This July marks the much-anticipated return of the San Francisco Art Book Fair (SFABF) at Minnesota Street Project (the Project) after a two-year pandemic break. Debuting on Thursday, July 14 with a special preview from 6–10pm and continuing Friday, July 15 through Sunday, July 17, all four days of the fair are free and open to the public.
This annual event features a unique selection of artists’s books, art catalogs, monographs, periodicals, zines, printed ephemera, and artists’s multiples presented by over 130 publishers, antiquarian dealers, artists, and galleries from around the world. Launched in 2016 as a joint collaboration between Colpa Press, Minnesota Street Project, and Park Life, SFBAF’s mission is to foster the unique and diverse art publishing community of the Bay Area while providing a platform for national and international publishers to exhibit their work to new audiences.
This year, the fair will feature an outdoor Zine Tent with 38 publishers whose practices are dedicated to accessible and inventive forms of bookmaking. There will also be a variety of talks, discussions, book launches, special projects, and signings curated by David Senior, Chief of Library and Archives at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) over the course of the weekend.
Additional programming includes presentations in the Lounge, screenings and interactive programs in the Media Room, and outdoor activities on Tennessee Street, including an appearance by the art-cart Chispa featuring work by artists from Southeast San Francisco. The Project Room will present an exhibition of ephemera and unseen photography from Jack Smith and the New York City Underground, Andy Warhol and his Cronies, and the Wonderful World of John Waters. The exhibition is organized by SFABF exhibitor Boo-Hooray and includes guest curation by San Francisco’s own Chris Veltri of Groove Merchant Records.
For more information, visit sfartbookfair.com.
