The annual wall of people flocking back to the NYABF on Friday
I wasn’t exactly holding onto my cash for dear life this year, as I have in past New York Art Book Fairs. I’ve been to enough book fairs and had to move enough times: no more 20 pound monographs for shows I’ve never seen, no more zines of doodles that didn’t make the artist website. From here on out, I’m not taking so much as a business card.
I think the book fair is consolidating, too, because it feels like there’s less crap this year, and the crap is at least not disguised as a book. With over 370 booksellers/antiquarians/artists/galleries/indy publishers, I’m probably projecting, but I swear there are fewer piles of overdesigned charts on newsprint and more T-shirts with doodles. Yay. This year I saw plenty of books which, if not for my apartment, I’d very much like to see added to my local art library, my friends’ bathrooms, communal workspaces, and my dream mansion of the future. With bleeding eyes, here’s that selection:
The Portland Museum of Modern Art has an original Dynasty Handbag drawing, “Internal Dialogue Drawing.” Being a Handbag superfan I’m predisposed to appreciate even some crazy ass pictogram on construction paper. I think this says: “Hey guys, have you every had someone [saw] your <3 out of your [chest] and put it in a [blender] and turn it on, wait but first they [shit in the blender] then they turn it on and it makes a liquid which they mix with poison…” $150
Leon Muñoz– who was described as a politician-turned-artist– walked around the streets of Mexico seeking somebody shoot his artist book. This proved more difficult than he’d anticipated because the general public is not allowed to have a gun. He even went to shooting ranges and finally resorted to asking a general, who said he didn’t understand artists but bring the book. It’s titled “Why did you shoot me?”; every page reads “why”? At Fundación Alumnos47, $50.
The folks at Land and Sea produce books for “artists who wouldn’t usually have an outlet,” and this is a great example. These are storyboard sketches of films by Paul Clipson, an artist who’s been the head projectionist at MoCA for years and drew a multitude of film stills to signal to other projectionists when it was time to change the reels. After doing them for years, the collection grew to be very precious to Clipson, and you can tell; he uses far more shadowing and emotional detail than is necessary for these purposes. And he signs them with an artistic flourish. $30
I would like to be draped with this material and wallpaper my room with these Simpsons art cartoons. T’s are $30 at Vacancy.
More from Vacancy: Homer Simpson as a dick, in a hot dog bun, at “The Artist is Present”, in a thong and bra…you name the occasion, they’ll dick it.
One of a zillion artist-on-artist interview books and artist B sides at the fair (the kind of material that’s just for superfans) but this is kind of interesting: Campbell and Pettibon were in prison together years ago, Pettibone for copyright infringement and Campbell for counterfeiting. The book is a transcript of a joint interview. $35 at Classic.
Yale University Press and MIT- no time! See you at Barnes & Noble
Okay, so here’s one artist inventory book I’m willing to go for. It may seem overkill after the “Martha Wilson Sourcebook” was practically the guest of honor at the 2011 fair, but the book also includes a 30 year record of events at Franklin Furnace, which is basically a phone book of New York performance art history. $25 at Franklin Furnace.
This is so cool. In ’94, the Guerrilla Girls made a single run of newspapers with their signature stats about…you know. They pulled their single box of original prints from the archives, AND THEY’RE SELLING THEM FOR TEN BUCKS. “The girls don’t believe in creating precious expensive items,” the woman running the booth said.
This, by the way, is located in the social justice wing on the first floor. Other exhibitors include the activist artist’s collective Justseeds and Black Lives Matter.
Also how cool is it that Visual Aids made a bin of condoms with gay baseball cards? You can collect bears, embroidery leather dudes, Playgirl hunks, and they’re FREE.
Hal Fischer’s classic 1978 compilation of pre-gay lib gay iconography and their meanings: earrings, bandanas, leather, dangling keys (?) Not only an amazing selection of secret codes, (remember when earring sides were a thing?) but an indispensable visual history. Cherry and Martin, $25
These are so great, I’m including more photos for posterity.
…more Hal Fischer…
…last one!
Paper Monument made posters of Ben Davis’s 9.5 Theses on Art and Class: the manifesto of our time. Free.
This is hilarious. According to the salesman, Constant Dullaart has tasked his MFA class at Werkplaats Typografie with creating an IRL webstore; you read about the products (books, files, websites) in blown-up wall text with customer “reviews”. About an untitled digital audio file, “EB” writes: “okay. why has no one found this before? i guess there must be loads of other stuff floating around that never got put out. anyway, it’s good.” Underneath reviews are “suggested items” (other things in the store).
If you ask for a “preview,” one of the sales team runs into a closet with the object (I chose book) and flips through it really quickly for you (no touching). I don’t particularly want any of the merchandise, but the experience is gold.
They’re also distributing cookies.
The one item I thought long and hard about buying. On this spoken record, artist/musician Jack Early weaves scenes from growing up in the 1960s South to Times Square to Greenpoint to the rhythm of a background trumpet, a banjo and a bass, a clarinet, some drums and a pump organ. He can tell a story to beat the greatest comedians and memoirists of our generation. Ask Printed Matter to pull it out. $30
Last but not least, the zine tent. Along with lots of artist books by their friends, Baltimore’s Open Space is making an effort to distribute Baltimore-based criticism. This book, a public conversation on the need for less New York-centric criticism with Baltimore stalwart gallery/curatorial project Nudashank goes for $10, but they’re also giving out a free compilation of reviews of Baltimore shows. In our travels at AFC, we’ve heard no end of complaints about New York centrism, so it’s nice to see writing about other cities printed, memorialized and distributed.
A delightful ending to a fruitful afternoon, Michael Wynn provides vignettes of masturbation-related memories, each paired with an image culled from a 1970s deck of gay porn playing cards. Wynn dedicates the book to his cousins, he tells me, “because they taught me how to masturbate”– a beautiful family bond to last a lifetime. $10 in the zine tent.
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