In stock

• Dimensions  
• 30 x 22 cm  
• Pages  
• 464  
• Language  
• Dutch  
• Year  
• 2022  
• ISBN  
• 978 94 6436 674 7  
• Publication  
• Hannibal Books  

Since its statutory establishment in 1972, the Frans Masereel Center, named after the Belgian graphic artist, woodcutter, painter, draftsman and pacifist Frans Masereel, has grown into one of the most challenging and inspiring environments for artists and critics to explore printmaking and printed matter-at- large to investigate. On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Frans Masereel Center asked the research group KB45 (Art in Belgium since 1945, UGent) to write down its history.

Based on extensive archival research, Diepdruk – vlakdruk – hoogdruk – doordruk sketches a rich historical portrait of the internationally renowned residence and exhibition space in Kasterlee. In six chapters and as many decades, the reader is guided through the history of the Frans Masereel Centrum, deliberately seeking out the tension between the density of the chronological order on the one hand and the selective discussion of facts and protagonists on the other. The book starts in 1962, the year in which forerunner Fons Mertens starts collecting printing presses that form the basis of the technical equipment of the later Frans Masereel Centrum. In richly illustrated contributions, the book pays attention to, among other things, the architecture of the Frans Masereel Centrum, the cultural-political context in which it functioned, or the artist’s books it published, but it also collects interviews with former employees and artists who resided there. Each decade concludes with a selection of graphic work created at the Frans Masereel Centrum, as well as a detailed chronology of events.

Diepdruk – vlakdruk – hoogdruk – doordruk puts forward an art history that is not conceived as a sophisticated enumeration of highlights and moments of glory, but as a succession of overlapping facts and events, a condensed string of actions and decisions.

Publication on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Frans Masereel Centrum on 15 October 2022. Compiled by the research group KB45 (Art in Belgium since 1945), Ghent University.

With text contributions by the Belgian Institute of Graphic Design (Leroy Meyer & Pia Jacques de Dixmude), Camille Bladt, Laura Bovsòvers-Carette, Koen Brams, Wouter Davidts, Aurelie Daems, Stijn Maes, Kaat Obbels, Gertjan Oskar, Anton Pereira Rodriguez, Henk Roose, Paula Rodriguez-Sardiñas, Veerle Soens, Louise Vanhee, Nikolaas Verstraeten and Stefaan Vervoort.