London Art Book Fair 2019
5-8 September 2019
Galleries 1 & 2, Free Entry
#LABF19
Whitechapel Gallery is transformed by over 70 creative and cutting-edge publishers for four days from Thursday 5 September. The London Art Book Fair returns with a vibrant mix of art books, independent titles and magazines from around the world. Exhibitors range from publishing behemoths to independent presses and represent a diverse international cohort from 16 different countries, from Chile to Israel, Korea to the USA.
An expansive public programme of talks, workshops and events includes artists Sir Michael Craig-Martin (b. 1941) and Paul Winstanley (b. 1954) in conversation with Goldsmiths Head of Art Richard Noble; Turner Prize nominated artist Tai Shani (b. 1976) on her new book Our Fatal Magic (2019); a discussion about making historically overlooked female artists more visible with publisher and curator Sarah Shin, publisher Harriet Judd and author Lucy Howarth; and readings from itinerant poetry publishing platform RIVET. The programme is guest-curated by independent writer and curator Amy Budd, Associate Curator of Art Night 2019.
Publishers big and small range from UK independent Art/Books to German art book publisher Kerber Verlag, Mexican artisan publishers La Dïéresis, and Korean press at noon books, to Thames & Hudson and commercial galleries David Zwirner, Sadie Coles HQ and Hauser & Wirth.
Launches at the Fair include newly-founded Eiderdown Books, dedicated solely to producing books about female artists written by leading female artists, and Publishing Manifestoes (MIT Press) featuring artists, authors, editors, publishers and designers exploring publishing as artistic practice.
Magazine specialist’s magCulture will return the magCulture Quarter, a specially curated selection of independent magazines covering topics ranging from art and football to climate change and witchcraft.
This September also sees the presentation of The Richard Schlagman Art Book Awards, celebrating the most exciting art, architecture and design titles published in the last year. Part of an ongoing collaboration between Whitechapel Gallery and the Authors’ Club and named after Richard Schlagman, who transformed Phaidon Press, the Awards build on the legacy of the Art Book Prize and the Banister Fletcher Art and Architecture Book of the Year. On 6 September the Jury – chaired by Richard Schlagman and comprising the former director of the Whitechapel Gallery, Iwona Blazwick; architect Adam Caruso; critic, poet and Authors’ Club member Sue Hubbard; Turner Prize nominee artist Dexter Dalwood; art historian, curator and co-director of the Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art, Maja Fowkes; and design historian and writer, Emily King – name the winning titles.
Notes to Editors
About Amy Budd
Amy Budd is a writer and curator based in London. She is currently Associate Curator of Art Night and co-organiser of the artist-run space Piper Keys, London. Between 2014-2018 she was Exhibitions Organiser and Deputy Director at Raven Row and previously held curatorial roles at Chisenhale Gallery, OUTPOST Gallery, and the ICA. She was shortlisted for the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize in 2019 and has published writing in Art Monthly, frieze, Mousse, Afterall, This is Tomorrow and Kaleidoscope. She is a co-founder and co-editor of the peer-led publication A-or-ist, and co-edited with Dr Amy Tobin and Naomi Pearce the publication ’14 Radnor Terrace: A Woman’s Place’ for the exhibition 56 Artillery Lane at Raven Row in 2017.
About Whitechapel Gallery
For over a century the Whitechapel Gallery has premiered world class artists from modern masters such as Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Frida Kahlo to contemporaries such as Sophie Calle, Lucian Freud, Gilbert & George and Mark Wallinger. With beautiful galleries, exhibitions, artist commissions, collection displays, historic archives, education resources, inspiring art courses, dining room and bookshop, the Gallery is open all year round, so there is always something free to see. It is a touchstone for contemporary art internationally, plays a central role in London’s cultural landscape and is pivotal to the continued growth of the world’s most vibrant contemporary art quarter.
Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm; Thursdays, 11am – 9pm
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Whitechapel Gallery Press Information
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