Here+Now

Chapter opener, the first of three

Here+Now: Chinese Artists in New York was an ambitious 3-part exhibition coinciding with the grand opening of Museum of Chinese in America’s new home on Centre Street designed by Maya Lin. Presented as an overview of twelve Chinese artists and their involvement and interaction with the New York art scene since the late 1980s, the scope and variety of works represented in the catalogue is very broad.

Book cover featuring customized typography for the title

The twelve artists are divided into 3 chapters or "currents" according to the curator's understanding of their individual artistic responses to Western cultural differences during their time in New York. As a way to avoid the predictability and visual cacophany of twelve artwork thumbnails on the catalogue's cover (an approach initially favored by the curator), a typographic solution was proposed.
Opening the end flaps reveals the source images for the bands of colour

Taking the title of the exhibition as its inspiration, a visual representation of slippage and movement in both type and image evokes the elusive nature of the present moment. Twelve artwork images were composited and distilled into three continuous bands of pure color representing the three "currents" of the exhibition, which were then wrapped around the exterior and extended onto interior flaps which in turn open to reveal the original images from which the composite was constructed. In this way the 12 artists featured in "Here+Now" could be represented equally, and as part of a continuum of art-making in time and place, with the added feature of surprise and discovery for the reader in the opening of the book.
Spread featuring artwork by Cui Fei
Spread featuring artwork by Yun-Fei Ji
Spread featuring artwork by Shen Chen
Another spread featuring Shen Chen
Opening spread for Xu Bing interview

The book is fully bilingual (English-Chinese) and available for purchase in the bookshop of the Museum of Chinese in America, New York.
Series of three e-cards sent out in advance of the three exhibition openings

In addition to the exhibition catalogue, three e-cards and exhibition graphics (wall text and gallery cards) were designed and produced. All work was done remotely for MOCA New York from Toronto.