Within the international art world, American Fine Arts, Co., Colin de Land Fine Art was a gallery known equally for its anti-commercial, risk-taking practices and for its charismatic owner, who championed a perennially marginalized discourse that critiqued the status quo of gallery practice. Culled from de Land's extensive archive, Colin de Land, American Fine Arts provides an incomparable look at the activities and personalities that frequented the gallery during its heyday. The photographs and snapshots are accompanied by remembrances from more than 50 international artists and writers associated with the gallery. Part personal history, part expose, Colin de Land, American Fine Arts takes us back to the essence of south SoHo during the late 1980s and 90s, serving as a testament to de Land and his loving wife, gallerist Pat Hearn, both of whom died of cancer but left a legacy of personal style in their respective gallery practices, which have since been sorely missed.

The Conditions of Being Art is the first book to examine the activities of groundbreaking contemporary art galleries Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co. (1983-2004), and the transnational milieu of artists, dealers and critics that surrounded them. Drawing on the archives of dealers Pat Hearn and Colin de Land--both, independently, legendary players on the New York art scene of the 1980s and '90s, and one of the great love stories of the art world--this publication illustrates their distinctive artistic practices, significant exhibitions and events, and daily business. Hearn and de Land championed art that challenged the business of running an art gallery; artists like Renée Green and Susan Hiller, Andrea Fraser and Cady Noland, who employed conceptualism and installation, social and institutional critique. Contributing to the history of exhibitions, institutions and curating, The Conditions of Being Art addresses a significant gap in this literature around experimental commercial spaces in recent art history. This publication is the first book-length critical account of the alternative commercial gallery practices of the 1990s, a moment and a scene that is extremely influential to many of today's art dealers, curators and artists. Hearn and de Land's gallery practices explored new experimental and ethical possibilities within the selling of art, testing the relationship of contemporary art to its markets. In this volume, full-color images, in-depth scholarly investigations and detailed gallery histories vibrantly document how Hearn and de Land tested new notions of what an art gallery could be.

This book is the result of four years of collaborative work that focused on topics of affect, the return of history, ecology, and art and its markets in today's power law-based economies. These themes triggered not only the development of new artworks but also gave rise to reflexive discourses and discussions surrounding art theory, philosophy, sociology, and economics. The book contains a visual documentation of a number of group shows - which also included the works of winners of the Daniel Frese Prize - at Agathenburg Castle, Halle für Kunst Lüneburg, Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, and Kunstverein Springhornhof. The contributions by critics, curators, theoreticians, and scientists include essays and in-depth conversations.

Digitization is the animating force of everyday life. Rather than defining it as a technology or a medium, Contemporary Art and the Digitization of Everyday Life argues that digitization is a socio-historical process that is contributing to the erosion of democracy and an increase in political inequality, specifically along racial, ethnic, and gender lines. Taking a historical approach, Janet Kraynak finds that the seeds of these developments are paradoxically related to the ideology of digital utopianism that emerged in the late 1960s with the rise of a social model of computing, a set of beliefs furthered by the neo-liberal tech ideology in the 1990s, and the popularization of networked computing. The result of this ongoing cultural worldview, which dovetails with the principles of progressive artistic strategies of the past, is a critical blindness in art historical discourse that ultimately compromises art’s historically important role in furthering radical democratic aims.

They left in the middle of the night—often carrying little more than the knowledge to follow the North Star. Between 1830 and the end of the Civil War in 1865, an estimated one hundred thousand slaves became passengers on the Underground Railroad, a journey of untold hardship, in search of freedom. In Through Darkness to Light: Photographs Along the Underground Railroad, Jeanine Michna-Bales presents a remarkable series of images following a route from the cotton plantations of central Louisiana, through the cypress swamps of Mississippi and the plains of Indiana, north to the Canadian border— a path of nearly fourteen hundred miles. The culmination of a ten-year research quest, Through Darkness to Light imagines a journey along the Underground Railroad as it might have appeared to any freedom seeker. Framing the powerful visual narrative is an introduction by Michna-Bales; a foreword by noted politician, pastor, and civil rights activist Andrew J. Young; and essays by Fergus M. Bordewich, Robert F. Darden, and Eric R. Jackson.

Canvases and Careers Today brings together contributions from the eponymous conference organized by the Institut für Kunstkritik, Frankfurt am Main. Its goal is to provide deeper insights and more complexity to current debates on the relationship between criticism, art, and the market. “It was especially interesting for us to watch a kind of transatlantic divide happening. While the US-American participants mostly declared criticism as obsolete while hoping for turning its weakness into a strength, most European participants departed from the opposite diagnosis: that criticism has never been as strong as it is today, since it is now part of a knowledge-based economy.”—Isabelle Graw/Daniel Birnbaum Contributors George Baker, Johanna Burton, Merlin Carpenter, Melanie Gilligan, Isabelle Graw, Tom Holert, Branden W. Joseph, John Kelsey, André Rottmann, Julia Voss Institut für Kunstkritik Series

This first comprehensive account of a mid-century master covers the multi-faceted career of a fine artist, graphic designer, teacher, and publisher. It reflects Norman Ives's timeless relevance in the visual arts. Constructions & Reconstructions is an overview of Norman Ives's multifaceted career. Ives was a gifted artist better known for his graphic design. His talents extended well beyond the field of design. Much of this seamless transi- tion came from Ives's mastery of form, common to both endeavors. Ives's paintings and collages are collected by major museums: The 1967 Whitney Annual exhibition of American painting, the Guggenheim Museum, Yale University Art Gallery and various others. Norman Ives holds a secure place in the history of American Mid-Century Modern canon as one of a band of artists using letterforms as art. Ives's design and art appeared to be outliers of the percolating type-as-art movement popularized by Robert Indiana's LOVE sculptures. Type-related art has since become ubiquitous in painting and sculpture, as well as other massive architectural "type works." Ives's work fits squarely into this genre having roots in the early 20th-century Modern movement. Ives's was part of a period representing a high point in the teachings of graphic design. This began with Josef Albers's restructuring of the Yale University Art School. Ives was both a student of Albers and his teaching colleague, then later, his publisher. Taking Albers's lead, this curriculum helped reformulate graphic design in its evolution from commercial art. Norman Ives was a member of AGI, along with fellow faculty members Herbert Matter, Armin Hofmann, Paul Rand, and Bradbury Thompson.) Ives's recognition in two major fields of the visual arts makes him worthy of being called master, in any period. In the history of art, there are many examples of works that rise to the level rightfully called timeless: Corinthian helmets, Heraldry, Greek sculpture, Kurt Schwitters's collages, and the work of Josef Albers. The book itself is a work of art, a comprehensive account of the spirit and genius of Norman Ives. It has been long in the making. After studying with Ives, the book's author John T. Hill then taught with Ives at Yale's School of Fine Arts. This book introduces unseen master works, showcasing the brilliant variety and vitality of the work. It fully delineates his stock in trade--letterforms--which became "his lyrical strokes, their construction and reconstruction defining his work."