The sign of a good book is usually the discussion it engenders. Perhaps that’s why a highlight of the tenth edition of the New York Art Book Fair, which opens on Friday, 18 September, at MoMA PS1, is the programme of talks organised over the weekend.
The schedule includes keynote addresses by the artists Walead Beshty and Liam Gillick on Saturday evening. Their discussion takes place on the occasion of the new book Ethics, part of the Whitechapel Documents of Contemporary Art series, edited by Beshty and published by MIT Press.
More informal conversations, grouped together under the title The Classroom, will focus on topics like the Black Lives Matter movement and the release of the new publication Adjunct Commuter Weekly. The latter is “a lifestyle magazine devoted to the interests of a growing and increasingly influential demographic”—ie, part-time professors—edited by the artist and writer Dushko Petrovich.
The fair, which is free and open to the public, includes around 370 publishers, artists, institutions and dealers in antique and rare books from 30 countries, including the US. It is organised by Printed Matter, a New York-based non-profit that focuses on artist’s books. Sponsors include American Apparel, the M. Wells restaurant and the online art publication Hyperallergic.