The New York gallery American Fine Arts, Co.—whose name today is largely synonymous with that of its gallerist, Colin de Land (1955–2003)—represents a gallery practice in which a decided deviation from conventional models overlaps with successful activities within the framework of the art market. Today, American Fine Arts, Co. and de Land figure as uncontested projection screens for the desire for independence from or bohemian resistance against the dictate of the market.

Texts by Andrea Fraser, Manfred Hermes, Karl Holmqvist & Tobias Kaspar, Isla Leaver-Yap, Jackie McAllister, James Meyer & Christian Philipp Müller, Magnus Schäfer, Axel John Wieder, Phillip Zach; conversation between Colin de Land, Josef Strau, and Stephan Dillemuth; introduction by Hannes Loichinger and Magnus Schäfer.

Including Jay Chung, Claire Fontaine, Josef Strau, Alain Guiraudie, Bernadette Van-Huy, Helmut Draxler, Henrik Olesen by Thomas Duncan, Heji Shin by Benoît Lamy de la Chapelle, Marcel Proust by Yves-Noël Genod, Merlin Carpenter by Annie Ochmanek, Josephine Graf, Helmut Draxler, Megan Francis Sullivan and Nick Mauss, Dylan Byron and Isabelle Graw, Benjamin Lignel and Anne Dressen, Clément Rodzielski.

This publication assembles a selection of texts produced between the years 2005 and 2020, starting with The Non- Productive Attitude (2005), his prominent reflections on the anti-productive attitude in the Cologne art scene of the time. The experience of having to write the essay overnight within a few hours, and without any time for revision, triggered his interest in exploring forms of unintentional writing, and consequently the replacement of the intentional author by an unconscious writer / producer. This mode of automatic writing has manifested itself until today, and has become the core of Strau’s artistic practice.

Xeroxed artist book by Josef Strau published on the occasion of the exhibition Teil I: Müllberg at Galerie Buchholz, Köln. The brochure contains the second part of a narrative written by the artist under the title Dear Little Tiger. The first part White Nights was published in 2003 by Pork Salad Press / Jacob Fabricius, Copenhagen.

Produced on the occasion of Josef Strau’s exhibition at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf, 3 September–22 November, 2020, the first comprehensive institutional solo exhibition by Strau in Germany.

The exhibition brought together objects and text production made between 1991 and 2020 as an attempt to create an autobiographical depot, as if these objects were simply the result of time or of durations of psychological states, such as fear and anxiety, and sometimes also of desire. Strau’s complex, nested retrospective vessel contains, in addition to everyday stories, a random selection of objects representing, among other things, tigers, temples, tears, fences, children’s letters, angels, icons, and cured turtles. The most recent work is a spider clock, The 13 Hour Cymbal Spiderclock that exhales the Dreams, which announces a new time beyond the usual twelve hours.

Produced on the occasion of the exhibition The IMAGE in Singular at Amer Gallery, Vienna, 27 October–28 November, 1987. Including the artists; Fareed Armaly, Alan Belcher, Larry Johnson, David Robbins, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Wolfgang Schrom, Josef Strau and Heimo Zobernig.