THOMAS EVANS | DATE 11/8/2010

The New York Art Book Fair, November 5-7, 2010

This past weekend art lovers, book lovers and publishers from all over the world flocked to New York to celebrate the book as made object, from photocopied zine to sleek monograph. The ARTBOOK booth, a walk-in rendering of our Collage & Photomontage Curated Library, was designed by artist Michael Assiff. (For more on Michael Assiff, please continue to end of post.)

Printed Matter’s first New York Artist’s Book Fair was launched in 2006 and its success immediately established that a devoted audience had been waiting for such an occasion. Since then the fair has become a much-anticipated staple of the season in the city’s arts calendar. Last year the fair was held at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, Queens, a venue that proved especially hospitable to the fair’s atmosphere of invitation, with its many rooms, corridors and nooks.

The fair was held there again this year, opening on Thursday night, November 4, and lasting until Sunday evening, November 7. Free and open to the public, the fair was attended by more than 400 international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and publishers and more than 15,000 visitors. The ARTBOOK booth was packed from morning til night with artbook lovers and colleagues from the publishing field.

A selection of books for sale at the fair.

Assiff's booth design included tromp l'oeil renderings of the covers of each of the featured books from the Collage & Photomontage Curated Library page. Yvonne Puffer and Sean Ellwood study the covers and their doubles.

Assiff's renderings were photographed by hundreds of visitors to our booth. Pictured here is Ellsworth Kelly: Thumbing Through the Folder.

A quotation from the sidebar.

ABOVE: The cover of Hans-Peter Feldmann: Another Book.
BELOW: The cover of Linder: Works 1976-2006.

Brooklyn-based MICHAEL ASSIFF has shown his work at Mountain Fold Gallery, Lift Trucks Projects, X-Initiative and Tompkins Projects in New York, and at Donna Gordon Gallery and Local 662 in St. Petersburg, Florida. He also collaborates with artist Allie Pisarro-Grant under the name MGAPG. Assiff graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008.