About Time explores Charles Atlas’s groundbreaking work at the intersections of moving image, dance, and performance. It accompanies a survey of his 50-year practice at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, which features immersive installations composed as ‘exploded views’ of moving-image works produced by Atlas since the 1970s. Together, they tell an evolving story of the artist and his expansive community of collaborators, from Yvonne Rainer to Merce Cunningham.
The book’s design takes inspiration from Atlas’s working approach, presenting still images in a non-linear format and without annotations. This photographic collage is punctuated by essays and responses from artists including Nicole Eisenman, Martine Syms and Ryan Trecartin. Grayscale images within the texts are set in justified blocks, evoking the impression of stacked monitors. The cover is flush cut, exposing black boards beneath, with screen-printed text and asymmetrically placed imagery that wrap around the cover and endpapers. The book is set in TWK Everett, a sans-serif typeface with distinctive angular apexes, chosen to reflect the dynamic visuality of Atlas’s work.
Read more about the exhibition and Atlas’ work in The New York Times.
Photography: Ed Park
