Re-Printed Matter was first published in 1996 on the occasion of an award presented to Karel Martens (Dr A. H. Heineken Prize for Art) and has been printed several times since. Martens' work occupies an intriguing place in the present European art-and-design landscape and this this fourth edition presents almost sixty years of practice.
Martens can be placed in the tradition of Dutch modernism but maintains some distance from the main developments of this time. His work is personal, experimental and prolific.
A renowned teacher of graphic design, Martens has designed many books as well as undertaking design commissions for stamps, coins and signs on buildings. Intimately connected with this is his practice as an artist. This started with geometric and kinetic constructions and developed in work with the very material of paper. And he has been making monoprints over a long period.
Re-Printed Matter is a book that looks for new ways to show and discuss the work of Martens as a designer and artist and is offered in the same spirit of experiment and dialogue that characterizes the work it presents.
Roma, 280pp, 17cm x23cm, paperback, 2019