiating a poignant, if decaying, beauty. They come in many shapes and sizes, are constructed from motley materials (often recycled) and exhibit a varied colour palette. Clearly showing the ravages of time, they tell wordless stories that Servaas Van Belle can capture like no other.

With an introduction by Stephan Vanfleteren.

The life’s work of photographer Servaas

Van Belle: capturing distinctive sheds and barns

as they stand

The Silence of the Lens

DAVID CLAERBOUT & JONATHAN POUTHIER

In a conversation with Jonathan Pouthier, curator of the cinema programme of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou (Paris, France), video artist David Claerbout reflects for the first time in depth on his work of the past decade in relation to current discussions about photography, film and the virtual. The Silence of the Lens offers a unique insight into the creative process behind such recent video works as The Close, Aircraft (F.A.L.), Wildfire (meditation on fire), The Confetti Piece and The Pure Necessity.

The publication coincides with the Venice Biennale 2022 and solo exhibitions in various cities including Munich, Berlin, Budapest and New York.

David Claerbout (b. 1969) lives and works in Antwerp and Berlin. He is known for his video installations, which he exhibits worldwide. His work is included in major public collections worldwide, including Centre Georges Pompidou Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris (France); Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (Germany); Schaulager, Basel (Switzerland); Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto (Canada) and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (US).

Long-awaited monumental monograph on the work of David Claerbout

Dance in Close-Up

ERWIN OLAF

“Ballet inspires me. Human beings have the capacity to express themselves through many art forms, but when it comes to dance – and especially classical modern ballet – I am always amazed by that unbelievably elevated form of expression. It’s so precise and so incredibly skilled; I admire that enormously.” — Photographer and filmmaker Erwin Olaf

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Hans van Manen was not only one of the world’s leading choreographers, but also an internationally acclaimed photographer. It was during this period that the then very young photographer Erwin Olaf met the famed artist, who immediately took him under his wing and introduced him to the world of the visual arts and studio photography.

This book celebrates their forty years of friendship with a photo series in which Van Manen directs moments from his choreographic career, recorded with the utmost precision by Erwin Olaf.

With text contributions from the authors Nina Siegal and Michael James Gardner.

exclusive art project

by photographer Erwin Olaf and

choreographer

Hans van Manen

offering a unique view on dance and photography

An

Flash | Back

MAURITSHUIS, RINEKE DIJKSTRA, ANTON CORBIJN, STEPHAN VANFLETEREN E.A.

What happens when new masters pick up where old masters left off? On the occasion of the bicentenary of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, the museum asked contemporary photographers to reflect on the permanent collection. Which masters capture their imagination? How do they interpret seventeenth-century art?

The result: 16 new works by 16 contemporary photographers, including Erwin Olaf, Rineke Dijkstra, Anton Corbijn and Stephan Vanfleteren, one for each room in the Mauritshuis.

The new works will be displayed alongside the seventeenth-century works that inspired them and will be put equally next to each other in this luxury book.

The photographers were entirely free to select what they wanted to work with. For some it was a painting, for another a detail from a painting, or even an entire room in the museum. Expect to see original and surprising reflections on seventeenth-century art: counterparts, commentaries, alternatives. None of the photographs is a remake of the original painting. One thing is certain: you will never look at Rembrandt, Vermeer or Steen in the same way.

Down by the Water ROBIN DE

PUY

“The longer I do not travel, the more I turn to the place where I live. I see how my new environment takes care of me. How the baker and the greengrocer bring my groceries to my doorstep every Saturday morning. How all kinds of people call this their village, their neighborhood, their home. I see families who have lived here for generations, I see refugees, outcasts and graduates, I see urban diversity mixed with a small-town state of mind.”

— Robin de Puy

Robin de Puy (b. 1986) has lived for several years in Wormer, a small village just to the north of Amsterdam. She is fascinated by the American countryside and during the recent lockdown discovered that her new environment proved to be very universal, with the same sort of local small-town icons that she has often encountered during her travels through the rural landscapes of America.

The long-awaited new publication by photographer Robin de Puy

Robin de Puy is a photographer for awardwinning publications. Her work has previously been exhibited in the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, Fotomuseum Den Haag in The Hague and Photoville Festival Brooklyn.

Finishing Hardcover

Number of pages 140

Size 31.7 x 24.3 cm Retail price € 55

Bilingual edition English-Dutch ISBN 978 94 6388 789 2

An exclusive book with top contemporary photography inspired by the work of the old masters in the Mauritshuis

Hellbangers

“Hellbangers is an affirmation that shows the strength and power of the metal community in Africa and how it connects around the world. We are all united by the essence of the metal heart and spirit of the Hellbangers!”

— Rob Halford (Judas Priest)

Photographer Pep Bonet (b. 1974, Mallorca) has been following Overthrust, a heavy-metal band from Botswana, Africa, and shows us a growing, exciting and thoroughly organic heavy-metal community.

The inhabitants of Botswana portrayed in this book are tattood, wear loudly and proudly leather jackets and leather trousers, and play heavy death-metal music. With names like Demon and Gunsmoke, it would be easy though to think they are thugs, but “We try to be examples. Rock is a wild thing, but also something for the heart”, says Gunsmoke, the heavy-metal head. Just like their Western peers, the lyrics of the songs are very critical towards societies. Metal in Botswana is a rebellious movement against the authorities. This is the story of what looks at first to be an unlikely union, yet one which powerfully illustrates how heavy-metal music has become a positively unifying force in an unlikely part of the world.

Max Pinckers

HANS THEYS

This trilingual book marks the culmination of ten years of collaboration between the photographer Max Pinckers and the writer Hans Theys, who was given permission to use a personal selection from all of Pinckers’ photographs to create a classic photobook without having to take into account their original context. The publication also contains an essay in which Theys discusses Pinckers’ oeuvre based on thoughts by Susan Sontag.

An

about Hellbangers, Botswana’s underground metal culture

Max Pinckers (b. 1988) is a Belgian artist/photographer. In his work he explores the critical, technological and ideological structures which underpin the creation and consumption of documentary images. For Pinckers, creating a documentary is a speculative process in which reality and truth can be used as multiple and mouldable concepts. He has received several international prizes, including the Prix Levallois, the Edward Steichen Award Luxembourg and the Leica Oskar Barnack Award.

The first retrospective of the oeuvre of photographer Max Pinckers

Hans Theys (b. 1963) has written and designed more than fifty books about the work of contemporary artists and has published hundreds of essays, interviews and reviews in books, catalogues and magazines. All these publications are based on collaborations or conversations with the artists in question.

amazing photobook

With text contributions written by Pep Bonet and Steffan Chirazi, and a foreword by Rob Halford.

It is often said that you cannot do the same walk twice in New York. Its history may be short compared to that of European cities, but it is also a history marked by lightning-fast change. Thanks to the art of photography, we are able to see that fascinating history. This book takes the reader on an enchanted journey through time, from the small town that began as New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, through the unbridled expansion and waves of mass immigration in the ensuing centuries, to the post-industrial metropolis that it was to become. Splendid historical photos make this book, with its elegant gilt-edged finish, a visual homage to the vibrant city that is New York today.

Jacqueline Goossens and Tom Ronse are Belgian journalists and experienced city guides who have lived and worked in New York since 1980. Their stories about iconic locations and districts like Times Square, Harlem, Wall Street, Central Park, Ellis Island and the Bronx bring the past to life and help the reader to understand how they became what they are today. The metamorphoses of New York, the evolution of its architecture, infrastructure and art are all described in illuminating detail. The lives of the city’s inhabitants, originating from every corner of the world, also receive ample attention. Writing from the authors’ own experiences lends the book a highly personal point of view.

Venezia

SERGE SIMONART

“Every day, a first-time visitor to Venice will enquire about the most direct route to his or her hotel. ‘The shortest or the most beautiful?’ I once overheard the concierge at the Hotel Des Bains respond. The tourist who chose the most beautiful route is still wandering the streets. This is a unique photobook in which to wander and lose oneself.”

— Serge Simonart

Venice is already the subject of thousands of unremarkable travel guides and photo books. Only an original and tactile collector’s item can lay claim to a worthy place in today’s Google age.

This evocative book is brimming with a wealth of Venetian memorabilia: nineteenth-century photographs, engravings, hand-coloured magic lantern slides, antique postcards, old luggage labels and keys for long-lost luxury hotels, eighteenth-century gold ducats, antiquarian erotica, masks, invitations to Carnival balls, and the list goes on.

Neither a travel guide nor a summary of unmissable sights, Venezia takes readers on an atmospheric pilgrimage along mythical peaks. Resembling a rare volume from 1895, this giltedged book captures all the mystery, glamour and faded elegance of the most miraculous city in the world.

JACQUELINE GOOSSENS & TOM RONSE

A photographic journey into the dazzling past of a metropolis that never ceases to amaze

Finishing Hardcover with gold gilt-edging

A melancholy ode to the most beautiful city on Earth

When Elephants Come to Town A Visual Anthology

JAMES ATTLEE

“Through this extraordinary selection of photographs and accompanying text, we follow elephants on their journey from Ancient Rome to Coney Island and beyond. Across battlefields and city bridges, in railway cars and circus rings, adored, applauded and at times brutally mistreated, elephants have truly come to town.”

— James Attlee

When Elephants Come to Town is a visual celebration of man’s timeless fascination with the world’s largest land animal. The joy and excitement elephants arouse when they make an appearance in our lives is brought to life through a combination of iconic photographs.

A wonderful antidote to uncertain times: elephants in the picture

Rather than a series of contemporary nature photographs, the book is a collection of exceptional images from around the world of elephants in captivity, dating from Victorian times to the height of circus culture in the mid twentieth century, many of them taken by anonymous photographers. In the essay, acclaimed British author James Attlee describes the broader context of that relationship through the ages. In doing so, he does not shy away from describing the abuse and poor living conditions captive elephants have had to endure; at the same time he evokes the depth of understanding that can exist between man and animal.

Land of Ibeji – Land of Twins

SANNE DE WILDE & BÉNÉDICTE KURZEN

Photographers Sanne De Wilde (b. 1987, Belgium) and Bénédicte Kurzen (b. 1980, France) investigate the mythology of twins in Nigeria, where the rate of natural twin births is higher than anywhere else in the world. As sacred beings, twins’ magical and spiritual powers are celebrated with mythical fervour, but also condemned as unnatural.

‘Ibeji’, meaning ‘double birth’ and ‘the inseparable two’ in Yoruba, stands for the ultimate harmony between two people. Embracing this concept, the photographers created richly intriguing, intensely colourful portraits of twins.

They played with the concept of doubling to create an imaginative photographic story, using double exposures, mirror reflections and colour filters. Through these pictorial processes, the two artists produced inventive double portraits, while also working together as twin-like coauthors. Land of Ibeji is the magical, colourful result.

The intriguing follow-up to the award-winning Island of the Colorblind

© Sanne

De Wilde

STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

“At times I think that Stephan has a clear idea of how to make his photographs work so well. But then there’s this book here, showing us he is constantly, across a wide range of situations, searching for his visual language, for his self, for stories that need to be told, and then the work becomes so exciting again for me, and important and rich, that I want to drown myself in it. A masterful collection.”

— Anton Corbijn, photographer and director

Stephan Vanfleteren (b. 1969) is mainly known for his penetrating black & white portrait photography, but over the past decades his work has ranged to documentary, artistic and personal pictures. From street photography in world cities like New York to the genocide of Ruanda, from storefront façades to the mystical landscapes of the Atlantic wall, from still lifes to intense portraits. The iconic images sit side by side with unknown treasures in this heavy tome containing no less than 505 photographs.

In the very personal accompanying text, Vanfleteren reflects on how his own work and the photography genre as a whole have evolved in recent decades.

Surf Tribe

STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

In Surf Tribe, photographer Stephan Vanfleteren shows that there is far more to surf culture than just competitive sport. Surfing is also about a deep respect for the ocean, as well as that moment of insignificance surfers feel when confronted with the forces of nature. It’s about battles won and lost, both with other surfers and with themselves.

Vanfleteren looks beyond the traditional surf spots of California and Hawaii and searches the globe for people who live in places where sea and land meet. He documents a fluid community, which has nature as its one and only leader.

He pictures talented youngsters as well as living icons and revered legends, competition surfers as well as free surfers. In this book there are no action shots on azure blue waves; instead, you’ll find serene black and white portraits in Vanfleteren’s well-known, haunting style.

An incomparable photo book about the international surf culture

by Stephan Vanfleteren

He reveals the real person behind the surfer, in all his or her strength and vulnerability. This series of images penetrates to the true heart of surf culture: the love for the water, the addiction to the waves, the passion for the surf.

With more than 300 portraits of, among others, Kelly Slater, Gerry Lopez, John John Florence, Laird Hamilton, Bethany Hamilton, Greg Noll, Stephanie Gilmore, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Mickey Munoz, Filipe Toledo and Tom Carroll.

With a preface by surf legend Gerry Lopez.

English

ISBN 978 94 9267 736 5

A journey through the oeuvre of photographer

Stephan Vanfleteren, with expansive personal reflections and stories from three decades of encounters and photography

© Stephan Vanfleteren

Atlantic Wall

STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

During World War II, Adolf Hitler gave the order for a line of defense to be constructed along the coasts of the western front. Ranging from the French-Spanish border to the north of Norway, this Atlantic Wall is a series of bunkers, barricades and coastal batteries.

Stephan Vanfleteren photographed this ‘wall’ of more than 2,600 kilometres in his well-known black-and-white style. He planted his tripod on various beaches in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, climbed cliff faces in France, sailed between the fjords of Norway and stood in the surf in Denmark to photograph the ruins of the largest military structure of the previous century.

Vanfleteren shows with this series of photos his wonder for the untamed architectural beauty of these concrete structures, and he shows the power of nature as it slowly reclaims these structures that were once considered impenetrable.

The crumbling Atlantic Wall through the inquisitive eyes of photographer

Stephan Vanfleteren

Belgicum

STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

“The brilliant book Belgicum is an epitaph for the country that Vanfleteren sees disappear like a sandcastle in the surf.”

— Eric Min in De Morgen

Belgicum is a photo project about Belgium. It is not an objective reflection on a country but a subjective photographic document in black and white. A journey of discovery through a small country in the center of Europe at the turn of the century. For more than fifteen years, photographer Stephan Vanfleteren wandered through the ‘Belgicum’ territory, lost, and hunted by emotion and love for his motherland. It became a journey through a land of scars, in search of an untraceable identity but with the melancholic soul of an ancient nation.

This international bestseller, with more than 11,000 copies sold in the past decade, became a reference in Belgian photography history. With a text contribution by David Van Reybrouck.

Reissue of Stephan Vanfleteren’s Belgicum following the 10th birthday of this masterpiece

Charleroi Il est clair que le gris est noir

STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

Ces dernières années, Stephan Vanfleteren a passé de longues journées à sillonner le pays noir. Le photographe entretient une relation d’amour-haine avec la ville industrielle au bord de la Sambre, où les mines de charbon ont fermé depuis belle lurette et où l’industrie métallurgique déclinante se craquelle sous l’effet de la crise mondiale. S’il est parfois choqué par la pauvreté, la criminalité et la dégradation, Vanfleteren est souvent ému par la solidarité, la sincérité et l’hospitalité des Carolos.

Charleroi, il est clair que le gris est noir n’est pas seulement un testament visuel d’une ville délabrée ; c’est aussi le rendu personnel d’impressions, de rêveries et de pensées d’un homme qui regarde, écoute et écrit sur le spectre noir d’une ville grise.

Texte et photos de Stephan Vanfleteren.

« Un coup de foudre. Je ne peux décrire autrement ce qui s’est passé quand j’ai découvert Charleroi au début des années 1990. »

— Stephan Vanfleteren

Testament visuel impressionnant

Elvis & Presley

ROBERT HUBER & STEPHAN VANFLETEREN

Photographers Robert Huber and Stephan Vanfleteren traveled through America in 1999 following the footsteps of their great hero Elvis Presley, dressed up as Elvis & Presley. Decked out in glitter suits and wearing wigs, these two Europeans photographed each other in eleven US states, from Times Square to Death Valley. The Belgian Stephan Vanfleteren shot his pictures in black and white, the Swiss Robert Huber in color.

This is not a book about the real Elvis or about the many Elvis impersonators, but a fantastic road trip of an icon, where the character constantly interacts with the visited places, the people and the American history of superficial encounters and cheap motels.

Collector’s edition for photography enthusiasts and collectors.

Stephan Vanfleteren’s debut again available after fifteen years in a limited edition

Robert Huber

Rebel Lives

KRISTOF TITECA

The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by the infamous Joseph Kony, was active in northern Uganda from the second half of the 1980s. The rebel group became notorious for the use of extreme violence, in particular its large-scale abductions of children. Rebel Lives is a visual story about life inside the rebel movement: based on photographs taken by LRA commanders between 1994 and 2004, this book depicts the rebels as they wanted to be seen among themselves and by the outside world.

Kristof Titeca, Associate Professor in Development Studies at the University of Antwerp and expert on the LRA, collected this material and used it to trace the photographed (former) rebels. Together with Congolese photographer Georges Senga, he travelled back to photograph the former rebels in their current context.

With text contributions from Jonathan Littell, Harriet Anena, Rein Deslé, and Christine Oryema Lalobo.

Photobook Belge

TAMARA BERGHMANS (ED.) E.A.

“A gold mine doesn’t have to be large, providing it is deep: Photobook Belge unearths the rich history of the Belgian photobook, until now terra incognita for many. These countless special editions deserve a place of honour in the international photobook landscape.”

— Frits Gierstberg (Curator at Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam)

Photobook Belge is the first-ever overview of photobooks created by Belgian photographers. Covering a period of more than 150 years, from the mid nineteenth century to the present, it features almost 250 photobooks, all carefully described and illustrated. It is the first time that research into the production and context of Belgian photobooks has been carried out on this scale.

Featuring works by famous names such as Dirk Braeckman, Marcel Broodthaers, Bieke Depoorter, Gilbert Fastenaekens, Edmond Fierlants, Geert Goiris, Harry Gruyaert, Max Pinckers, Marie-Françoise Plissart, Marc Trivier and Stephan Vanfleteren, as well as many undiscovered gems from Belgium’s rich photography history.

“Disturbingly haunting and banally quotidian at the same time. Rebel Lives unveils a layer of humanity that makes the rebels’ own photos worth understanding in the first place. It is a most important historical document.” Sverker Finnström, author of awardwinning Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda

Compiled by Tamara Berghmans (curator FOMU – Fotomuseum Antwerp), with contributions from Pool Andries, Jan Baetens, Sandrine Colard, Emmanuel d’Autreppe, Johan De Vos, Steven F. Joseph, Johan Pas and Stefan Vanthuyne.

A disturbing visual story about the life inside the Lord’s Resistance Army, Uganda

A unique overview of 150 years of Belgian photobook history

America in Black and White

JOHN G. ZIMMERMAN

John G. Zimmerman (1927–2002) is a true icon of American photography. For decades his pictures appeared on the covers of magazines like Time, Life and Sports Illustrated. Since the 1950s he introduced experimental techniques that are commonly used today, like the motorized camera.

His massive oeuvre covers a diversity of fields, from the arts, sports and fashion to politics and Black America. The photographs in this publication present an enduring image of the United States from the 1950s to the 1970s.

A rediscovery of American top photographer John G. Zimmerman’s stunning work

Copyright G.P. Fieret GERARD PETRUS FIERET

“I want to have it all. There are no failed photographs.”

— Gerard Fieret

Almost no other body of photography is as strange and idiosyncratic as that of Gerard Fieret (1924–2009). This outstanding photographer was an obsessive recorder of everything that came his way: people, animals, street scenes and himself. Most especially, however, he loved to photograph women – models, students, young mothers, dancers and waitresses – or just parts of their bodies, such as breasts, feet or long legs, in isolation.

Although his non-stop photographic activities were concentrated into a period of just ten years (1965–1975), Gerard Fieret generated an enormous oeuvre. In the Netherlands he is seen as a pioneer of photography as a form of autonomous visual art. Over recent years his work has also attracted increasing international interest.

A retrospective of Dutch photographer

Gerard P. Fieret

A prominent feature of virtually all Fieret’s photos is the rubber stamps and signatures with which he painstakingly attempted to safeguard his copyright.

A beautiful publication of 592 pages in sleeve, authored by Violette Gillet, Francesco Zanot, Hripsimé Visser and Wim van Sinderen.

With texts written by Daniel Peña, Francis Hodgson, Oliver Kohns and Arne De Winde.

Portraits photographiques européens depuis 1990

FRITS GIERSTBERG E.A.

L’apparition de la photographie a généralisé la pratique du portrait. Dans les années nonante, les photographes ont redécouvert le genre du portrait. Depuis la chute du mur de Berlin, ils s’interrogent sur l’identité et la place de l’individu dans le monde numérique et globalisé. Que nous aprends l’expression du visage, la pose, les vêtements et le cadre sur la personne photographiée? Cet ouvrage vous fera découvrir les œuvres réalisées en Europe par des dizaines de photographes réputés, parmi lesquels Tina Barney, Anton Corbijn et Stephan Vanfleteren.

The Butcher’s Book

HENDRIK DIERENDONCK

“Long live butchers, for they are the emissaries of an ancient art. Today more than ever, they bear witness for the welfare of animals and show us the need to be responsible carnivores. Hendrik is a splendid example of this.”

— Dario Cecchini

Hendrik and his father Raymond Dierendonck have created the benchmark for everything to do with meat. They supply only the highestquality products and have won the following of Belgium’s top chefs. Hendrik is one of the pioneers of the international ‘nose-to-tail’ philosophy, in which literally every part of the slaughtered animal is used. He specialises in the processing and maturing of exceptional meat from the best breeds, including West Flemish Red cattle. Enjoy delicious classic cuts from the butcher’s counter and Hendrik’s Michelin-starred restaurant Carcasse; admire the craft and skill of the butcher’s art, and learn how to prepare meat in the Dierendonck way yourself.

With text by Hendrik Dierendonck, René Sépul and Marijke Libert, and superb photography by Thomas Sweertvaegher, Piet De Kersgieter and Stephan Vanfleteren.

A revised edition of the cult book by master butcher Hendrik Dierendonck

ISBN 978 94 9208 131 5

Un magnifique aperçu des portraits photographiques européens contemporains

Appelmarkt 8  8630 Veurne  Belgium www.hannibalbooks.be

Publisher

Gautier Platteau gautier@hannibalbooks.be

Deputy publisher and project manager Hadewych Van den Bossche hadewych@hannibalbooks.be

Publishing assistant and editor Sofie Meert sofie@hannibalbooks.be

Editors

Sara Colson sara@hannibalbooks.be

Stephanie Van den bosch stephanie@hannibalbooks.be

Art director Natacha Hofman natacha@hannibalbooks.be

Image editor

Séverine Lacante severine@hannibalbooks.be

Design: Johan Jacobs Photo front cover: © Stephan Vanfleteren Photo back cover: © Collection KMSKA

– Vlaamse Gemeenschap / photo Rik Klein Gotink

© Hannibal Books, 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders for all texts, photographs and reproductions. If, however, you feel that you have inadvertently been overlooked, please contact the publisher.

The layout of this brochure was completed on September 1, 2023. Price, dimensions and publication date of the publications are communicated with reservation.

Press press@hannibalbooks.be

SALES IN BELGIUM

Hannibal Books Séverine Lacante orders@hannibalbooks.be

REPRESENTATION BOOKSHOPS FLANDERS – BELGIUM Hilde Seys hilde@lusterweb.com Tel: +32 (0)478-810521

RESPRESENTATION BOOKSHOPS BRUSSELS & WALLONIA – BELGIUM Exhibitions International orders@exhibitionsinternational.be

SALES IN THE NETHERLANDS New Book Collective Niasstraat 6D – 3531 WP Utrecht Tel: +31 (0)20-2260298 verkoop@newbookcollective.com

SALES IN FRANCE Inter Art Emerick Charpentier emerick@interart.fr

SALES IN GERMANY Exhibitions International orders@exhibitionsinternational.be

Contact: Michael Klein mi-klein@t-online.de

SALES IN AUSTRIA Exhibitions International orders@exhibitionsinternational.be

Contact: Michael Klein mi-klein@t-online.de

SALES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM ACC Art Books

Matthew Freedman Matthew.freedman@accartbooks.com

SALES IN THE UNITED STATES ACC Art Books ussales@accartbooks.com

© Danny Willems