[3] Margaret Silva and Sean Kelley co-founded Grand Arts in 1995 to give artists "a place for radical experimentation, without the constraints of too little time and even less money".
Projects often took years to produce, from concept to realization, and the organization's full-time staff tended to each phase of the process: research, design, fabrication, programming, publicity and beyond.
The book chronicles 30 of Grand Arts' projects — works by figures including Alice Aycock, Alfredo Jaar, Isaac Julien, William Pope.L, Sanford Biggers, Laurel Nakadate, Stanya Kahn, and Tavares Strachan — with archival materials and project documentation presented alongside newly written anecdotes and reflections by artists and other collaborators.
Essays by Pablo Helguera, Iain Kerr, Emily Roysdon, Gean Moreno and Rob Walker consider the models, practices and ethics of art institutions.
A critical study conducted by the research studio RHEI identifies and describes Grand Arts’ unorthodox organizational model.