Basboek

One of the remarkable things about my father (1948 - 2016) was that, as long as I knew him, he read several books a week, mainly thrillers. Something you might not expect from a (retired) roofer. About half a year after his death, my mother asked me to throw away a bunch of these paperbacks. Before I threw them into a paper recycling container, I looked at each one and wondered what had been going on in my father's mind. I took them home and started reading them.

In the first thriller, which was over 600 pages, I found only one sentence about art: On the walls hung several large, unframed paintings that were either particularly good imitations of pools of vomit, or represented modern abstract art (from: If the Dead Do Not Rise by Philip Kerr, p. 340). I found this striking, but not that strange, since the main characters in these kinds of books are often ex-military or police officers and are usually not much into art. However, after reading a number of these thrillers, I noticed that this derogatory description of art was not an exception and these details became increasingly important to me.

Bilingual: English / Dutch
15 x 10 cm
144 pages
Softcover with a full-color photo as
a bookmark

If you want to order this publication, please check the link in comments.

This weekend: BASBOEK@Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, with DIABP: Friends with Books. Hope to see you ! (Also with Louis Reith.)

BASBOEK @ Tokyo Art Book Fair: for you I make a very special prize ! (photo: Louis Reith)

BASBOEK with DIABP @ Modern Tate in London !

Now available: 4th print of WHAT TO DO (over 1300 copies sold!) and 2nd print of Artist Jokes.