NY Art Book Fair 2017 (photo by Jesse Winter)
This weekend, Printed Matter’s 13th annual NY Art Book Fair (NYABF) returns to MoMA PS1. The highly anticipated event opens to the public on Friday, September 21, lasting through the weekend, with a preview on Thursday night. The event is free and open to the public, hosting 365 exhibitors from all over the world, with 73 first-time exhibitors to the fair, including Kurimanzutto Libros of Mexico, The Eriskay Connection of the Netherlands, Kaph Books of Lebanon, and more.
Throughout the weekend, there will be a number of events, programs, performances, panels, and exhibitions. If you’re having trouble choosing what to attend, read some of our editors’ picks below.
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On Friday, September 21, from 2–3 pm, Kandis Williams and Taylor Doran of CASSANDRA Press will lead a discussion titled Faucets, in which they cover topics such as access to education and arts institutions and the school-to-prison-pipeline. They will open a dialogue on issues of access and power, particularly as these issues apply to low income and incarcerated individuals. This is sure to be an eye-opening and important panel.
NY Art Book Fair 2017 (photo by Jesse Winter)
On Saturday, September 22, be sure to attend Sentiments: Expressions of Cultural Passage from 2–3 pm. This panel, with the team at Press Press, will cover the sensitivities and actions that immigrants and “immigrant-adjacent” people have used to preserve their well-being, their families, and their communities. The panel will include first-person documentation and an effort to complicate the oversimplified immigrant narrative. And finally, panelists will discuss the ways in which immigrant experiences inform our understanding of white supremacy in society — no doubt an important discussion given the current political climate.
NY Art Book Fair 2017 (photo by Jesse Winter)
Also on Saturday, as part of the Contemporary Artists’ Books Conference (CABC), is the panel Queer Publishing as Community Practice, featuring Nicole Killian, Be Oakley, and Gabriel Ramirez discussing “queer publishing as an intersectional and community-based practice.” The panelists will discuss the ways in which queer publishing can bring a platform to queer, non-binary, and POC voices, allowing for collaboration both in print and beyond, with events like meet-ups for queer-identified skateboarders.
Another program worth checking out is Welcome, A Space, presented by 3 Dot Zine. Welcome, A Space is an interactive reading room with an installation of the Free Black Women’s Library, “an interactive Black Feminist mobile trading library and interactive biblio installation” featuring 1,000 books written by Black women. A number of zines will be on display and available for reading.
NY Art Book Fair 2017 (photo by Jesse Winter)
And on Sunday, one event to attend is The Color Curtain Project. New York- and DC-based scholars founded The Color Curtain Project to honor the 29 Asian and African countries that gathered in April 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia in order to denounce racism, colonialism, and nuclear war. The Project consists of a series of dinner parties and art book presentations with people of African- and Asian-American identities meeting to discuss politics and social justice as it relates to the Afro-Asian-American experience. This event on Sunday from 12–1 pm will bring together three co-creators of The Color Curtain Project: founder of Passenger Pigeon Press Tammy Nguyen, DC entrepreneur Seda Nak, and nuclear policy analyst Lovely Umayam. The three will be discussing their experiences, the Bandung Conference, and the idea of using that conference as a way to forge new connections and launch new conversations.
The preview begins at 6:00 pm on Thursday, and tickets can be purchased here. Friday through Sunday, however, is free and unticketed.
When: Preview on Thursday, September 20, 6–9 pm; Friday, September 21, 1–7 pm; Saturday, September 22, 11 am–9 pm; Sunday, September 23, 11 am–7 pm
Where: The Museum of Modern Art PS1, 22–25 Jackson Avenue on 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens
