While combing through the tables and displays set up by artists, book publishers, periodicals, small press bookstores, non profit arts organizations, collectives and presses who participated in the NY Art Book Fair over the weekend, I could not help but recall this past summer's No Soul For Sale festival. Both events succeeded in fostering a feel good environment, while also serving as an inspiring reminder of the number of independent, DIY initiatives out there.
I managed to take some photos yesterday, below. Even if I had camped out in P.S.1 for the entire fair, I would not have been able to see everything. Perhaps the subheader for this post should be "Incomplete Highlights" or "Some Stuff I Saw." As always, if readers want to share information or link to projects I missed, please do so in the comments section.
Artist Amy Prior playing the record from the book/record set Slumber Party she produced with Lucky Dragons at the JUNCTURE booth. Slumber Party is "a book and music about sleep - from dozing to waking. Made during an economic crisis, 'Slumber Party' imagines the ultimate easy escape; it is really only during sleep that nothing can get bought or sold."
Close up of the Slumber Party book.
Two prints from Brett Ian Balogh's A Noospheric Atlas of the United States on view at the free103point9 booth. The work aims to "map the hertzian space created by the United States' mass media broadcast stations."
Artist Gareth Long and friend at work illustrating Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas while seated at the Invented Desk for Copying, a desk/sculpture derived from the unfinished pages of Flaubert's incomplete last novel.
Table for Chicago shop Golden Age.
Golden Age launched Jon Rafman's book "Sixteen Google Street Views" during the fair, pictured above. This book is an adaptation of Rafman's essay for Art Fag City's IMG MGMT series a few months ago.
Los Angeles shop Ooga Booga's wall display.
Artist Peter Sutherland's limited edition photo blanket at the Gottlund Verlag booth, who are a small press located in Kutztown, PA.
Entry to Electronic Arts Intermix's video program "FREE TRADE", installed in P.S.1's basement vault.
"FREE TRADE" was a "program of videos exploring economies of exchange in a globalized world: the circulation of art, ideas, information and capital."
Gordon Matta-Clark's "The Wall" (1976-2007) screening in the vault, one of the videos from EAI's "FREE TRADE" program.
Sign instructing visitors to Werkplaats Typografie's bootlegging workshop in their project room. Werkplaats Typografie is a graphic design masters program in Arnhem, the Netherlands.
Werkplaats Typografie publications on display, available for browsing and copying
Copies in progress at Werkplaats Typografie's space
MODEST PROPOSAL FOR A SERVING LIBRARY by Nick Relph and Oliver Payne at Dexter Sinister's project space on the second floor. The film was screened alongside a display of printed pdfs currently available at Dexter Sinister's Serving Library.
Serving Library pdfs on display in the Dexter Sinister space.
