Godshuizenlaan 2A
9000 Gent, België
Kunstenbibliotheek is open to the public in code yellow and code orange (today). In both codes we apply the regular operation and opening hours with the exception of the number of allowed visitors (max 40 persons allowed). Further, visitors disinfect hands before and after visiting the library, register at the entrance and report to the counter where they may be assigned a seat, if requested.
We take all necessary measures to welcome you at Kunstenbibliotheek in safety.
You can contact us for further information via kunstenbibliotheek@hogent.be
Mo, Tu and We 9u00 – 18u00
Th 9u00 – 22u00
Fr 9u00 – 16u00
Closed on Weekends and bank holidays
Closed on 2 November and 11 November
Closed from 21 December until 3 January
kunstenbibliotheek@hogent.be
+32 (0)9 243 36 89
De Kunstenbibliotheek brengt de collecties van KASK, S.M.A.K., Design Museum, STAM, HISK en de Gentse Gidsen samen onder één dak. (…)
On Thursday 22 October 2020 (from 6 p.m.) BOEKS 6 is presented: ‘Post-Comics. Beyond Comics, Illustration and The Graphic Novel’ (based on a concept by Sébastien Conard), Boeks 6 includes an expo, a printing performance and a lecture. In the cellarium, work by graphic design students (KASK) will be shown in a scenography by KASK alumnus graphic design Linh Dong.
Suggested reading list on feminism, identity and art, on black identity/diaspora, art and culture. This reading list is only a selection, it’s based on the collection of Kunstenbibliotheek and largely inspired on selections made by guests from Kunstenbibliotheek’s program Essential Reading: #1 with Eva Barois De Caevel, #3 with Nat Muller, #5 with Christine Eyene and suggestions made by Ariella Azoulay and Els Roelandt.
Proposal for a Possible Collection is a display of artists’ books, magazines, zines, ephemera and other printed matter published by small or independent publishers, independent organizations, collectives, artists or writers, collected by Kunstenbibliotheek.
Essential Reading is a project that aims to enlarge, diversify and enrich Kunstenbibliotheek’s book collection. Which books are, today, really indispensable for an art library? Guests of Essential Reading bring together and present in the library the books they consider most valuable in their life and work.
BOEKS is a platform for showing books on the Bijloke site in Ghent. Every month, for one night, a book, its maker and publisher take center stage. Afterwards, remains stick around on walls, ceilings and floors. Along the way a BOEKS collection comes into being.
BOEKS celebrates printed matter, thick and thin, young and old, unique and serial, legible and illegible. Above all, BOEKS loves and highlights precisely those books that ask for it, because they are good, still unknown or fed up with the stacks or boxes they are confined to. BOEKS collaborates, contextualizes, supports and produces. The platform shows text, visual art and graphic design.
BOEKS is housed in the cellarium, a 15th-century convent corridor connecting the Kunstenbibliotheek with the STAM. BOEKS is an initiative of KASK and the Kunstenbibliotheek.
More info at boeks.gent
In 2015 1m3 was initiated as an exhibition space dedicated to artists’ books from Kunstenbibliotheek’s collection. A guest curator is asked to make her/his selection from the library and present it within the vitrines of 1m3.
Suggested reading list on feminism, identity and art, on black identity/diaspora, art and culture. This reading list is only a selection, it’s based on the collection of Kunstenbibliotheek and largely inspired on selections made by guests from Kunstenbibliotheek’s program Essential Reading: #1 with Eva Barois De Caevel, #3 with Nat Muller, #5 with Christine Eyene and suggestions made by Ariella Azoulay and Els Roelandt.
This week (7-14 October 2020), #StudiumReads White Innocence by Gloria Wekker (2016)
When Gloria Wekker (Professor Emeritus Gender Studies of the University of Utrecht) first took part in an official meeting, she wanted to shake hands with the chairman. But instead of shaking her hand, he gave her his coat and scarf. He assumed that she was the helper. In her book White Innocence (2016), Gloria Wekker wonders how it is possible that the existence of racial discrimination is still so passionately denied today. How it is possible to think that 400 years of colonial history leave no trace on white people? Why do white people still think that white is not a color? Why do white people not know the exact words to discuss racism? Why is colonial history no longer taught at Dutch schools? Why do white people think they are innocent?
Kunstenbibliotheek closely follows up the artscene and weekly presents new aquisitions. Next to general collection development, Kunstenbibliotheek focusses on the following themes:
• The city of Ghent, books on artists, designers, architects or writers born or living in Ghent.
• Publications linked to the activities of Kunstenbibliotheek’s different partners (KASK, Design museum Gent, HISK, SMAK, STAM, Gentse Gidsen). Kunstenbibliotheek’s collection wants to become an accurate reflection of the activities of collaborators, staff, guests, alumni or students)
• Positions from the so-called geographical and/or intellectual periphery: publications on art and art theory from Asia, Middle East, Africa, South America with a special attention for decolonization theory, gender and LGBTQ studies.
• In the past three years a first catch-up movement was made in collecting publications about and from female artists and/or authors or curators. Kunstenbibliotheek continues this policy in the year to come.
The collection of artists’ books contains special editions and limited edition books. A large part of the collection is dedicated to Cobra, minimal and conceptual art.
In addition to publications published by artists under their own management, work by specialised publishers such as Lubok Verlag, Edition Hansjörg Mayer, MER Paper Kunsthalle, APE and Roma Publications, Nieves Books, etc. is collected.
The collection is searchable in the catalogue and via the image bank. The publications themselves are available on request and can be consulted by appointment.
The current volumes of the magazine subscriptions are available in the art library but are not lent out. Articles from previous years can be requested by e-mail.
In the summer of 2018 Kunstenbibliotheek started its Zines collection. This collection has not yet been catalogued.
The Karel Geirlandt Collection is named after the first chairman of the Association for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent (now SMAK). The collection was started when the Association was founded and grew with the museum. It forms a closed whole and contains books on art from 1945 to 2003 with a specialisation in conceptual and minimal art in Europe and the United States, and the artworks and artists collected by SMAK. This collection can only be consulted in the library.
Consult the databases at home (only for students and staff KASK & Conservatorium)
• Art Source
• Arts Premium Collection
• Artstor
Interesting:
• Google Scholar
• CaGeWeb
• Apache
The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) was founded by painter Ph. K. Marissal in 1748. KASK’s archive dates from 1770 and was supplemented until the middle of the 20th century. It consists of an arts archive and an administrative archive.
The arts archive consists mainly of academic drawings, architecture and visual arts, as well as sculptures, paintings and posters. The academic drawings contain examples of the different drawing methods that were taught, more specifically drawing according to prints, plaster or living models.
The collection includes drawings by artists from the Latem group, such as Gust De Smet, Léon De Smet, Albert Servaes and architectural drawings by former students such as Alphons Groothaert, Victor Horta, Geo Henderick, G.Eysselink, paintings awarded the J.Pipyn prize by H.Malfait, J.Burssens, Steve Schepens, Steven Balen and others.
The art archive can be consulted via the catalogue and the image bank http://bib.hogent.be and can be viewed by appointment.
