From Picasso to Sol LeWitt, Artist’s Books after 1950; Meermanno-Westreenianum, The Hague

The Meermanno-Westreenianum Museum is one of the finest museums in The Hague, if not in the country. At the moment the exhibition From Picasso to Sol LeWitt, The Artist’s Book after 1950 can be seen. That is

I am a bit late posting this, as it can be seen until next week. Sunday July 13th will be your last chance. Many mouth-watering books are on show, like Another Water by Roni Horn.

The left-handed Punch by Roy Fisher and Ronald King.

Of course Raymond Pettibon cannot be missed in a show like this.

There’s a copy of Alberto Giacometti’s classic Derrière le miroir, as well as

Louise Bourgeois’ and Arthur Miller’s Homely Girl, A Life, where Bourgeois’ illustrations can be opened apart from the text-pages. They open like horriffic butterflies.

Great in quite another way is this book by Lao Tau.

And then there is this impressive book illustrated by Bram van Velde. Well, illustrated, you’d better call it a dialogue (poetry by Charles Juliet).

And more Van Velde. And quite a lot of

work by the versatile Dieter Roth, but in the same room

there’s also a showcase with books by Elsworth Kelly and

one with works by Ed Ruscha. Each room has a monitor showing a hand browsing through one of the books.

Leotard by David Shrigley and

work by Sigmar Polke,

Cy Twombly and

Françoit Morellet amongst many others. And at last,

there’s a table where you can actually open some books yourself!

This way.

Printed Matter by Ulises Carrión,

Geschichte der Wolken (History of the Clouds) by Hans Magnus Enzensberger,

7: Biele Compagnie by Massimo Danielis,

Stillanovel by Carl Andre and

work by Antoni Tapiès,

by Fransje Killaars,

Sjoerd Hofstra,

this fantastic book by Margit Rijnaard and many others. And

there’s a showcase with works by Richard Tuttle.

Herman de vries’ works are well represented (herman de vries will represent the Netherlands at the 2015 Venice Biennale) as are

works by Sol LeWitt.

There isn’t much Picasso, but never mind, this exhibition will make you greedy anyway!

(Click on the pictures to enlarge)

Bertus Pieters