The New York Art Book Fair could also be overcrowded and visually overwhelming, however I’ve missed it. Where else can a blue-chip artwork gallery, an antiquarian bookseller and a 22-year-old zinester share house for a sweaty weekend?
For this yr’s iteration, the truthful’s first IRL-undertaking in New York since 2019, organizer Printed Matter has taken the truthful out of MoMA PS1 and returned to the location of its first occasion, which passed off all the best way again in 2006: 548 West twenty second avenue in Chelsea.
Quite a bit has modified within the intervening 16 years, however artist Noah Lyon has had a sales space at each truthful.
“At the very beginning it was kind of for art book collectors – a pretty small, nerdy collector population,” he informed me from his station on the 4th ground, the place he was promoting his signature buttons together with a brand new zine known as Weirdos. “16 years later, zine culture’s huge, and I think the fair contributed to that a lot,” he added.
Indeed, the ocean of umbrellas that I used to be greeted with upon arrival pointed to nothing however a wholesome artwork e book economic system. Somehow, I used to be in a position to skirt the lengthy line and finagle my manner in by means of the exhibitor door and into drier situations. Then I used to be bombarded with the same old aesthetic overload: books, zines, shirts and posters from each nook of the art-and-countercultural world.