The Bronx Museum’s annual Artists in the Marketplace (AIM) exhibitions is a showcase for young, emerging artists. The 2008 theme was expressed with the song “How Soon is Now?”by the English rock band the Smiths. The song represented the anxiety of the time—the beginning of a recession—as well as the anxiety and shyness of young adults coming of age at that time. The image of the sky was chosen to symbolize hope and the aspirations of art making, but surrounded with astringent, acidic colors to communicate uncertainty and anxiety. The title font, Obsolete, was placed in highlighted bars, “computer style” with reversed colors to further this dialectic between hope and anxiety. The catalogue assumes a magazine format—a first for this event in 28 years—a young and relaxed format that also allows the works to be depicted on a larger scale. The imagery of the cover was repeated in the design of banners for the show that were hung along the Grand Concourse near the museum.
Published by the Bronx Museum, 2008, 48 pages, 26 × 33 cm
