PrintedMatter.org

Printed Matter, Inc. is pleased to announce the launch of Colin de Land: American Fine Arts, a book celebrating and documenting the adventurous and influential curatorial practice of Colin de Land and his gallery American Fine Arts. Please join the publication’s editor Dennis Balk and many of the artists featured in the publication on Saturday, March 29, 2008 from 5:00 – 7:00 PM. Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue, between 21st and 22nd Street.

Within the international art world, American Fine Arts 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 passed through 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 exposé, 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.

Dennis Balk is an artist who worked with American Fine Arts and Colin de Land for over a decade. Asked by de Land to care for the archive, Balk now presents this book as the first effort to bring the photographs into the public sphere. Balk exhibits work internationally and is the author of Particles + Waves with Plausibility (powerHouse Books, 2005).

Colin de Land: American Fine Arts is published by powerHouse Books and retails for $45. The publication is 256 pages and contains 325 color images. It is available at Printed Matter’s storefront or online at printedmatter.org.