News

Exhibition at Alien Art Centre, Kaohsiung (TW), 15.2.–23.6.2019

Franz Bette has been considering matters of design and critically examining the composition of jewellery, especially its conceptual and artistic formulation, for over 50 years. Born in the middle of Germany, his thinking and his work are anchored in European culture. For the exhibition at ALIEN Art Centre and for the new audience in Taiwan, he has developed a body of work which internalises his experience in Asia. For this he allows new elements to intervene in his artistic approach. His Western-influenced vocabulary of metal has been expanded by materials with Asian connotations, such as porcelain, bamboo, wood and textile. He works with these materials aware of the tradition and meaning anchored in the Asian culture; however, in examining and appropriating them, Franz Bette goes his own way according to his purpose or his intuition.

This exhibition is organised by the ALIEN Art Centre in collaboration with the Museum Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt a/M., Germany, curated by Dr. Sabine Runde, Senior Custodian, Curator of Applied Art from the Middle Ages to the Present at the Museum Angewandte Kunst. Exhibits are loaned from the Artist, Museum Angewandte Kunst, Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim and Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus Hanau, Germany.

The accompanying publication is designed by Vier5, France – the visual designer of the 14th Kassel documenta – printed and published just recently in our programme.

On Sunday 27 January you are cordially invited to the book presentation DAVID HUYCKE. Risky Business. 25 Years of Silver Objects, published by the collectors Piet & Nadine Salens-Kegels, in the venue of atelier lachaert dhanis, in Tielrode, Belgium.

David Huycke is a true virtuoso, an artist with exceptional talent; recognized worldwide as the silversmith of this century. With astonishing craftsmanship he seeks the physical limits of the precious metal silver. His work can be seen in the Design Museum Ghent, Röhsska Museum Gothenburg, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Musée des Arts Décoratifs Paris. In 2010 he obtained a doctorate with the project The Metamorphic Ornament: Re-Thinking Granulation, a practice based research on the contemporary artistic relevance of the ancient technique of granulation.

Welcome from 10 am for a coffee.

The book launch starts at 11 am with an introduction (in Dutch) by Piet Salens.
Have your book signed by David Huycke and enjoy a ‘risky’ aperitif offered by Piet and Nadine Salens-Kegels.

You will find a more detailed information about the book here on our Website.

A large number of our publications have been or will be published for exhibitions, which, for some, can be seen well into 2019. Discover the Norwegian artist Aslaug M. Juliussen in Tromsø (NO; until 31.3.2019), and create a counterpoint in Zurich with the ethnological collections of Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter (until 8.9.2019), which are currently on display there in the Ethnographic Museum of the University. Travel through the history of lacemaking in St Gallen (CH) and see its Collection of Historical Lace (until 31.3.2019). A very different chapter can be discovered at the Vonderau Museum Fulda (DE): that of the Jungen Kunstkreises Fulda (until 24.3.2019), a haven of German post-war art in which careers such as those of Franz Erhard Walthers and Verena Pfisterer began. The exceptional artist Franz X. Höller is showing his latest works in glass at the Handwerksmuseum Deggendorf (DE; until 10.3.2019). In the GRASSI Museum of Applied Art in Leipzig (DE), you can take a closer look at ceramics spanning the exciting fields of Vessel and Sculpture and see for yourself the play of colours and rich diversity in the artistic interaction with traditional materials (until 31.10.2019). Material is also the subject of a small yet impressive show at the Galerie Stadt Sindelfingen (DE). Thirteen emerging artists and two pioneers of media art present their concept of art in the age of digitalisation and ‘industry 4.0’ (until 3.3.2019).

Exhibition at Glass Museum Riihimäki, Finland [Suomen Lasi Museum], 15.2.–21.4.2019

Since the GRASSI Museum was opened in 1874, Danish arts and crafts have played an important role there. Even the oldest collections of the museum include contemporary ceramics from Denmark. In the course of roughly 140 years since then, the inventory increased a lot in several stages. In particular the last few years saw the addition of many pieces – including entire collections.

In light of this, the idea for the exhibition MADE IN DENMARK was created. It shows a multi-faceted image of the development of Danish design since about 1900.

Most of the pieces exhibited here are connected by their mix of a certain aesthetic restraint and love for a high quality of design and craftsmanship. This applies to individual pieces of precious materials as well as to serially produced goods of steel and plastics.

The exhibition is made in cooperation with the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts, Leipzig, Germany.

We are currently working hard on compiling our forthcoming Spring/Summer 2019 programme. Once again you can look forward to a multifaceted panorama of classic themes from arnoldsche ART PUBLISHERS. Over the next six months we are publishing titles with a strong international and sculptural approach, on studio ceramics with the Malin Miller Collection, utensils by David Huycke and fine art from Gene Koss. We are especially delighted to be publishing Schmuckismus, a catalogue for the exhibition of the same name in the Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum in Munich (DE). Responsible for the both the exhibition and the book is Karen Pontoppidan, professor for jewellery and utensils at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. One particular highlight will be Canada and Impressionism, which is being developed in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada. And for the significant forthcoming anniversary of the Bauhaus we too will be contributing two wonderful publications: the GRASSI Museum in Leipzig (DE) is planning the comprehensive catalogue Bauhaus_Saxony, and Schloss Friedenstein in Gotha (DE) will be issuing a book on the universal artist Oskar Schlemmer. As always you can find an overview in our main programme, which will be released at the end of December.

We can also look back on a successful 2018 Book Fair. We and our publications on the applied and fine arts were once again in good hands in Hall 4.1. We are delighted that our new releases on non-European art, such as Netsuke and Encountering – Retracing – Remapping, found as much favour as our books on ceramics, such as Gitte Jungersen and Vessel/Sculpture 3, and not least those on auteur jewellery, such as our recently released titles Annamaria Zanella and Gisbert Stach. Every year at the Book Fair we particularly enjoy being able to meet up with our international representatives and thus continue to build and strengthen our distribution structure – in China, the United States and Canada, among other countries.