Huge THANK YOU to the hundreds of artists, 75 exhibitors, 37 participants, and over 3500 friends who made it out to the first annual Toronto Art Book Fair!
8Eleven - Akin Collective - Alicia's Klassic Kool Shoppe - Anchorless Press - Archie Mag - B&D Press - Badlands Unlimited - Bambolinaba - BlackFlash - Booger Brie - C Magazine - Cabinet Magazine - Canadian Academy in Rome - Canadian Art Magazine - Carbon Paper - Colour Code - CRIT Paper - DNA Artspace - Double Dot Magazine - Draw Down Books - Dunlop Art Gallery - Ediciones Daga - Eli Howey - Endless Editions - fangrrlz - Femme Crimes Distro - Fillip - Food Court - Frontier - GuyGuyGuy - Halifax Ink - Hesse Press - Hex Editions - Impulse (b:) - Issue Press - Jackie Lee Art - Jonathan Rotsztain - Justseeds Artists' Cooperative - Kendra Yee - Koffler Centre of the Arts - Lido Pimienta - Louise Reimer Illustrations - Makuktu Art Project - Massive Goods - Matthew Scott Gualco - Maxwell Galley - Metatron - Mother Books - Micah Lexier - Musterni - New Documents - Nothing Else Press - Open Sesame - Or Gallery and Bookstore - Paul and Wendy Projects - Perish Publishing - Possible Worlds/ Spins and Needles - Prefix Photo Magazine - Project Space/VABF - Ray Ray - Sab Meynert - Sagan Editions - Sarahaha - School of Image Arts - Ryerson - Scrapbooks - Sergej Vutuc - Slow Editions - Soon.tw - Space Face Books - Studio-Set (Exhibiting with VABF) - Swimmers Group - Tallulah Fontaine - Tetyana Herych - Technologie und das Unheimliche - TXTbooks - TYPOLOGY - Vice Versa Press - Wayward Arts - YYZ Artists' Outlet
TOABF 2016 EXHIBITIONS, PROGRAMMING, AND WORKSHOPS
GROW YOUR HAIR LONG AND SEND OUT THE VIBES
Nathaniel Russell
Artist showcase in partnership with Art Metropole
Nathaniel Russell, born and raised in Indiana, creates false histories through drawings, fake fliers, bad sculptures, wood shapes, and music. Russell’s work is regularly shown around the world in both traditional galleries and informal spaces, usually surrounded by an expanding list of friends, collaborators, and like-minded folk. He frequently returns to his second home of California to work with friends on projects as varied as murals, print workshops, and backyard musical performances.
Art Metropole is a not-for-profit organisation with a focus on the production, dissemination and contextualisation of artist-initiated publication in any media, especially those formats and practices predisposed to sharing and circulation. Art Metropole was founded in 1974 by the artists' collective General Idea as an artist-run centre. Art Metropole is a not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the laws of the province of Ontario and a registered charitable organization.
IN SITU
Curated by Gemma Warren (Toronto)
In Situ is a pop up exhibition, a living room, a reading shelf for you, your friends, and everyone in between. Narrated by the works of Toronto-based artists, designers and publishers In Situ will navigate you through its free standing space examining a dynamic range of works by Toronto-based makers of all kinds. Domestically staged, the space will examine the relationship of contemporary art, printed matter and design, whilst engaging familiar settings and a comfortable space for you to kick back, relax, and take off your shoes.
Gemma Warren is a British-born photographer, curator and artist living & working in Toronto where she graduated from the BFA program in Photography at Ryerson University School of Image Arts. Gemma has worked previously for Sid Lee, The Danish Design and Architecture Initiative and is the Co-Founder & Creative Director of Toronto's visual arts and culture publication, Carbon Paper.
FEATURED ARTISTS : VSVSVS, Marina Kamalova, Virgil Baruchel, Sean Stewart, Eunice Luk, Liam Crockard, Lili Huston-Herterich, Nadia Gohar, Benjamin Freedman, JMS Press, Seth Fluker, Miles Gertler, & Jackson Parrell.
PUBLISHING | FORM | EXPERIMENTATION
Curated by Collectif Blanc (Montréal)
"You don’t just read it: you hear it, you hang it, feel it, fly it, sniff it, taste it, fold it, wear it, shake it even project it on your living room wall." – Phyllis Johnson, Aspen Magazine
A red and gold miniature book slipped inside Chinese pack of cigarettes (Thomas Sauvin/Jiazazhi). An encyclopaedic book made of loose photographs and type-written texts gathered in a box, documenting human altered flora and fauna (Robert Zhao Renhui). Critical texts on giant screen-printed posters (kunst une Kritik). A literary classic divided into 100 booklets designed by the same number of artists (Harpune Verlag). An exhibition catalog about cartographer-artists incorporating a geographical map of their works (Work in Progress). The Bible, reinterpreted with interventions and image insertions emphasizing its violent connotation (Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin / Archive of Modern Conflict).
Common to these avant-garde manifestations of the book is a unique attention to both form and content, and how they inspire one another. The content, be it conceptual, visual, graphic, literary or editorial, takes on a new meaning as it encounters various paper textures, colours and shapes, experimental printing
techniques and handmade bindings. This is the very essence of the experimental book.
The experimental book, which includes the artist's book and book arts, has roots in older art movements such as Dadaism, Fluxus, Conceptual Art and Arts & Crafts, but it is not longer today evolving in isolation. It is now flourishing within the open circles of contemporary art, graphic design, independent publishing and literature, and with the new access to digital tools for production, promotion and distribution.
Publishing | Form |Experimentation introduces forward-thinking publications created within the past 5 years by 60 Canadian and international publishers, designers and artists. The exhibition hopes to underline the importance of the material, experiential and aesthetic qualities of the printed book, a subject more current than ever despite lamentations of its mortality.
Collectif Blanc (Catherine Métayer and Marie-Ève Tourigny) is a curatorial platform exploring the new territories of print publishing. The platform curates thematic exhibitions of local and foreign content, produces book projects and consignments and publishes a daily blog. Through its initiatives, Collectif Blanc hopes to spark discovery and bring new audiences, publishers, designers, artists, librarians and printmakers of professional and amateur background closer together.
PARTICIPANTS: Albanese Grafik & frau Diethelm, Archive of Modern Conflict, Laura Asmus, Jeremy August Haik, Simon Bertrand, Irma Boom, Jessi Brattengeier, Erich Brechbühl, Contre-mur, Shezad Dawood, Diorama Magazine, Nicoló Degiorgis & Walter Hutton, Éditions B42, Aurélien Farina, Feed, Foreign, Policy Design Group, David Gan, Raül Garcia Gili, Harpune Verlag, Karl Holmqvist, Hubert & Fisher, Imprimerie du Marais, Pascaline Jessica Knight, Jiazazhi Press, Jin & Park, Sophie Jodoin, KALEID Editions, Mats Kubiak, Yanik Hauschild, Mona Matejic & Hendrike Nagel, La chose imprimée, Lecturis, Marcus Manilius & Fanette Mellier, Karel Martens, Monument, MOTTO Publications, Kristen Mueller, Christof Nüssli & Christoph Oeschger, OK-RM, Aurelie Painnece, Marc-Antoine K. Phaneuf et Jean-François Proulx, Walid Raad, Ridinghouse, Pier-Philippe Rioux, Julie Picard, Possibles Éditions, Anne-Marie Proulx, Thomas Sauvin, Chloe Scheffe, Rachel Skimover, Sternberg Press, Studio Fludd, The (M) éditions & Gil Rigoulet & Les Graphiquants, Étienne Tremblay-Tardif, Uncanny Editions, Jim Verburg, Voyage Collective, Sam Winston, Work in Progress, and Robert Zhao Renhui.
Publishing | Form | Experimentation (documentation)
Image Courtesy of Collectif Blanc.
IN SITU (documentation)
SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE
Curated by Leah Taylor (Saskatoon)
Somewhere in the Middle is comprised of work from five Saskatchewan based multidisciplinary artists. A prairie province situated in the middle of Canada, Saskatchewan is notoriously referred to as the “middle” province. A trope that suggests it can be easily passed over, or may suffer an inferiority complex, such as that attributed to the middle child. This exhibition problematizes this notion of the “middle” by revealing the important artistic, cultural production currently taking place in Saskatchewan. These Artists address locality through a lens that unpacks larger political, environmental, social, and theoretical concerns. Each of the Artists has lived and produced work in other centers, yet they return to the prairies, bringing with them critical inquiry and insight, therefore enriching the contemporary art dialogue of Saskatchewan. Though a seemingly disparate range of works, the underlying common thread is their rigorous production of small books, zines, ephemera and photographs.
Leah Taylor is an active freelance writer and the Associate curator of the Kenderdine Art Gallery and College Building Galleries on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Art at the University of Saskatchewan and her MA in Art History at the University of Victoria. Taylor has curated a diverse roster of exhibitions from a repository of documents and ephemera from the family archive of Augustus Kenderdine to the photographic series Dunland’s Restaurant by Frank Pimentel.
FEATURED ARTISTS: Amalie Atkins, Joi Arcand, Troy Gronsdahl, Ellen Moffat, and Kara Uzelman.
Joi Arcand, The Beautiful NDN Supermaidens, 2014
Brynn Higgins-Stirrup, AB, 2015
WORKING TITLE
Pop-Up Exhibition
Presented by TYPOLOGY (Toronto)
Our exhibition, Working Title, will feature a wide variety of unique and editioned artists’ books, publications, and multiples by local and international artists who have participated in our program over the past three years. The works will be accompanied by images representing the artists’ current or main practices including sculpture, installation, video, photography, and more, as well as extended labels that discuss how and why these artists engage the book format as a sideline to, or more integral aspect of, their artistic practice.
FEATURED ARTISTS:Lyla Rye, Leif Low-Beer, Manuel Saiz, Cathryn Miller, Janine Miedzik, Josée Pedneault, Brynn Higgins-Stirrup, Maria Flawia Litwin, Nicolas Fleming, Faye Mullen, Susana Reisman, Emily Cook and Christopher Manson
Dave Dyment: Artists' Books, Better Than Exhibitions
LECTURE
Friday June 17 | 6pm - 7pm
In partnership with NOTHING ELSE PRESS
Points of Departure: Vera Frenkel Words & Works
BOOK LAUNCH | SIGNING
Saturday June 18 | 3pm - 5pm
In partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art_Toronto_Canada
Hosted by Jonathan Shaughnessy and David Liss
Heiko Julien: I Am Ready To Die A Violent Death
TALK | BOOK READING
Saturday June 18 | 6pm - 7pm
In Partnership with 8Eleven
Hosted by Daniel Joyce
Independent Publishing in the Contemporary Art World
PANEL DISCUSSION
Sunday, June 19 | 12pm - 2:30pm
Key Note Speaker: Jim Shedden, Manager of Publications and Special Projects at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Featured Speakers: Tracy Stefanucci, Director/ Founder of the Vancouver Art Book Fair; Joi Arcand, Founder of Kimiwan 'Zine; JP King, Founder of Paper Pusher and Co-founder of Papirmass
Moderator: Scott Miller Berry, Managing Director of Workman Arts
Coordinated by: Robyn Lew
Anne Elizabeth Moore: Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, & Trafficking
LECTURE
Sunday June 19 | 3pm - 5pm
In partnership with Open Sesame
Hosted by Lauren Weinberg
STICKY ZIPE | STICKER PARTY
Hosted by ZIPE Campers & Paddy Leung
Thursday June 16 | 6pm - 9pm
Free Event
C MAGAZINE ART WRITERS WORKSHOP: THE CRITIC AND THE ARTIST'S BOOK
Hosted by Amish Morrell and Alison Cooley
Friday June 17 | 1pm - 5pm
Art Writing for Emerging Arts Professionals | 1:00pm - 2:30pm
Live Art Criticism Workshop | 3:00pm – 5:00pm
ZIPE CAMP ZINE FAIR
Hosted by Paperhouse Outreach Collective and SKETCH
Saturday June 18 | 11am - 6pm
BOOK ARTS WORKSHOP
Hosted by TYPOLOGY PROJECTS and Gallery 44
Sponsored by Japanese Paper Place
Saturday June 18 | 1pm - 4pm
TOABF TOURS
GEMMA WARREN - June 17 | 11am
COLLECTIF BLANC - June 18 | 11am
LEAH TAYLOR - June 19 | 11am
TOABF FOUNDERS: MAXINE PROCTOR AND KARIE LIAO - June 18 and 19 | 1pm
