Guy Schraenen

Guy Schraenen is the founder of the Gallery Kontakt, the publishing house Guy Schaenen éditeur and the Archive for Small Press & Communication (A.S.P.C.) and an international known curator, publisher and advisor. Furthermore, he is the author of essays and various publications. His many activities are mainly focused on artists' publications of the various international avant-garde and independent art movements from the late 1950s until the 1980s.

Biography

Galerie Kontakt

In 1965 Schraenen founded the Galerie Kontakt in Antwerp, which existed until 1978.[1] In the beginning the program was aimed to the field of Lyrical Abstraction and Constructivism. The gallery presented: Bram Bogart, Lucio Fontana, Jef Geys, Paul Van Hoeydonck, Georges Mathieu, Georges Vantongerloo, Constructivism art in Belgium etc. Later the program shifted to activities related to the new avant-garde movements such as Visual poetry, Sound poetry, Sound art, Conceptual art, Fluxus, Mail art and artists' books.[2]

Guy Schraenen éditeur

In 1973 Schraenen founded the publishing house Guy Schraenen éditeur (Antwerp / Paris). Until 1978 he published artists' books, magazines, catalogues, ephemera, postcards, multiples, posters, records and films.[3]

Archive for Small Press & Communication

In 1974, Guy Schraenen founded the Archive for Small Press & Communication (A.S.P.C.) (Antwerp, Belgium) together with Anne Marsily.[4] The aim was "...to collect and preserve all types of art documentation, emanating principally from artists’ initiatives and covering all fields the contemporary artist is active in."[5] The collection includes artists' publications mainly from the 1960s to the 1980s. These are visual works, sound works, text works and artists' writings. All together it is a fund of thousands of documents representing the works of several hundreds of artists from more than 25 countries. The A.S.P.C. is as well an artistic as a political statement. Although most of the artists are recognized now by a larger public, in this time they were neglected by the traditional art world. Therefore their preservation remains an important contribution to the knowledge of the international contemporary art scene of the 1960s and 1970s.[6]

Connected with the A.S.P.C. was an uninterrupted activity in its own Archive Space in which Schraenen organised exhibitions, lectures, concerts etc.[7] Also in his publications and his radio program I am an artist, he gave public access to the gathered works. All this happened on individual base and in collaboration with artists’ run spaces, museums and cultural centres in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Hungary, the Soviet Union, etc. In this frame he developed a close relationship with the Latin American and the Eastern Europe art scene. The Polish artist Józef Robakowski commented Schraenen's engagement in Poland in the 1970s: "Our contacts were broken mechanically. Letters were controlled and all parcels destroyed. But soon Guy Schraenen from Antwerp, an independent publisher, helped us and started to cooperate with us very actively. This contact was extremly [sic] helpful as far as the exchange of information beyond official, institutionalized channels was concerned."[8]

In 1999, the A.S.P.C. - a fund of ca. 50,000 documents - was acquired by the Museum Weserburg with support by the city of Bremen (Germany). It forms the cadre of the Research Centre for Artists’ Publications, a collaboration between the University of Bremen and the Museum Weserburg Bremen, "the largest and most outstanding collection of published artworks in Europe."[9]

A Museum within a Museum

In 1989, Guy Schraenen became the founding curator of the artists' publication collection A Museum within a Museum in the Museum Weserburg Bremen,[10] the first autonomous department of its kind: "Never before artists' books were regarded as art works and presented equally alongside paintings, sculptures, graphics, environments and installations in a museum"[11]

For many years Schraenen has been responsible for the collections and exhibitions of artists’ publications in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Fundação de Serralves in Porto, the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), the International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (MGLC) and other institutions.


Exhibitions / Catalogues (Selection)[12]

Solo exhibitions

Thematical exhibitions


References

  1. ↑ cf. Schraenen, Guy (2001). An archive as artistic concept. Exhibition catalogue. Bremen: Neues Museum Weserburg. p. 14. ISBN 3-928761-51-X. Out of print.
  2. ↑ cf. Foulon, Pierre-Jean (2008). "Photographie et livres d'artistes". In Julie Bawin. Art actuel & photographie. Presses universitaires de Namur. p. 25. ISBN 978-2-87037-554-9.
  3. ↑ cf. Miessner, Marie-Cécile (1977). "Les éditions de Guy Schraenen". Nouvelles de l'estampes. n° 33: 52–53.
  4. ↑ cf. Delleaux, Océane (2010). Le multiple d'artiste: Histoire d'une mutation artisique: Europe-Amérique du Nord de 1985 à nos jours. Paris: L'Harmattan. pp. 20 et al. ISBN 978-2-296-12253-6.
  5. ↑ Schraenen, Guy (1974). Manifest. Archive for Small Press & Communication. Antwerp: Guy Schraenen éditeur.
  6. ↑ cf. Schwarz, Isabelle (2008). "Archive for Small Press & Communication (ASPC)". Archive für Künstlerpublikationen des 1960er bis 1980er Jahre. Schriftenreihe für Künstlerpublikationen. Köln: Salon Verlag. pp. 43–81.
  7. ↑ cf. Club Moral, Antwerp, 1985. "Club Moral in in Guy Schraenen's Archive Space".
  8. ↑ Robakowski, Józef (1998). "The Conservator of Ideas. An Interview with Józef Robakowski by Maria Morzuch". Kolekcja Multimedalna. Galerii Wymiany Józefa Robakowskiego [A multimedia collection. Exchange Gallery. Joseph Robakowski]. Łódź: Muzeum Sztuki. p. 10. ISBN 83-906130-8-5.
  9. ↑ cf. Research Centre for Artists' Publications. "About the Archive for Small Press & Communication (A.S.P.C.) in the Research Centre".
  10. ↑ cf. Brach, Bettina (2011). A Museum within a Museum. Bremen: Museum Weserburg. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-3-928761-89-5.
  11. ↑ Deecke, Thomas (2001). Ein glückliches Treffen. Newspaper on the occasion of the exhibition. Bremen: Neues Museum Weserburg. p. 3. Out of print.
  12. ↑ Complete list of the exhibitions in: Guy Schraenen (2001) Out of Print, exhibition catalogue, Bremen; and: Guy Schraenen (2012) A Museum within a Museum, Bremen

Further reading

Further watching

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