HANS KOETSIER, Advertisements 1969-1981, 1984 [artist’s book + 16 newspaper prints]

HANS KOETSIER, Advertisements 1969-1981, 1984
60 x 46,4 x 2,5 cm
HC, offset, 93 plates (186 pp.), linen bound with bolts, ca 11 kgs.
signed
rare in this condition
published by Staatsuitgeverij, Den Haag, Netherlands
added: 16 full page Vrij Nederland newspaper advertisements, vintage
extremely rare
€ 1.250,- plus € 32,- Track & Trace registered EU mail
inv.HKoe 000

Hans Koetsier initially worked in advertising and started painting in 1962. He painted figures and fragments of these and incorporated them into serigraphs. At the end of the sixties, he made his first blobby balloon-like sculptures and gradually the idea became more and more important. He developed into a conceptual artist with always a soft spot for typography and ideas written down as ideas. Director of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Wim Beeren suggested to him to advertise and in 1969 he placed his first series of advertisements with texts in national newspapers Het Parool, NRC Handelsblad, Art Forum (USA), Kunst (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) Studio International (UK) and on the front page of Dutch weekly magazine Vrij Nederland under the title ‘Random Art / Probability Art’.

Hans Koetsier has never shared his ideas within the Fluxus or Provo movement. Yet the fact cannot be denied that he had comparable autonomous thinking and acting. In the Netherlands Koetsier became known for unusual high-profile plans. For example, he once suggested establishing a national holiday, the ‘Day of Inspiration’, starting on Whit Monday 1980. The Dutch Prime Minister Van Agt was against the idea, because it would suggest that in the Netherlands there was a “fairly general lethargy”, which he said was not the case.
In Friesland, which according to Koetsier would be the last oasis left in the middle of industrialization, Koetsier wanted to build a watchtower in a place where the view around would still be intact.

Hans Koetsier became best known for placing advertisements in weekly magazine Vrij Nederland, which, in addition to short-sighted texts, often had an algebraic or enigmatic appearance.
KvG June 2023

verso:

Added: 16 newspaper pages


Advertisement in Vrij Nederland, 15 April 1978


Advertisement in Vrij Nederland, February 1974


Advertisement in Vrij Nederland, 10 February 1973


Advertisement in Vrij Nederland, 2 February 1974


Advertisement in Vrij Nederland, 15 February 1975


Advertisement in Vrij Nederland, 31 December 1975