Search results for ""Meta4Books vzw""

This love letter in photographs to the unique beauty and mystery of Venice is an evocative compilation of vintage photographs, prints, and ephemera. It is a tactile ode to the sensuality of the city, filled to the brim with all manner of Venetian memorabilia: 19th century photographs, engravings, hand-coloured magic lantern slides, vintage postcards, old luggage labels, keys from long-lost luxury hotels, golden ducats from the 18th century, Carnival ball invitations. With gilt-edged pages and antique Venetian lettering, it is not a travel or walking guide, but an atmospheric pilgrimage that pays homage to this ever-fascinating city. Serge Simonart’s engaging commentary on Venetian history and culture introduces each subject with affection and insight. "Every day, a nervous traveller visiting the City of Doges for the first time asks the best way to get to their hotel. ‘The shortest or the most beautiful?’, I once heard the concierge at Hotel Des Bains ask. The tourist who opted for the most beautiful route is still wandering around the city. This is a unique photobook in which to wander and lose oneself.” - Serge Simonart

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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 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, as you've never read it before. It's 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'll 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's about us, and about who we are today - as people. Published on the occasion of the exhibition From Memling to Ruben - The Golden Age of Flanders,during Autumn 2020, in the Kadriorg Palace in Tallinn (Estonia).

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This beautifully illustrated book, with numerous essays by an international roster of leading art historians, examines Jacopo Tintoretto's masterpiece Angel Foretelling the Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, painted between 1560 and 1570 for the Church of San Geminiano in Venice. It was displayed in this location for some 250 years until the church was demolished in 1807, and in 1818 the painting was sold into private hands. It was, famously, the centrepiece of the late rock star David Bowie's collection, being one of the first artworks he acquired. He had it for nearly 30 years, and named his record label after the artist (the Jones/Tintoretto Entertainment Company LLC). In 2016 it was purchased at auction by a private collector and donated to the Rubens House in Antwerp, where it is on long-term loan. This book accompanies the display of the painting, back in Venice for the first time in 200 years as part of an exhibition at Palazzo Ducale.

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“A joyous, mysterious portrait of rural American boyhood.” - THE NEW YORKER ON RANDY 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 proves 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. For example, she meets an eleven-year-old shaman who shows her around barefoot in forbidden territory, she drives around with four giggling brothers in the back seat, and she meets a palm reader who immediately gives her the keys to his house. Dozens of encounters follow and, slowly, not only a photo book is created but also a world in which she starts to feel at home. Text in English and Dutch.

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It is often said that you can’t take 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. This pictorial journey into the history of New York City starts from the small town that began as New Amsterdam in the 17th century, tracing the unbridled expansion of the 18th century and waves of mass immigration of the 19th and 20th centuries. The authors, both experienced NYC tour guides, explore iconic districts like Times Square, Harlem, Wall Street, Central Park, Ellis Island and the Bronx, bringing the past and people to life through engaging stories and images. An inspired selection of archival photos, prints, vintage maps, stereographs, and ephemera make this publication, with its elegant, silver-edged finish, a fascinating visual homage to the vibrant city that is New York today.

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"Through the format of the letter and the correspondence, Delrue implements his stance with regard to the role of contemporary drawing as a valid generator of artistic languages and as a humble, yet effectively poetic alternative to the virtual circulation of digital images between the communication systems that surround us." - Ory Dessau, art critic "The unique character and strength of Ronny Delrue's work are the result of his intense search for the essence of Being. [...] In a highly meticulous, almost obsessive way, he explores the sensitive fault line between control and loss of control. The process, the path, the quest is of fundamental importance to this exploration. The quest is not idiosyncratic, it is not inward, it allows room for dialogue with others, like a mirror image in which the encounter occurs, as in a crossover of minds." - Carine Fol, artistic director CENTRALE for Contemporary Art, Brussels "What is more beautiful than the circle left on a piece of paper by a coffee cup, even if an algorithm can produce a lifelike imitation? What is even lovelier is the artists' ideas, the exchange, the noise, the geographical and cultural differences, the slowness, the simplicity, the banality, the trace, the moment, the text, the language, the distance, the ideas, the powerlessness." - Philippe Van Cauteren, artistic director S.M.A.K., Ghent In recent years, Ronny Delrue (*1957) corresponded with six artists namely: Martin Assig (Germany), Salam Atta Sabri (Iraq), Roger Ballen (South Africa), Sanjeev Maharjan (Nepal), Mithu Sen (India) and Christine Remacle (Belgium). Through exchanges in the form of drawings, letter fragments and collages, among other things, this publication not only explores the encounters between artists with different geographical backgrounds and cultural attitudes; it also looks at Delrue's own oeuvre from a new angle. Ronny Delrue is a painter, but first and foremost an artist for whom drawing is a core activity. For him, drawing is a way of thinking, a state of being. For this project a conscious decision was made to send the letters by post, as opposed to the swift exchange of digitally scanned documents. Correspondances is an ode to slowness and a tribute to human acts, in which representation becomes the language of the encounter. Text in English, French and Dutch.

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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. They paid homage to the local celebrity in the hope that she would alleviate their mental problems. To this day, Geel is known for its unique treatment of the mentally ill, who are cared for at home by locals. Goossen Van der Weyden's altarpiece came into being at the height of Dymphna's popularity. The masterpiece was intended for the church of Tongerlo Abbey. Today this work is characterised by a remarkable iconography and an eventful history: a panel was lost and the triptych was even sawn into pieces. It ultimately came into the hands of a team of specialists from Belgium and abroad who subjected the altarpiece to a meticulous conservation over a period of three years, a colossal undertaking during which new techniques were used. This gave the conservators unprecedented insight into the mind, and workshop, of an early 16th century 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.

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“We create the Universe as much as it creates us.” — Stephen Hawking & Thomas Hertog 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. 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 comprehend fully, however, remain unchanged. With enlightening contributions from Barbara Baert, Abdelkader Benali, Thomas Hertog, Hannah Redler Hawes, Jan Van der Stock, Annelies Vogels, and others.

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Have you ever wondered who your favourite artists admire and who they want to shine a spotlight on? Wonder no longer. In this first volume of Accolades, a wide range of musicians, composers, and songwriters praise and present their treasured gems. Contributors from Steve Albini to "Weird Al" Yankovic, from Julien Baker to Margo Price, present accolades to cherished colleagues, to amazing actors and authors, to admired activists and athletes, to precious poets and esteemed engineers. Belgian‐based illustrator Tom De Geeter thoughtfully curated this line-up of contributors. He interviewed close to 200 artists and asked them just these two questions: who do you want to honour and why? De Geeter's vivid, bold yet delicate line drawings accompany their answers in style and make Accolades a more than exceptional project for you to dive right into. Close to 200 contributions by musicians like Steve Albini, Julien Baker, Jehnny Beth, Dan Deacon, Feist, Steve Gunn, Tim Heidecker, Page Hamilton, Joan As Police Woman, Lambchop, Larkin Poe, Ian MacKaye, Mark Mothersbaugh, Margo Price, Mauro, Sun Kil Moon, Mike Watt, "Weird Al" Yankovic, but also from members of bands like Amenra, Bad Company, Bauhaus, Efterklang, Fleet Foxes, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Grandaddy, Grizzly Bear, Guided by Voices, The Hold Steady, Khruangbin, Royal Trux, Unsane, Xiu Xiu, and many more.

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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. His paintings demand slow and careful inspection. 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 by a wide public for its radical nonconformism and the influence that the artist still exerts on young artists today. Swennen is represented by the Brussels Xavier Hufkens Gallery and the Gladstone Gallery in New York, and won the prestigious Ultima award for lifetime services to the visual arts in 2019. His work can be found in numerous museum and gallery collections. This book offers a wonderful overview of his oeuvre and is the catalogue to an international solo exhibition which launches in Kunstmuseum Bonn (June-August 2021) before travelling to Kunstmuseum Den Haag (autumn 2021) and Kunstmuseum Winterthur (spring 2022). Text contributions written by Stephan Berg, Konrad Bitterli and Daniel Koep. Text in English and German.

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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 I, 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. 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.Distributed for Hannibal Books

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A mind‐blowing genre crossing deep purple velvet adventure (formerly known as "BOOK"). This publication concerns a multimedia project consisting of visual arts, micro stories and music, with a history on Instagram.

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This trilingual book marks the culmination of 10 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. The book is published to accompany a solo exhibition in the Photo Museum of Antwerp from November 2021 until March 2022. Text in English, Dutch and French.

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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 the15th to the 17th 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. This book takes masterpieces from the collection of The Phoebus Foundation and outlines the broad context in which they came into being, peeling back levels of meaning like the layers of an onion. 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. Some portraits are very personal and hyper-individual. Others are a little dusty, the ladies and gentleman being children of their time. In most cases, however, their dreams and aspirations are surprisingly timeless and soberingly recognisable. The Bold and the Beautiful is an appointment with history: a meeting through portraiture with men and women from bygone centuries. But for those willing to look closely, the border between the present and the past is paper-thin. Published on the occasion of the exhibition Blind Date. Portretten met blikken en blozen, Autumn 2020, in Snijders&Rockoxhuis Antwerp, curated by Dr. Katharina Van Cauteren & Hildegard Van de Velde with a scenography by Walter Van Beirendonck.

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The Hellbangers are the “enfants terribles” of a sleepy, diamonds rich country. Photographer Pep Bonet (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. Ten years ago, one group existed. Today there are more than ten – and their fans are growing every year. The inhabitants of Botswana portrayed in this book are tattooed, loudly and proudly dress in leather, and play heavy death metal music. Imagine the DIY ingenuity of their ‘costume creation’ involving harvested animal skulls and other natural elements. 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. Here too, the lyrics of the songs are very critical towards societies, just like their western peers. Metal in Botswana is rebellious movement against authorities. This is the story of what looks at first to be an unlikely union, yet one which powerfully illustrates how music, how heavy metal music, has become a positively unifying force in an unlikely part of the world. With text contributions written by Pep Bonet and Steffan Chirazi, and a foreword by Rob Halford from Judas Priest.

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The Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp is a house full of art. The museum today is internationally renowned as the home of the famous Dulle Griet (‘Mad Meg’) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. For the locals living in Antwerp, the museum is above all a well-kept secret. At the same time, there is always amazement that so much beauty could be brought together in one place. Who built this collection? The museum is housed in an historic building that 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. It is based on in-depth research carried out in the archive of Museum Mayer van den Bergh, which among other things contains the rich correspondence between Fritz and Henriëtte as well as an extensive photo collection. Over four chapters, the book explores the personalities behind the collection, their social background and networks, their interests and their modus operandi. More than anything else, this is the story of Henriëtte van den Bergh, the founder of the museum, who died 100 years ago. With her visionary projects, she proved herself not only to be a forceful personality, but also someone with a forward-looking organisational talent and an entrepreneur with an exceptional mission – and all in a period when the involvement of women in public life was anything but the norm.

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‘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 through the medium of photography. The joy and excitement elephants arouse when they make an appearance in our lives is brought to life through a combination of iconic photographs by, amongst others, Garry Winogrand and unattributed, archival material. 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-20th century, many of them taken by anonymous photographers. Elephants parade through the streets and perform tricks in circuses and shows, their riders ranging from royalty to children, from showgirls to soldiers. In times of war they assist with logistics, shifting heavy loads, ploughing fields and hauling vehicles; in peacetime they add a touch of glamour and exoticism to locations as varied as casinos, hospital courtyards and amusement parks, and are in turn transformed into elephant-shaped buildings, mechanised automatons or balloons. In the essay that accompanies the photographs, acclaimed British author James Attlee describes the broader context of that relationship through the ages. In doing so, he doesn’t 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, often in the words of those who have experienced it first-hand. Intensely nostalgic, often poignant and always fascinating, these images capture the complexity of one of the planet’s most enduring inter-species relationships.

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Textile is a vector of identity - something more important than ever in times of war and crisis in particular. It is connected to the body it covers like a second skin. It both conceals and reveals, and contains a history and iconography whose roots often lie deep in a culture's customs and traditions. As part of its extramural programme, and in collaboration with award-winning photographer Mashid Mohadjerin and journalist Samira Bendadi, Antwerp Fashion Museum (MoMu) have created a new exhibition and accompanying publication on the importance of fabric and clothing to issues of public concern today, such as migration, resistance, tradition, spirituality and decolonisation. The focus is on nine stories of people whom curators Bendadi and Mohadjerin - in whose own personal stories migration features prominently - met during their travels to Paris, Antwerp, Lebanon, Africa, Morocco and Iran. Sometimes the stories are warm and moving; at other times they are tough and heart-wrenching. In them, textile embodies the ideas and emotions coupled with forced or voluntary departure, the yearning for what has been lost, letting go and holding on. This storytelling and photography exhibition will run from 15 November 2019 until 16 February 2020 at Texture Kortrijk, and will travel on to Kunsthal Extra City Antwerp in spring 2020. Text in English and Dutch.

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Madness deranges, throws us off balance, and makes us lose our footing. Yet some writers claim that madness is an enlargement of normality. But how can that which we cannot control belong to 'normality'? And what is normality? For more than 30 years, the permanent display on psychiatry has been the very heart of the Museum Dr. Guislain in Ghent. The history of psychiatry is the inspiration for new thematic exhibitions every year, in which the museum seeks to dislodge entrenched views and deep-rooted stigmas and reframe them in the context of today. In October 2019, this permanent display received a make-over and has been presented under the title 'Unhinged', in which the Museum Dr. Guislain offers a fresh look at its own history as a museum. The richly illustrated publication explores the boundaries of the traditional and goes in search of the sane in the insane. It provides an overview of psychiatry on the basis of five contemporary themes that enter into dialogue with each other: 'power and powerlessness', 'body and mind', 'architecture', 'classification' and 'imagination'. Historical documents are also put side by side with contemporary art, creating a dynamic interpretation. This new approach reflects today's 'crazy' society, in which, happily, increasing attention is being paid to psychological vulnerability, but in which mental health care is also facing new challenges more than ever.

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