A few weeks ago, I threw caution to the wind and went to New York for the NY Art Book Fair at MOMA P.S.1. What a great time! I was gone for only 2.5 days (and spent almost as much time on the bus as I did in New York), but it was a whirlwind of awesome. Much better than my last trip to Manhattan-- a mandatory day trip from Baltimore that equalled 8 hours on the bus and 5 hours in the city...?! Boy, was that frustrating.
We covered a lot of ground in less than two days, spending much of both days at the fair in Queens, staying overnight in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (bed and nightlife delivered by the fabulous Elsner), and hanging out a little bit in Manhattan. As great as the book fair was-- with tons of art publishing houses as well as a zine tent, beer, music and more-- the main attraction for me was a talk by Gee Vaucher (below), the artist behind all the iconic Crass record art. She talked for an hour about her art practice, punk and self publishing. I even worked up the courage to ask a (rather doofusy) question about how punk strategies of communication and resistance (collage, wheatpaste, etc.) have been co-opted by mainstream advertising/capitalist ventures. I was a little starstruck, I admit-- she's an art hero of mine, for sure. For more on Gee's amazing work, click here.
The NY Art Book Fair was a pretty inspiring event. There was lots of overlap between art, music and publishing there (even Malcolm Mooney, the first singer of CAN and an amazing artist in his own right, performed-- I missed it!) which made me feel more at home than I've felt at an art event in a really long time. I even ran into a fellow ziney Torontoite. Here's to blowing off school and travelling! Up the art book punx!
