Surveying art that tries to reach beyond itself and the limits of our knowledge and experience, the exhibition “The Quick and the Dead” seeks, in part, to ask what is alive and dead within the legacy of conceptual art. The exhibition reframes notions of conceptual art, immateriality and materiality—and time and space—as a more mysterious and spiritual endeavor. The book’s size, style and materiality allude to arcane forms of knowledge, such as scientific texts and library tomes. Hidden artworks, apparent repetitions, false numberings and other misleading devices are scattered throughout the book, which undermine the book’s formal presentation and embrace the exhibition’s mystical undertones. Completing the “and” in the title of the exhibition, the cover design depicts an hourglass shape, a symbol that literally and figuratively enwraps these motifs.

A perfect marriage of art catalogue and book. In an era when the learning curve of type composition is still steep, elegantly set text partners with succinct representations of the art.