xSITE (New York City, US)
‘The conditions of being art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co.’

2018
Book 

Art dealers Pat Hearn and Colin de Land were both legendary players – independently of each other – on the New York art scene of the 1980s and ’90s. But together they also formed one of the great love stories in the world of art.

New York-based visual communications platform xSITE invited us to collaborate on the design of a book commemorating these two legends. ‘The conditions of being art’ was the first book to examine the activities of their ground-breaking New York contemporary art galleries (Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co., respectively) and the international circle of artists, dealers and critics that surrounded them.

The book draws on the archives of both gallery owners to shed light on their distinctive artistic practices, their most significant exhibitions and events, and their day-to-day business of running an art gallery. Both Hearn and De Land championed the sort of art that challenged the business side of owning a gallery. The artists they featured employed conceptualism in the form of installations, providing both social and institutional critique.

The 296-page book that we designed in collaboration with Klaus Kempenaars of xSITE is printed in full colour on Munken Artic Volume 115 paper. Its softcover binding comes with a full-colour, gloss-laminated jacket of the same paper. 

Publishers: CCS Bard (Annandale-on-Hudson); Dancing Foxes Press (Brooklyn)
Text: Johanna Burton, Ann E. Butler, Jill H. Casid, Lauren Cornell, Diederich Diederichsen, Lia Gangitano, Jennifer King, Mason Leaver-Yap, Kobena Mercer, Jeannine Tang
Printer: Die Keure (Bruges)