Closer to Life: Drawings and Works on Paper in the Marieluise Hessel Collection is an exhibition that spans over four decades of collecting by the philanthropist and co-founder of the Center for Curatorial Studies. We were commissioned to design the comprehensive catalogue of 380 pages including works by Cecily Brown, Nicole Eisenman, Rashid Johnson, Arnulf Rainer, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, Germán Venegas and many others.

The hard-back cover shows Kim MacConnel’s Lotus Flower Decoration underneath a layer of gauze, a delicate cotton mesh traditionally used for pasting book spines. The inside is equally image-driven, featuring large-scale reproductions of drawings, collages, prints, artist books, and special editions in alphabetical order. We designed a limited edition folder made of acid-free archival board for 100 copies published in a limited edition, each accompanied by a print of Rosemarie Trockel’s Childless Figure.

The catalogue was edited by Tom Eccles and Amy Zion, and includes essays by Paul Chan, Lynne Cooke, Gabriela Jauregui, Michael Newman and Joan Didion’s 1966 text On Keeping a Notebook.