EXHIBITION: April 21 - June 27, 2015Opening: Tuesday, April 21 (6 – 10 pm)

Bimestriel • Bureau dépôt Bruxelles X n°P008641 / aut. fermeture 1/6084 • 1050 Bxl • Ed. resp : P. François • Artvox asbl 108 Ch. de Charleroi B-1060 Bxl

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PB-PP I B-008641BELGI(EN)-BELGIQUE

ARTEXPOPériode Bimestriel

Supplém. avril 2015

Artvox:108, chée de Charleroi

B-1060 Bruxelles

Editions Artvox,108 ch. de Charleroi,1060 Brussels, Belgium

Layout: Jitka Hudcová

Cover: Karl Waldmann, Heidi [0224]

Back Cover: Isabelle de Borchgrave, Robe du Soir, 2012, 145 x 70cm, mixed media

www.pascalpolar.be

Open Tuesday to Saturday 2 to 7 PM108 ch. de Charleroi1060 Brussels, BelgiumTél 32/2/537 81 36Gsm 0477/25 26 92pp@pascalpolar.be

art works on newsPaPers and book covers

April 21 - June 27, 2015Pascal Polar has a pleasure to invite you for a cocktail

Pascal Polar a le plaisir de vous inviter au cocktailPascal Polar nodigt u persoonlijk uit voor een cocktail

OpENINg TuEsdAy AprIl 21 frOm 6 TO 10 pmVErNIssAgE mArdI 21 AVrIl dE 18 H à 22 H

OpENINg dINsdAg 21 AprIl VAN 18 u TOT 22 u

special opening during art brussels:nocturne thursday, april 23: 7-9 PM

sunday, april 26: 11 aM-5 PM

KArl WAldmANN

prEss ArT

[0321]

Exposition de collages et photomontages réalisés sur des couvertures de livres, de revues et de journaux, par Karl Waldmann, artiste lié aux avant-gardes germano-russes.La presse écrite est un sujet qui passionne tous les intellectuels. Sa disparition est régulière-ment annoncée depuis 10 ans pour des raisons économiques ou pour laisser la place à une presse sur la toile. Il en est de même du « livre ». Tous deux sont des « objets » qui séduisent l’amateur de papier, dans sa beauté ou sa plas-ticité ; le journal par son « caractère », ses « ti-tres », ses « colonnes », son format, ses piles, son tirage, sa direction, sa politique, son obédience.Le livre aussi en attire plus d’un par sa beauté, par sa présence sur une table ou rangé dans une bibliothèque. Sa couverture : cartonnée, brillante ou mate, sa décoration, sobriété ou enluminure, image qui attire au premier regard pour ouvrir et pénétrer l’intérieur. Le dos du livre n’est pas non plus à négliger, il permet aux livres de « se produire » à l’œil de celui qui veut bien l’apercevoir, dans ce regard complice qui porte sur le savoir que l’observateur et l’objet, et forcément l’auteur, partagent ensemble. Journaux et livres sont depuis toujours les complices des plasticiens qui s’en servent comme support ou comme véhicule d’une idée, d’un ressentiment, d’un projet ou comme dénonciation.La lettre, la typographie, la dureté ou la légèreté de la feuille ou de la couver-ture, deviennent un tremplin pour une expression plastique ; en conservant ou préservant ce que l’artiste choisit de sauvegarder du « réel » pour se l’approprier subjectivement, pour en devenir le « maître ». « Le support même, par son apparence première, devient un vecteur de ma propre expression, moi plasticien qui ne veut pas dominer le ‘monde’ mais juste en faire partie pour mieux continuer à le créer, pour le marquer de mon envie de le comprendre, de le sauver, de l’aimer et, un jour, le quitter. »Cette exposition est consacrée, au rez-de-chaussée de la galerie, aux œuvres de Karl Waldmann, réalisées sur ces supports et nous montre l’importance que l’artiste accordait aux « papiers ». Un « outsider » radical, dénonçant les dictatures nazies et staliniennes de son époque, plasticien abstrait ou oscillant entre surréalisme, constructivisme et dadaïsme à travers ces collages qui partent tous du livre ou du journal. Le premier étage, sur un thème identique, présente plusieurs artistes, histo-riques ou plus contemporains, qui ont épousé le journal ou le livre lors d’une œuvre ou d’une série.

[0536]

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Collages and photomontages by Karl Waldmann, artist linked to German-Russian avant-garde, using book covers, magazines and newspapers.

The printed press is a topic that fascinates all intellectuals. Over the past 10 years, its disappearance has been announced on a regular basis, for economic reasons or to make way for a press on the Web. The same is true for “books”. They are both “objects” which ap-peal to fans of paper for its visual beauty or its tangible form; the

newspaper for its “character”, its “headlines”, “columns”, its size, piles, circu-lation, management, policy, leanings.People are also fond of books for their beauty, their presence on a table or neatly arranged on bookshelves. Their covers, hardback, shiny or matt, decorative, sober or illuminated, their pictures, are encouraging us from the very first glance to open them and look inside. The spine of a book is also of importance, as it allows the book to “manifest itself” in the eyes of anyone noticing it, providing a certain complicity regarding the content shared by the spectator, the object, and necessarily the author. Books and newspapers have always been accomplices of artists who use them as a support or to convey an idea, a feeling, a project, or denunciation.The character and typeface, the lightness or hardness of the paper or cover, become a springboard for artistic expression by conserving or preserving what the artist decides to retain from “reality” in order to appropriate it for himself, and become its master. “Due to its primitive elegance, the support itself becomes a vector of my own expression, me, the artist, who does not want to dominate the ‘world’ but just be a part of it, so as to continue more effectively to create it, mark it with my desire to understand, save, love, and one day, leave it.”This exhibition is devoted on the ground floor of the gallery to works by Karl Waldmann created on these supports, and showing us the importance the artist attributed to “pieces of paper”. A radical outsider, denouncing the dictatorships of Stalin and the Nazis in his time, or simply an abstract artist, swinging from Surrealism to Constructivism, Dadaism, in these collages which all start with newspapers or books. On the same theme, the first floor presents several historic or more con-temporary artists who have embraced books or newspapers in one of their artworks or in a series of works.

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[0723] [0970]

[0801] [0593]

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[0526] [0528]

[0527][0529]

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[0396]

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[0561]

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[0040] [0796]

[0519] [0585]

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[0600]

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[0393] [0232]

0040 (p. 10) - Untitled, 37 x 27cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. Pages of a German dictionary are the background of the collage.

0224 (front cover) - Heidi, 30 x 20,7cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. Heidi is a children’s book, published in two parts. It is a novel written in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri (1827-1901). It narrates the adventures of a little girl who lives in the Swiss Alps with her grandfather. It is an important part of the collective German culture. The industrial revolution as well as the social changes it brought, had an impact on the novel’s success.

0232 (p. 12) - German work, 28,1 x 21,8cm. Collage on the cover of a hardback book. “Deutsche Arbeit” (German work, 1930) is the title of one Emile Otto Hoppé’s books (1878 - 1972), famous German-born British photographer. Hoppé travelled in the Ger-man urban landscape to make a testimony of its strong industrialization. This photograph of a worker comes from the book Deutsche Arbeit, and was taken in a factory in Munich, in 1928.

0321 (p. 2) - LIFE, 35,5 x 26,5cm, Collage on the cover of a newspaper. The collage has been made on the cover of the LIFE magazine, dating from 1939. A title “WASHINGTON PERUKE”

existed in the lower left corner of the cover of Life. The artist deliberately erased it by only letting the first letter W appear, as his signature.

0393 (p. 12) - Blue Blood, 27,6 x 21,6cm. Collage on the cover of a hardback book. To have blue blood means to be noble. This expression goes back to the Renaissance and alludes to the idea of having extremely white and thin skin that makes one’s veins appear to be blue.The phrase on the backside was used by Hitler in his speech to the SA at the 30th January 1936: “Alles, was ihr leid, leid ihr durch mich, und alles, was ich bin, bin ich nur durch euch allein!” (All that you suffer, you suffer through me, and all that I am, I am only that through you!).

0396 (p. 7) - Women who became fate, 42 x 27cm. Collage on a cover of a hardback book. The title in the center of the collage “Frauen, die Schicksal wurden” (Women who became the destiny) shows the im-portance of women in the work of Waldmann. Women were considered only as good looking dolls by Nazis and Stalin-ists, but for Waldmann the woman has a much greater role to play in society. In the background of the work one can see the last line of the page 714 of a book: “Das über Dreihundert Jahre alte Gildehaus der Luch” (House of Guild Luch, more than 300 years old) and the line next to it saying “Mussenhandeln bedeute” (I have to signify the action).

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0519 (p. 10) - Untitled, 26,5 x 18cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. This work relates the construction of the human body and of the city, recalling the clichés of Rodchenko on body-building.

0526 (p. 6) - Untitled, 30,5 x 23,5cm, Collage on the cover of a newspaper. The newspaper “News from Krakow” was published un-der the regime of the General Government which was established in Poland by the Germans after the division of Poland that followed the agreements with the Soviet government in 1939. The newspaper was regarded as the mouthpiece of the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC) for the dissemination of Ukrainian culture and nationalism - within the limits permitted by the German censorship - in the General Government. The newspaper used the anti-Semitic propaganda for its benefit.

0527 (p. 6) - Untitled, 30,5 x 23cm, Collage on the cover of a newspaper.

0528 (p. 6) - Untitled, 31 x23,5cm, Collage on the cover of a newspaper.

0529 (p. 6) - Untitled, 31,5 x 23cm, Collage on the cover of a newspaper. A headless sportsman has his arm elongated by a hook which carries a caricature of Stalin, twisting a Russian man in his hands.

0536 (p. 3) - Sky Earth Mankind, 26,5 x 18,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. The support used for this piece is the cover of the book “Himmel Erde Mensch” (1914) by Oskar Hoffmann (1866-1928), illustrated by Karl Sinkwitz (1886-1933), German landscape painter and graphic artist. Oskar Hoffmann was a German writer of popular scientific literature and science fiction.

0560 (p. 8) - Untitled, 87 x 62,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. The picture of the woman’s head, coming from “L’Écran Français” magazine, is Lauren Baccall’s face. Bacall was a Hollywood actress who started her career in “To Have and Have Not” (1944) by Howard Hawks.

0561 (p. 9) - German Art, 87 x 62,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. The title “Richtfest in der Hauptstadt der Bewegung” (Cel-ebration in the Capital City of Evolution) comes from the n°45 of the “Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung” of 1935, and re-fers to the German Art Exhibition curated by the Nazi Party, against art called “degenerate.”

0585 (p. 10) - Untitled, 34,5 x 25,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. At the bottom, there is a picture of naked children exer-cising. It’s a photo from the book “Nackheit und Aufstieg” (Nudity and career) from 1920 from Richard Ungewitter (1869 - 1958) who was one of first leaders and organizers of German nudistic movement. The image shows pupils of Odenwaldschool in Oberhambach at Heppenheim which was known for its progressive teaching methods. With the beginning of Nazism the ban of nude sports came.

Later on, Nazi regime appropriated itself nude sports and made them part of its official life-style thanks to SS major Hans Suren who published books on nude sports (“Mensch und Sonne / Man and Sun”, “Deutsche Gymnastik/German gymnastics”).

0593 (p. 5) Mein Kampf, 79 x 59cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. “Mein Kampf” (My Struggle) is a book written by Adolf Hit-ler between 1924 and 1925 during his detention in Lands-berg prison, detention following the Beer Hall Putsch, a failed coup.The two children appear to come from the “Nazi hygienic solution” according to Nazi surveying methods.The abstraction reveals a crescent moon, often present in Karl Waldmann’s works. The moon was part of various Ger-manic myths and also of satanic practices of certain pro-Nazi occult sects. One must remember that Rudolf Hess had covered the walls of his cell with images of the moon while in detention after the Nuremberg trials.

0600 (p. 11) - This is Los Angeles, 53,5 x 45,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. The work makes reference to Los Angeles, or studio-city, rickety buildings with faded colors. The electric tower seems to surge onto the woman’s face like a wave.

0664 (p. 4) - Sharp Tools, 32,5 x 22,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. The support of the work is the cover of a German catalogue “Schneidwerkzeuge” (Sharp Tools) of 1912 on tools from the firm Alfred H. Schütte.

0723 (p. 5) - Honesty, harmony, assiduity, fidelity and fru-gality, 28,5 x 20,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. The text on the work says: “Rechtschaffenheit, Eintracht, Fleiß, Ehrlichkeit und Sparsamkeit” (honesty, harmony, courage, sincerity and a sense of saving money).

0796 (p.10) - Berliner Zeitung, 38 x 27,5cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book.The “Berliner Zeitung Illustrirte”, a German weekly, became very influential under the direction of editor in chief Kurt Korff (1905-1933). It served as a showcase for a new brand of photojournalism integrated in a modern magazine lay-out. It became the “Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung” in 1941 and last appeared on 29 April 1945.

0801 (p. 5) - Untitled, 22,5 x 17cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book.

0970 (p. 5) - Untitled, 38,5 x 27cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book.

0974 (p. 11) - Noa Noa, 21 x 28cm, Collage on the cover of a hardback book. This work is realized on the cover of the very unique book named “Noa Noa” written by Gauguin, where he tells his experiences during his first journey to Tahiti in 1891.

fOr mOrE INfOrmATIONs VIsIT

WWW.KArlWAldmANNmusEum.cOm

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FIrst Floor:

prEss ArT« art works on newspapers

and book covers »April 21 - June 27, 2015

christian boltanskiIsabelle de borchgrave

Marcel broodthaersdaniele buetti

christopher coppersthierry de cordier

Muriel de crayencourgodfried donkor

John IsaacsJiri kolar

lance letscherrené MagritteMark MandersMarcel Mariën

Joan Mirótim rollins et kos

william sagnaMichel scarpaMartine seguy

andré stascostas tsoclisandy warhol

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1. Joan Miró, Le journal, 1972, 70,2 x 52cm, Lithographie, E.A.2. Christopher Coppers, Sotheby’s Mona Lisa, 2014, 42 x 38cm, Mixed Media: sculpted magazine with Ipod animated3. Tim Rollins and Kos, Untitled, 1990, edited by Dia Art Foundation4. Marcel Mariën, L’adieu aux larmes, 1983, 23,5 x 17,5cm, photography5. Christian Boltanski, Signal, 1993, 40,5 x 60,5cm, Collage on paper6. Marcel Broodthaers, Invitation for the first exhibition of Marcel Brodthaers at the St. Laurent Gallery (Brussels), 1964, 25 x 30cm, paper print (unique)

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Isabelle de Borchgrave