PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Drawn from over two decades of interviews with 18 leading artists of the 21st century, Artists & the Unknown: Art21 Interviews with Artists captures engaging, inspiring, and stimulating conversations that explore encounters with the unknown.

For the book's design language, we thought of the intense, Yves Klein-like blue that you see when a video projector has lost its signal, a kind of void where, as artist Ryan Gander says, “nothing exists but immeasurable possibilities.” A specially mixed “no signal” blue was employed as a fifth colour throughout: silkscreened with white on the black uncoated jacket, on the contrasting book block 4pp cover, and across the book's pages.

With image material consisting solely of 16:9 video stills from Art21's beautifully shot films, we gave equal prominence to the images and the artists' voices present in the texts. The book's grid is therefore determined by three rows of full-bleed 16:9 ratio video stills, six-up on a spread, with the interview texts weaving in and out in myriad configurations. The exposed spine binding lays completely flat, in full respect of the cinematographers' compositions with zero cropping.

Numerous 16:9 blocks are divided into quadrants, to introduce further filmic sequencing opportunities, as places to display artistic processes and actions. Every still in the book is gloss varnished, to contrast with the tactile matt volume paper stock, as a reference to the accessible experience of Art21 film viewers, typically watching on a glossy phone or laptop screen.

BOOK INFORMATION

Trim Size: 6.75 × 9.5 in.

Number of Pages: 200

Binding Method: Smyth-sewn exposed spine

Paper: YDYS Zhu 350gsm, YDYS Zhu 150 gsm, Sappi Magno Volume 135gsm

Typefaces: ABC ROM (Seb McLauchlan, Dinamo, 2023)

CREDIT INFORMATION

Creative Director:

Art Director:

Book Designer: James Goggin and Shan James

Jacket/Cover Designer: James Goggin and Shan James

Illustrator:

Photographer:

Picture Editor:

Production Director:

Production Coordinator:

Production Artist:

Other Credits: Brian Sholis, Robert Sandler – Copy Editors; Index Busters – Index; Pristone – Lithography

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