THE CONDITIONS OF BEING ART: PAT HEARN GALLERY AND AMERICAN FINE ARTS, CO. (1983-2004)
June 23, 2018 - December 14, 2018
Hessel Museum of Art
Artists include: Roy Arden, Alex Bag, Art Club 2000, Lutz Bacher, Dennis Balk, Bernadette Corporation, J. St. Bernard, Tom Burr, Moyra Davey, Jessica Diamond, Stephan Dillemuth, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Peter Fend, Renée Green, Pat de Groot, Mary Heilmann, Susan Hiller, Joan Jonas, John Knight, Jutta Koether, Silvia Kolbowski, John Miller, Simon Leung, Ana Mendieta, Marlene McCarty, Mariko Mori, Mark Morrisroe, Claire Pentecost with the Critical Art Ensemble, Christian Philipp-Müller, Kembra Pfahler, Jack Pierson, Julia Scher, Pieter Schoolwerth, Peter Schuyff, Jason Simon, Jessica Stockholder, Spencer Sweeney, Philip Taaffe, Tishan Hsu, Lincoln Tobier, John Waters, among others.
The Conditions of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery & American Fine Arts, Co. (1983-2004) will be the first exhibition in the United States to examine the shared histories, art, and programming activities of Pat Hearn Gallery (PHG) and American Fine Arts, Co., Colin de Land Fine Art. (AFA), whose archives are held at CCS Bard, and which have been the focus of an ongoing research program within the curatorial graduate program, that has included three semester-long courses on the histories of both galleries and involved visits from artists, friends and colleagues of Pat Hearn and Colin de Land. The exhibition will be held from June 23-December 14, 2018 and includes works of art shown at or associated with these galleries by over 40 artists. The exhibition draws upon the archives of each gallery to illuminate their distinctive curatorial practices, significant exhibitions, daily business activities, social worlds, and relationships of artists to art dealers and gallery founders Pat Hearn (1955-2000) and Colin de Land (1955-2003).
The exhibition begins with the opening of the Pat Hearn Gallery in 1983 and concludes with the closure of American Fine Arts, Co. in 2004. The galleries began independently of one another in 1983 and 1986 respectively, and are often discussed and historicized separately. While initially acclaimed for her support of transformations in painting in the 1980s, Hearn was also known for her commitment to queer, feminist politics, and AIDS activism, and valued by artists as a dealer who was an enthusiastic participant and collaborator in their work. Hearn subsequently supported work in video, computing, and practices engaging both exhibition and performing arts contexts, creating new ways of understanding artists’ work. De Land was recognized as both a dealer and an artist working under such collaborative pseudonyms as John Dogg and J. St. Bernard. His gallery simultaneously afforded an experimental space for presenting ideas as well as providing a social venue for artists, writers, collectors to interact and debate, his openness coupled with a critical approach, questioning the grounds on which taste, value, and judgment materialize.
The Conditions of Being Art foregrounds the changing operations of artistic labor: in how artists produced art, and what support this required from a gallery and dealer. The exhibition focuses on work by artists who were formally represented by the galleries, artists who received prominent one-person exhibitions at these galleries, and privileges those works of art or art practices that required conspicuous support, collaboration, and advocacy on the part of Hearn and de Land. Works of art previously shown at Hearn and de Land’s galleries—or that were made by them, with them, about or for them—are brought together with selections of archival material from their gallery records and related collections. The exhibition includes major installations of art supported by Hearn or de Land, such as Alex Bag’s The Van (2001), and art rarely exhibited in the U.S. but originally exhibited by PHG and AFA such as J. St. Bernard’s Rex (1990), Mary Heilmann’s Rosebud (1983) in addition to selections of art from such notable exhibitions as Renée Green’s Taste Venue exhibition (PHG 1994), Julia Scher, I’ll Be Gentle (PHG 1991), Peter Fend, Rapid Response (AFA 2000). Archival materials related to the production of site-specific works—such as Christian Philipp-Müller’s A Sense of Friendliness, Mellowness and Permanence (AFA 1992), John Knight’s Identity Capital (AFA 1998) and Art Club 2000, Commingle (AFA, 1993)—are also included. In doing so, the exhibition indicates how artists reflected upon, intervened into and collaboratively shaped the very operations of PHG and AFA.
While maintaining distinct programs and separate gallery operations, Hearn and de Land’s life partnership formed a third space devoted to shared ideas, artistic kinships, and overlapping communities that moved back and forth between their galleries. As art dealers, Hearn and de Land did not create rosters of individual artistic geniuses, but instead created – in dissimilar ways – markets for forms of institutional critique, research and project-based art not avidly collected at the time. The exhibition is co-curated by Jeannine Tang, Senior Academic Advisor and LUMA Fellow at CCS Bard; Lia Gangitano; founder of Participant Inc and Faculty at CCS Bard and Ann Butler, Director of the Library and Archives at CCS Bard. The exhibition is accompanied by a public symposium scheduled for Fall 2018.
A fully-illustrated scholarly publication accompanies the exhibition, and features ten new essays by an intergenerational group of writers, critics, curators and art historians, whose work has involved the artists or issues important to PHG and AFA, but who were not active critics regularly reviewing their exhibitions. In the investigative spirit of encouraging new research into PHG and AFA’s histories, the following authors were commissioned to write: Johanna Burton, Jill Casid, Lauren Cornell, Diedrich Diederichsen, Jennifer King, Mason Leaver-Yap, and Kobena Mercer. The book includes reproductions of archival material from a variety of lenders, images of exhibitions at the galleries and updated exhibition timelines for both galleries. It is edited and co-published by Dancing Foxes Press, designed by xSITE and distributed by D.A.P.
The exhibition is also accompanied by Postscript: a selection of archival material from the Center for Curatorial Studies Archives in the Center’s Collection Teaching Gallery. The exhibition will present a selection of archival documents related to Pat Hearn and Colin de Land which reflect their professional lives as art dealers and gallerists, but do not fall neatly within the scope of gallery records. Some of the materials presented as part of this exhibition reveal the shared life of Pat Hearn and Colin de Land. Other materials showcase ancillary projects initiated within the context of their respective galleries, but existing as distinct projects. The exhibition will include manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, publications, sketches and drawings. All of the archival materials presented are part of the holdings of the Center for Curatorial Studies Archives. Similar to an addendum or appendix in a publication, Postscript is intended as a visual and textual supplement augmenting and highlighting facets of the concurrent exhibition, The Conditions of Being Art: Pat Hearn Gallery and American Fine Arts, Co. (1983-2004). Postscript will be on view from June 23, 2018 – September 16, 2018.
This exhibition and publication are made possible by the generous donation of print editions (produced and sold in partnership with Art+Culture Projects at artandculture.com) by many of the artists with whom Colin and Pat were associated: Tom Burr, George Condo, Moyra Davey, Mark Dion, Jeff Elrod, Rachel Harrison, Mary Heilmann, Jacqueline Humphries, Joan Jonas, Jutta Koether, Mariko Mori, Elizabeth Peyton, Philip Taaffe, and John Waters. The exhibition and publication have also greatly benefitted from the support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Stephen Cheng, and the Matthew Marks Gallery.
Exhibitions at CCS Bard are made possible with support from the Marieluise Hessel Foundation, the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, the Board of Governors of the Center for Curatorial Studies, the CCS Bard Arts Council, and the Center’s Patrons, Supporters, and Friends.