Art and Architecture: Jan Schoonhoven | Antoon Melissen, David Leiber | An Art Book Series Event

FREE - Auditorium doors open at 5:30 p.m.

On the occasion of the publication Jan Schoonhoven , author and foremost authority on the artist, Antoon Melissen, is joined in conversation by David Zwirner Director David Leiber, organizer of the gallery’s recent exhibition of the artist’s work.

This book was published in conjunction with the first significant presentation of Schoonhoven’s work in New York, if not the United States, in many years, which was on view at David Zwirner (January–February 2015). Serving as an important contribution to recent scholarship on the artist, the extensive exhibition catalogue is anchored by richly detailed plates of the artist’s sculptural reliefs and works on paper made primarily between the mid-1950s and early 1970s. During that period, Schoonhoven focused on the production of white, monochrome reliefs and black ink drawings, in which the integration of meticulous control and automatic gesture exemplify his ability to balance rigorous order with the expressiveness of the hand.

Read the exhibition review by Roberta Smith in The New York Times and watch a video of the exhibition tour by Antoon Melissen and David Leiber.

Copies of the book Jan Schoonhoven (David Zwirner Books, 2015 ) are available for purchase and signing at the end of event.

Jan Schoonhoven (1914–1994) was born in Delft, the Netherlands, and is regarded as one of the most important Dutch artists of the twentieth century. Despite being relatively unknown outside of Europe for much of his career, Schoonhoven rose to international art world acclaim in 1967 after receiving second prize at the 9th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil. Schoonhoven worked in dialogue with and had a significant impact on an international group of avant-garde artists. Beginning in the 1950s, he played a central role in the Nederlandse Informele Groep (Netherlandish Informal Group) and co-founded the Nul-groep (Nul Group), a Dutch branch of the international ZERO movement that sought to reduce art to the zero degree by simplifying compositions and using everyday materials. While his early works were often compared to those of Swiss painter Paul Klee and Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, Schoonhoven developed a unique series of sculptural reliefs beginning in the 1960s, whose simple but evocative geometric compositions were profoundly influential to both local and international postwar artists. American artist Donald Judd, for example, saw Schoonhoven as a significant source of inspiration and exhibited his work in Marfa, Texas, in 1989.

Throughout his career, Schoonhoven himself lived a modest life, and, as noted by Richard Kalina in Art in America:  “In some ways, Schoonhoven’s life says it all. A quiet, conscientious 30-year clerical employee of the Dutch Postal Service (whose career advancement there was thwarted by the publicity he received for having his nude body painted in polka dots by Yayoi Kusama in a 1967 performance at the Stedelijk Museum), he was also considered by many to be the most advanced and uncompromising artist in the Netherlands.”

Antoon Melissen is an Amsterdam and Berlin-based writer, art historian, and independent scholar specializing in art of the 1950s to the 1970s. His publications include monographs on the Dutch Nul artists Jan Henderikse (with Renate Wiehager; 2010) and Armando (2015) as well as catalogue texts on the international ZERO movement for the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, among others. He is currently working on a forthcoming monograph on the life and work of Jan Schoonhoven. 

David Leiber is Director at David Zwirner, whose expertise lies in postwar European art, with a focus on Italy in the 1950s to the 1970s, and the international ZERO Group, which culminated in Leiber’s groundbreaking exhibition ZERO and New York (1957-1966). This 2008 survey was the first in the United States dedicated to this international postwar movement.

In its seventh year the program series An Art Book, initiated and organized by Arezoo Moseni, is a celebration of the essential importance and beauty of art books. The events showcase book presentations and discussions by world renowned artists, critics, curators, gallerists, historians and writers.

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