1
Cinema,
Albert Mertz
1988


3
Ducks on a Pond,
Lawrence Weiner
1988


4
Holy Trip,
Christoph Boutin
2004


5
Pro-Spectus,
Peter Downsborough
1988


6
Come On,
Robert Robert
1987


7
Point Blank,
Kendell Geers
2004


8
The Telephone Book,
John Baldessari
1988


9
DIY,
Joe Scanlan
2002


10
Only Happy When it rains,
Mekhitar Garabedian
2006


De Kunstenbibliotheek


Godshuizenlaan 2A
9000 Gent, België

 

 

Mo, Tu, We 9:00 – 18:00

Th 9:00 – 21:00

    Fr 9:00 – 16:00

 

closed on weekends and bank holidays

 

Closed on November 1st, 11th and 15th

 

kunstenbibliotheek@hogent.be
+32 (0)9 243 36 89

 

 

How to become a member

 

Recommend a book 

 

Regulations
 

Kunstenbibliotheek brings together the collections of KASK (School of Arts – HOGENT), S.M.A.K., Design Museum, STAM, HISK and the Gentse Gidsen under one roof.
Kunstenbibliotheek is managed by KASK & Conservatorium (School of Arts – HOGENT).

 

Floorplan

 

  



ESSENTIAL READING

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. 


Essential Reading #37: María Boto Ordóñez
Essential Reading #36: Bert De Jonghe
Essential Reading #35: Benny Nemer
Essential Reading #34: Ezra Veldhuis & Bosse Provoost
Essential Reading #33: Chris Lee
Essential Reading #32: Liesbeth Henderickx
Essential Reading #31: Rokko
Essential Reading #30 Harlind Libbrecht
Essential Reading #29: Dominique De Groen
Essential Reading #28: Kato Six
Essential Reading #27: Elephy
Essential Reading #26 : William J. Simmons
Essential Reading #25 Design Fest Gent
Essential Reading #24: åbäke
Essential Reading #23: Rile Space
Essential Reading #22: Azam Masoumzadeh
Essential Reading #21: Yasmine Ostendorf
Essential Reading #20: Les VoiZines
Essential Reading #19: Jozef Wouters / Decoratelier
Essential Reading #18: Lucy McKenzie
Essential Reading #17: Heide Hinrichs
Essential Reading #16: Other Women’s Flowers
Essential Reading #15: Vincent Van Velsen (18.06.20 – 15.07.20)
Essential Reading #14: Reading Together
Essential Reading #13: Sabzian
Essential Reading #12: Anna Colin
Essential Reading #11: Laura Nsengiyumva
Essential Reading #10: Topo Copy
Essential Reading #9: Atelier Bildraum
Essential Reading #8: Valérie Mannaerts
Essential Reading #7: Inge Vinck (Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu)
Essential Reading#6: Peggy Totté
Essential Reading #5: Christine Eyene
Essential Reading #4: Jolien Deceuninck & Flora Blommaert
Essential Reading #3: Nat Muller
Essential Reading #2: Nathalie Zonnenberg
Essential Reading #1: Eva Barois De Caevel

BOEKS

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 houses in 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


BOEKS 16 LEARNING Slow Reading Club
BOEKS 15 Character
BOEKS 14 ‘OM (أُمّ, moeder)
BOEKS 13 MASTERPUBLICATIES 2022-2023
BOEKS 12 IMPORT-EXPORT, FRIPERIE Mekhitar Garabedian
BOEKS 11 VEERKRACHT THUIS!
Boeks 10 FIVE WORKS Philip Metten
Boeks 9 MMDC3 Angie Keefer & Julie Peeters
Boeks 8 The Misadventures of Plank Communication Center
Boeks 7: 366!
Boeks 6 Post-Comics. Beyond Comics, Illustration and The Graphic Novel
Boeks 5 Astrid Seme, Baroness Elsa’s em dashes
Boeks 4 Maud Gourdon
Boeks 3 Frik, pedant, schoolvos
Boeks 2 Stoppen met lezen
Boeks 1 De Keyser’s Stockings

1m³

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. 


1M³: Pantomime of Nostalgia, selected by Ipek Aytekin
1M³: After a brief history of artists’ publications selected by Kunstenbibliotheek
1M³: Please discuss the absence of female artists, selected by Laura Sofía Arbeláez & Laurine Tribolet
1M³: UM…YEAH…IN-BETWEEN SPACE, selected by Hannah Keirsse & Lise Van Acker
1M³ Geert Clarisse
1M³: In between: bird chatter, selected by Paul Demets
1M³: Que nos vies aient l’air d’un film parfait door Aurelie Daems
1M³: Visualising the memory of this hand touching something, selected by Valentina Bianchi & Arno Huygens
1M³: Books of Lawrence Weiner, selected by Julie Peeters
1M³: A Collection of Pages by Marc Nagtzaam
1M³: 12 Frames by Nathan Ishar & Sofie Frederix
1M³:Each line is an axis of the world – a selection for post-comics by Sébastien Conard & Ilan Manouach
1M³: Artistes Libres, Ines Claus
1M³: BiiiiiiiiiiiiiiB, Jacques André
1M³: Incidental Circumstances, Oriol Vilanova
1M³: Axiomes du choix (Hommage aan Olga Morano) selected by Simon Delobel
1M³: Interaction of Color, Maria Boto Ordonez
1M³: 102 Craters on Venus, Sophie Nys
1M³: Wanting to be a book, Luc Derycke
1M³: Feldman, Horvitz, LeWitt, Prince, Templeton & van der Weijde, Jurgen Maelfeyt
1m³: ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE, Thomas Desmet
1m3: Wabi Sabi Letterpress: Memories of Lost Impressions, Nathalie Cohen
1m³: Vorsatz, Anna Zhironkina
1M³: Y.K.F.B. — Yves Klein Fading Blue, Marta Masiero
1m3: A partial publication retrospective, Stefan Banz
1M³: Cover Stories, Sara De Bondt
1m³: I am forgetful of everything, but seeing you again, Mekhitar Garabedian
1M³: The books by Leonid Miroshnik, Paul Buschmann
1M³: Quadrilateral variations, Gudlaug Mia Eythorsdottir
1M³: The World is a Book is a Word, Daniel Dobbelaere
1M³: MA Photo Books, Jan Kempenaers
1M³: Nieves, Gerard Herman (Groepsdruk)
1M³: Lubok Verlag, Katia Ballegeer
1M³: Welcome to Imschoot Uitgevers! by Joris Dockx
1M³: Ki-Kokekwa by Henri Jacobs
1M³: De Enschedese School, Kasper Andreasen

moving bookshelves

Despite being located close to the school, Kunstenbibliotheek started experimenting with the possibilities of mobile bookshelves. Following the pop-up principle, these wheeled shelves are able to be easily moved and can therefore reach a new audience outside of the library. 

These small bib-carts can present a curated selection of books on a particular subject, which can be taken to lessons, workshops or ateliers. After creating the first prototype, several other designs were experimented with as to test out the possibilities of each cart. Some are rather practical for transport, some present the books better. 

The idea of the book trolleys is not that they serve without a ‘caretaker or person in charge’, but rather as a place to collect information in and make this mobile, where people can stand or sit around it. Just as a library provides a social fabric in a location, the book cart/book trolley/eventually book backpack (still in progress) will also be designed to gather around and share knowledge.

 

During the Graduation Week 2023 the wheeled shelves were used as a pop-up bookstore to sell students publications. 

 

A project by Nomadic School of Arts, Suzy Castermans, Peter Van de Velde, Seppe-Hazel Laeremans & Marthe Huyse

photos by (c) Rembert Deprez & Marthe Huyse


Reading Guide

Research can be a maze many struggle to make sense of. With our little selection on specific topics, the Kunstenbibliotheek is trying to help you find your way through our vast collection. Since we constantly are making an effort to give space to & focus on marginalized topics, these lists will be regularly updated. We are still learning. Our little labyrinth logo on the book’s spine will help you find the suggested books in the shelves. Enjoy! 


Reading Guide feminism
Reading Guide Black Identity
Reading Guide LGBTQ+
Reading Guide climate action
Reading Guide Decolonization
Reading Guide Geopolitics
Reading Guide Protest & Activism

Kunstwerken tussen de rekken

 

Mathias Prenen, #BALUSTER#CarmenMiranda, 2015

Sculptuur met eik, den, linde, beuk, notelaar en MDF

 

Chris Hoeben, Werk voor de Kunstenbibliotheek, 2022

Sculptuur met zwart-wit kopieën van boeken uit de collectie, keramiek, ijzerdraad, epoxy

 

Valgerður Sigurðardóttir, Bed & Bookshelf, 2018

Sculptuur met cement en geglazuurde keramiek

 

Rik Vonckx, RIK VONCKX 2022, 2022-2023

Kunstenaarsboek met bijhorende sokkel, uniek exemplaar

 

Rik Vonckx, OPERA, OPERA, 2022

Kunstenaarsboek met bijhorende sokkel, uniek exemplaar

 

Rein Dufait, Structuur Schelp (klein), 2020

Sculptuur met betonijzer, cement, schelpen

 

Rein Dufait, Van de bomen, de vormen en de kleuren, 2019-2020

Reeks kunstenaarsboeken, unieke oplage van 30 exemplaren



Acquisitions

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.


Acquisitions September 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions August 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions July 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions June 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions May 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions April 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions March 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions February 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions January 2024 (selection)
Acquisitions December 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions November 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions October 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions September 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions August 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions July 2023 (selcetion)
Acquisitions June 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions May 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions April 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions March 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions February 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions January 2023 (selection)
Acquisitions December 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions November 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions October 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions September 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions August 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions July 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions June 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions May 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions April 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions March 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions February 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions January 2022 (selection)
Acquisitions December 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions November 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions October 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions September 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions August 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions July 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions June 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions May 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions April 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions March 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions February 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions January 2021 (selection)
Acquisitions October 2020 (Selection)
Acquisitions September 2020 (Selection)
Acquisitions August 2020 (Selection)
Acquisitions June 2020 (Selection)
Acquisitions May 2020 (Selection)
Acquisitions March 2020 (selection)
Acquisitions February 2020 (Selection)
Acquisitions January 2020 (selection)

Artists’ books

The artists’ books collection comprises different types of artist’s publications, limited editions, book objects, and other multiples. The collection is devoted to historical as well as contemporary bookworks. A large part of the historical collection comprises books of the 20th century avantgarde movements and minimal art, whereas the contemporary section has a specialized focus on artist’s self-publishing of the recent years.

 

In addition to the self-published works by artists, the collection carries works by specialised publishers such as Lubok, Motto Books, MER Paper Kunsthalle, Art Paper Editions, Roma Publications, and Imschoot Uitgevers, etc. The collection can be consulted via the online catalogue and the image bank. The publications themselves are available on request by making an appointment.

 

A selection of the book presentations can be found at:
https://kaskbooks.tumblr.com


Reading guide artists’ books
Artists’ Books 2024
Artists’ Books 2023
Artists’ Books 2022
Artists’ Books 2021

Magazines

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. 

 

Visual Arts

HART    •   Metropolis M      kM   •   Kunstschrift   •   L’ART MEME    •   Artforum   •   Frieze   •   Kunstletters   •    Adbusters   •   Connaissance des arts   •   Mousse   •  De Witte Raaf   •  Zaal Z  •    SIKA    •    Aperture    

 

Architecture and landscapearchitecture

BETON  •  Bouwen met baksteen   G+L  •   Contact     Arch Index    M&L •  ZKG     tijdschrift publieke ruimte      topos      anthos      ruimte      blauwe kamer     JoLA  •  BAUM   Groencontact   Stadt + Grün    •   Architekten krant  •  Tuin en Landschap   •  Ruimte & Maatschappij   •  De Vlaamse Tuinaannemer   •  CG Concept    •   domus   •   pi     •    md    •   META    •  ak   •   Ruimte   •   Publieke Ruimte   • 

 

Performing arts en Audiovisual arts

American Cinematographer   •   Theatermaker   •   Foam   •  FILM    •    Tubelight  •  Theaterkrant Magazine     Spelen

 

Design

Eye  •  INTERNI  •  Idea  •  DAMN   View    •  Harvard Design Magazine  •  Print   •   TxP   •   FRAME


magazines 2024
magazines 2023
magazines: visual arts 2022
magazines 2021

Karel Geirlandt Collection

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. 


Collection Karel Geirlandt (selection)

Databases

The databases can be consulted via the HOGENT-network, and can be consulted at home via Academic Software (only for students and staff of HOGENT).
More info on our databases and online informationsources is available in this brochure.
 

Art & Architecture Source

AAS covers a broad range of related subjects, from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design. Providing images, full-text journals and books, it is designed for use by a diverse audience, including art scholars, artists, designers, students and general researchers.

Arts Premium Collection

APM encompasses cross-searchable databases with thousands of journal titles, ensuring deep searches of extensive collections in specialist subject areas not covered in more general databases. Subject areas include art, design, architecture, humanities, film/screen studies, music, performing arts, and more.

Artstor

Artstor is an extensive and representative visual resource of images for teaching and research in the arts, humanities and social sciences.

  •  

Interesting:

Google Scholar
CaGeWeb
Apache


Artistic Archive

The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) was founded by painter Ph. K. Marissal in 1751. 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, Gaston Eysselinck, 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. 


Collection Artistic Archive

Zines

In the summer of 2018 Kunstenbibliotheek started its Zine collection to preserve recent & independent creations. This unique collection is constantly growing and we invite artists and writers to send us their self-published printed works.


Zine Collection (selection)