Where Print is Thriving
From Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” to the “little magazines” of the Harlem Renaissance and Riot grrrl zines, printed pamphlets and books have always been a mode of expression for social justice. Though it is mostly true that “print is dead” these days, there are small pockets in the independent publishing world where print is thriving. Artists’ books, like zines and chapbooks, have been stoking the fires of creativity and activism in New York for decades, and this art form shows no signs of stopping.
In Chelsea, two nonprofit organizations are dedicated solely to the making and selling of artists’ books: Printed Matter and Center for Book Arts. Printed Matter was founded in 1976 and is focused on spreading an appreciation of artists’ books by both selling and publishing them. Center for Book Arts (CBA) was founded in 1974 by Richard Minsky, and functions as an art studio, a classroom, an exhibition space, a library, and a small bookshop all in the same space. Though the two nonprofits share the same neighborhood and similar missions, they aren’t in direct conversation very often. However, plenty of artists have gained an education in artists’ books at Printed Matter while using the studio space to make their own at CBA.
Artists’ books are not books about art or books featuring art. Instead, they are books created and treated as pieces of art in their own right. This broad genre of art can include zines, chapbooks, and magazines.
It’s not uncommon for curious customers to walk into the third floor of the West 27th St. building that CBA occupies and ask: “How does this place work?” As a space that functions as so many things at once, CBA can be hard to wrap one’s head around at first.
At Printed Matter, “there are still people every day that come in [and] don’t know what artists’ books are,” said Craig Mathis, the bookstore and distribution manager at Printed Matter. “Having a home for that type of work is important. People need spaces that they identify with and want to patronize.” Almost as far west as you can get before reaching the Hudson, the store’s entryway holds a poster that reads: “Self-publish to bypass gatekeepers and power structures!”
The books that Printed Matter sells are unlike anything you can find at a Barnes and Noble. Impassioned manifestos, explicit photography projects, and humorous poetry are all designed to look and feel better than any coffee table book you might find at the MoMA. Intricate binding, neon risograph artwork, and thick, porous paper are all design choices that add to the experience of browsing through an artists’ book.
Corina Reynolds, the executive director of CBA, explained that it was the first organization in the city dedicated to artists’ books. Richard Minsky, the founder, was “among a group of artists who had become very interested in the book as an art form through the 60s and early 70s,” she said. “The advice he received was really interesting. It was like, well, why don't you start an art center? Because what you need to do is essentially establish the art form.” One night, as Richard was on his way to CBGB’s to see Patti Smith perform, he saw an empty storefront on Bleecker Street. The next morning, he rented the space and started CBA with the same programming that is still running today.
Printed Matter and CBA have moved locations a few times but are settled in Chelsea now. The businesses have been thriving since the COVID-19 pandemic as young people flock to bookstores again, and artists are finding their way into bookmaking as a way to have more hands-on control over the creative process.
Camila Pernisco, a senior at The New School studying literary studies, saw the pandemic as something which encouraged interest in artists’ books and zines, attributing the new popularity to a “need to hold things after being separated and not being able to touch anything for a while,” she said. “I know this sounds crazy, but it's like when a baby is born and you put it on a mom's chest to generate hormones. It’s a connection that you can't mimic. I think that's similar to paper.”
“We might be returning to physical objects because we're realizing how expansive digital worlds are, and how lost you can get in that,” Camila said. “Also - censorship. If you were to put a very provocative poster on Instagram, maybe you would get taken down or reported. But if you were distributing flyers on your campus or within your community, someone could treasure that. And it would be left somewhere.”
Zines also offer a mode of rebellion, another reason why book arts are gaining popularity.
“It's sort of this alternative publishing, and it has an act of protest and rebellion that inherently spreads with it,” said Nicole Bartnikowski, a photography student at Parsons. “Just looking at the past, especially with queer culture, that's how a lot of people in underground communities were able to obtain knowledge and be educated. Especially now with what's going on in the world, that's becoming an even more important thing to do.”
As concerns around censorship and book banning rise with a new administration in the White House, book arts offer the chance for young people to take matters into their own hands and ensure that their stories and their talents aren’t erased.
Printed Matter’s driving force for community building comes from their popular art book fairs. The nonprofit hosts the world’s largest fairs, with one in New York and one in Los Angeles every year. After Pernisco volunteered at Printed Matter’s New York fair, she started an art book fair for college students called Spitting Image last spring.
“A lot of these fairs aren’t very profitable,” she said. “But I was realizing the value of exhibiting alongside others. I was meeting a lot of publishers and artists that I wouldn’t have met otherwise… It was just so much fun to be making community very actively.”
Gillian Lee, the librarian at CBA, emphasized the importance of community spaces that offer accessible and affordable equipment to artists in New York. Both Printed Matter and CBA are nonprofits, with CBA using funding to offer studio access and classes, and Printed Matter using funding to run their fairs and publish artists’ projects for them.
“[Being a nonprofit] helps keep costs lower for artists who are participating,” Lee explained. “I was really shocked at how big a part of the art book world these fairs are, but they seriously are. Before there’s a fair, the studios at CBA are just packed with people finishing their work.”
The book arts are a necessarily tactile art form, both on the side of the maker and the observer. At an art book fair, this physical relationship between the art and the human is seen in full force. Attendees run their hands along tediously sewn bindings in colorful threads, caressing accordion pages collaged with photographs, writing, and other ephemera.
The people who are involved with Center for Book Arts and Printed Matter are, more often than not, artists themselves. Lee often works on their own projects after finishing their shift at CBA. “I go from staff member to artist,” Lee said. They are currently focused on making risograph-printed notebooks with colorful, hand-designed graph paper inspired by quilts.
“Like many people, Printed Matter was like a part of my education,” said Rachel Valinsky, the director of publications at the Center for Art, Research and Alliances. “The very fact that Printed Matter still exists after all these years is a testament to the importance of an institution like it, which started as an artist-run institution and has always foregrounded questions of social justice in the very fabric of its making.”
Center for Book Arts and Printed Matter are examples of the importance of maintaining spaces that allow for the creation of artist’s books.
“They’re not utopic spaces, but they’re spaces that are for dreaming up forms of thinking otherwise, and also places where that can be realized in action,” Valinsky said. “It’s this really radical bibliographic mission, having so many books that really can’t be found anywhere else.”