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I once again travelled to Amsterdam for the Dreamscapes Exhibition. This time however, I made things easy on myself and took the train. What a difference it made. I think I’m hooked on train travel.

Early Friday afternoon I arrived at the exhibition hall. The hanging of the artwork was nearing its end and Ella Buzo and Marcel Salome, the organisers were very busy. The exhibition was being installed in the same large hall they had used last time. Its size being very necessary owing to the large volume of artwork. Their exhibitions are some of the largest and best organised Fantastic Art shows I’ve attended. Although, in the Netherlands, “Imaginary Realism” is the favoured term for this sort of art. This year they broadened the scope and included a some artwork bordering on the fringes.

It proved to be a very long day as some of the artists were arriving  only that evening with their artwork. I helped out where I could with the set up.

I occupied myself through out the day photographing and shooting video of the event. Part of my aim in attending was to document the exhibition for my Fantastic Visions project. I’ve begun sorting through the footage and will post a video to YouTube and my website in the near future.

The exhibition was once again in the same large exhibition hall in Amsterdam. It is a truly impressive site to see such a large space filled with high quality artwork. Ella and Marcel put a lot of time and energy into this project to make it what it is. This year they went even further and had large posters of Viktor Safonkin‘s artwork advertising the exhibition placed all over town.

Their efforts were well rewarded on the opening day. While it is impressive to see the hall filled with artwork, it is even more impressive to see the same hall filled with people looking at the artwork. Approximately 1000 visitors attended the opening with numerous sales being made. Prominent articles about the exhibition appeared in two major newspapers, the Telegraaf and the Volkskrant.

While not all exhibiting artists did attend, a sizable proportion did. Viktor Safonkin was there with his vice like handshake as well as the very congenial Olivier Zappelli who we kidnapped later that evening on a mystery tour of Amsterdam. I chatted with Siegfried Zademack. We had last met at the Art Imaginär exhibition in Mußbach, Gemany the previous year. Slowly I’m coming to know more of them as I travel about to various exhibitions, but there were still new faces to meet.

At the opening ceremony, Marcel presented the very handsome new edition of the Dreamscapes book. Marcel changed the format and design this year and also adding many more pages to the book. Everybody was thrilled with it. With the larger size, extra pages and of course weight, it feels very substantial and its content is certainly enthralling. It is now one of my favourites in my art book collection.

There were smiles all round as the hall buzzed with activity. Artists were queried about their artwork, photos were taken and autographs given. The exhibition was still busy at closing time and reluctantly, visitors had to be ushered away as there was the long expected dinner to be had. Finally people could rest and relax. It was a time of exchanging email addresses and catalogues.

Come the next day it was work again for Ella and Marcel as they opened the hall again. Where as I boarded the train for a casual return journey to Berlin.

Following is a slide show of photos I shot at the exhibition.

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[View with PicLens]

At the beginning of this year, I edited and published a catalogue of artwork which included Dennis Konstantin, Micha Colory Krebs and myself. So naturally when I went to Vienna in March for Ernst Fuch’s 80th birthday celebrations, I took our catalogue with. I visited De Es Schwertberger in his studio and showed him the catalogue.

He was very impressed with the quality of the printing and binding. Thus he decided that he’d use the same printing service for a book of his own, that had been published almost thirty years before, but now out of print, “Bilderbuch für Planetarier” (Picture Book for Panetarians).  Almost all of the paintings from the Stone Period 1972 – 1979 are reproduced, including the Philosopher’s Stone pictures and the Stone-Images from the book “Heavy Light”.

The Book is 148 pages printed on premium paper with a matte finish and bound with a hard cover. The initial version is in German, but if he receives enough interest he will have it translated in to English.

Bilderbuch für Planetarier is available from Blurb.com.

Here is an interactive preview of the book.

CoSM Journal 6

I just received my copy of the latest CoSM Journal today, courtesy of Delvin Solkinson.  I’ve known Delvin for some time now, initially from the Tribe 13 project to his ongoing Galactic Trading Card (GTC) set. Through the course of building his GTC project, he’s come to know and meet many artists the world over. One such artist of note is Alex Grey.

Alex and his wife Allyson, have for many years now put much time and effort into their Chapel of Sacred Mirrors project which was initially based in inner city New York. As of last year CoSM relocated to the countryside just outside of New York. Now that things are finally taking shape on the new property, there is the time and energy to turn back other things that have lain fallow for the interim.

And so with new vigour they have released volume 6 of the CoSM journal. Part of that new energy comes from Delvin, who now works as the managing editor of the journal.

The CoSM journal is a gorgeous A5 sized full colour publication, illustrating the planetary culture of visionary art and showing how this reflects the human relationship to nature, the new Journal includes artists from all five continents of our world including Mark Ryden, Pablo Amaringo, Alex Grey, Allyson Grey, Brigid Marlin, Isabela Maria Hartz, Steven Kenny, Andy Thomas, Akiko Endo, Mitsuru Nagashima, and Anne Mwiti. It also features some major visionary arts organizations including Beinat.org.

Creative Director and Designer: Marisa Scirocco
Managing Editor: Delvin Solkinson
Chief Editors:  Alex Grey and Allyson Grey

You can go to www.cosm.org for more details.