Copyright 2017 Douglas Stockdale & Gerhard Clausing
Our report (Gerhard Clausing, Contributing Editor, and myself) from last Saturday’s LA Art Book Fair 2017. As in the past this Fair can be overwhelming and it is truly difficult to see the entire Fair in one day, least to have emphasis on just the photographic books. It was also a great opportunity to catch up with photographers, publishers and designers and discuss their recent publications. It does not help that the Fair guide book I purchased subsequently went missing. Sigh.
Noted this year that the upper mezzanine where the photographic book focus is usually located was enlarged this year, but still not enough room for everyone, such that Nazraeli Press and a few others were still on the ground floor catacombs. I think that there are some larger traditional photobook publishers, such as MACK, that were present this year in part due to the demise of the Paris Photo LA fair, thus making the LA Art Book Fair more of the go-to for photographic book Fairs on the West coast. As a result, there was a larger and diverse group of photobook publishers and photographic groups present, such as the Russian Independent Selfpublished, AROK (Lithuania) and a larger contingent of publishers from Switzerland to name only a few.
One of the benefits of attending this Fair is looking at the broad and diverse publications and other types of art, no matter how extreme, as it provides ideas of where the pulse of published art is evolving.
Needless to say, the exhibit space was jam packed and by noon so were all of the aisles. Fortunately Gerhard & I arrived early. Slow Culture and the Deadbeat Club hosted the Fotomat for the film lovers and the food trucks met the immediate needs of the foodies.
Below is our photojournalist report of the photobook exhibit spaces where we spent some quality time at (which usually meant we acquired some photobooks!).
Cheers!
Esther Levine with Winfried Heininger of Kodoji Press
Tricia Gabriel & Mike Slack of the Ice Plant
Danielle Mericle of A –Jump Books
Russian Independent Selfpublished: Natalia Baluta, Elena Kholkina, Alla Mirovskaya
Andrew Miksys of Arok Books
Clint Woodside (Photobook: Undercover Cars) of Deadbeat Club
Editions Patrick Frey featuring Klaus Pichler’s photobook
CPress
PhotoBook Journal 