Number of pages: 112
Size: 17 x 24,5 cm.
Illustrations: 70 in b/w,
16 black-white, bound
Price: € 9,90
ISBN: none
Museum Møhlmann,
Venhuizen
Red blush of shame and other notes in black and white
As a writer about art and its surroundings, Møhlmann is definitely an outsider. He is a keen observer, but he is so as an artist, never as an art historian. After having written many small articles about his colleagues, some autobiographic material, and a number of columns, he now turns up with everything that "has been lying waiting in his drawer", and this material simply defies description. The title of the book is 'Red blush of shame and other notes in black and white' and it consists of a number of colourful brainwaves, ideas, one-liners, short stories and poetical notes. As a grant finale there is a series of contemplations on the parallels between some specific newsphotos from the papers and their equivalents in the arts.
All texts, whether they're long or short, are in a sense "eye-openers", if only because they disclose a particular world view, as seen through the eyes of an artist. These texts make it all too clear that this artist prefers realism to the abstract, but at the same time they reveal his almost desperate wrestle with reality, which he eventually summarizes as being "absolute abstract". And whether or not you agree with his findings, before you know it you will be carried away by his inimitable way of arguing. And so the ostensibly bizarre similarity between the "Birth of a star" as photographed by the Hubble-telescope and "the Colossus" on a famous mezzotint by Francesco Goya suddenly becomes crystal clear.
The original title of the book is 'Schaamrood en andere optekeningen in zwart-wit' and, alas, it is only available in Dutch. But as soon as Møhlmann really becomes a world-famous painter, an English version will be published. And even a German. Or a French, a Spanish, a Greek, a Norwegian, Japanese, Chinese or even Tibetan.
