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Catalog Data

Creator:
De Land, Colin, 1955-2003  Search this
Subject:
Waters, John  Search this
Fraser, Andrea  Search this
Dion, Mark  Search this
Marks, Matthew  Search this
Morris, Paul  Search this
Balk, Dennis  Search this
Davey, Moyra  Search this
Pierson, Jack  Search this
Fend, Peter  Search this
Heilmann, Mary  Search this
Greene, Carol  Search this
Wadlin, Craig  Search this
Beckwith, Patterson  Search this
McDonald, Daniel  Search this
Art Forum Berlin  Search this
International Art Fair  Search this
American Fine Arts, Co.  Search this
Biennale di Venezia  Search this
Documenta  Search this
Art Cologne  Search this
Armory Show (1913: New York, N.Y.)  Search this
Type:
Photographs
Scrapbooks
Motion pictures (visual works)
Video recordings
Place of publication, production, or execution:
United States
Physical Description:
15.15 Linear feet; 0.901 Gigabytes
Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in 4 series: Series 1: Photographic Material, 1968-2003, bulk 1980-2003 (14 linear feet; Box 1-14, 0.901 GB; ER01) Series 2: Scrapbooks, circa 1980s-2003 (0.2 linear feet; Box 19) Series 3: Video and Film Recordings, circa 1980-2003 (1.1 linear feet; Box 15, 16, 18) Series 4: Artifacts, 1988-2008 (0.3 linear feet; Box 14, 17, 19)
Access Note / Rights:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing audiovisual recordings and born-digital records in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Summary:
The Colin de Land collection measures 15.15 linear feet and 0.901 GB and dates from 1968 to 2008, with the bulk of the collection dating from the early 1980s through 2003. The majority of the collection consists of photographic material, primarily snapshots, documenting daily life in and around de Land's gallery American Fine Arts, Co., as well as de Land's pesonal life and affairs. There are candid photographs of exhibition openings, day-to-day gallery operations, art fairs, vacations, social gatherings, and New York City street scenes. Also included are some personal objects belonging to de Land and his wife Pat Hearn, as well as two scrapbooks containing items once decorating the walls of de Land's office at American Fine Arts. The collection includes video recordings documenting trips to Cape Cod, Hearn's illness, and occasional art world events.
Citation:
Colin de Land collection, 1968-2008, bulk 1980-2003, bulk 1980-2003. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
Audiovisual materials (DV mini-cassettes, Super 8 film, and one audio recording) described in Series 3 have been digitized and are available at the Archives of American Art offices.
Use Note:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Related Materials:
The archival gallery records of Colin de Land's art gallery American Fine Arts, Co. as well as the gallery records of the Pat Hearn Gallery are available at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York. The gallery records there also include a fair amount of de Land's personal papers. Bard also acquired de Land's and Hearn's personal library.
Biography Note:
Colin de Land (1955-2003) was a gallery owner whose New York City spaces challenged traditional modes of exhibition and art dealing.
Raised in Union City, New Jersey, de Land came to the art world from an academic background, having studied philosophy and linguistics at New York University. In 1984, de Land opened Vox Populi, a largely unrenovated space in the East Village, at 511 East 6th Street. The gallery showed experimental work by emerging artists, including the enigmatic John Dogg, thought to be a collaboration between de Land and artist Richard Prince.
In 1986, De Land opened his longest standing gallery, American Fine Arts, Co. (AFA), in the same space previously occupied by Vox Populi. The gallery moved to SoHo in 1988, first to 40 Wooster Street then to 22 Wooster Street in 1993. During the late 1990s, as most SoHo galleries moved to Chelsea, AFA remained a mainstay of the downtown arts scene. De Land's wife, Pat Hearn, whom he married in 1999 after over a decade together, was also a well known art dealer. Her gallery, Pat Hearn Art Gallery, also moved from the East Village to SoHo, later becoming one of the first to set down roots in Chelsea.
Known for his eccentric fashion and unorthodox business style, de Land cultivated a culture of experimentation within the AFA community. He typically hired young art students or recent graduates, often nurturing their own artistic careers. Along with a group of Cooper Union graduates, many of whom worked at the gallery, he founded the artist collective Art Club 2000. De Land often showed artists working in hybrid media, for example film and photography or music and installation. He was especially interested in ecological and environmental art, as well as work that took as its subject exhibition practice and the act of creating art. He often staged large thematic group shows. Artists who showed at the gallery included Mark Dion, John Waters, Andrea Fraser, Moyra Davey, Dennis Balk, Peter Fend, Tom Burr, James Welling, Mariko Mori, Dan Graham, Jessica Stockholder, Alex Bag, Christian Philipp Muller, and Jack Pierson.
In 1994, de Land and Hearn, along with gallerists Matthew Marks and Paul Morris, established the Gramercy International Contemporary Art Fair. Fashioned after the tradition of inexpensive hotel art fairs, four galleries were invited to exhibit artwork in rooms of the Gramercy Park Hotel, to be sold in a cash and carry model. The fair became an annual event, branching out to other cities, including Miami and Los Angeles, and growing significantly in size in New York. It later became known as The Armory Show.
De Land often carried a point-and-shoot camera and kept several on hand in the gallery. He documented opening receptions, art world social gatherings, concerts, and day-to-day happenings and invited visitors to the gallery and employees to do the same.
After Hearn's death from liver cancer in 2000, de Land became involved with Kembra Pfahler, the performance artist and leader of the rock band The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. De Land took over Hearn's Chelsea gallery, operating it as a second location of AFA. Following his own struggle with cancer, de Land passed away in 2003. AFA remained open, closing at the end of 2004 with a tribute group exhibition to de Land.
Language Note:
The collection is in English.
Provenance:
The Colin de Land papers were donated to the Archives of American Art in 2008 by Dennis Balk, an artist represented by American Fine Arts, Co. and a close friend of de Land.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Theme:
Art Gallery Records  Search this
Art Market  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)13702
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)279482
AAA_collcode_delacoli
Theme:
Art Gallery Records
Art Market
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_279482