How is a book made?
Beyond the choosing and writing of words, what are the choices made and put into practice when creating a physical object that is a book? The art of cover design, font, printing, binding, creating a spine, putting it all together— these are as much a part of the art of a book as the writing of its contents. Furthermore, what is a book? If it is a series of words written on paper, is a magazine a book? Is a menu a book? Is a milk carton?
These are all questions attempting to be answered at the studios of the Center for Book Arts, sitting in an assuming building in the middle of the Flatiron district.
The Center for Book Arts was founded in 1974 and claims to be the oldest nonprofit “dedicated to uplifting and furthering the book arts and book art through education, preservation, exhibition, art making and community building”. They house studio spaces, educational events happening throughout the year, and two exhibition spaces which were the main target of my recent visit.
The first exhibition space is on one wall of one of their printmaking studios— a room crammed in with machines and tools for printing made of dark wood and seemingly many years of history. There was at least one full-sized historic printing press with a big wrought-iron handle and drawers upon drawers of letter stamps in every typeface imaginable.
The exhibition on display in this space is Been Magic * Been Real by Helina Metaferia, which centers on an artists book made in the style of traditional Ethiopian “magic” talisman scrolls and focused on centering “the often overlooked labor of BIPOC[Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color] femmes in social justic histories”. It features a series of collages of BIPOC women and a set of instructions (“Take a deep breath. Get ready to be uncomfortable. Have a moment of reckoning.”) which are also being read aloud over a recording played on a speaker nearby.
In a hallway between the studios and the exhibition spaces there were also two display cases featuring works that studio members had recently completed. While not part of larger exhibitions themselves, it was very cool to see the breadth of work that artists at the Center for Book Arts are working on at any given time.
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The main exhibition space currently displays a piece called Rules of the Game, presented by Melissa Brown. It is a documentation of a performance piece in which a group of artists were invited to the Center for Book Arts for a poker night in which every artist was asked to bring a piece of their own art to wager.
Currently on display are each piece of art wagered, which will be given out accordingly to the victor(s) of the night at the end of the exhibition. Here are some of my favorites.
The documentation of the performance was present in the poker table in the center of the room, cards and chips and large sheets denoting the players and winners of each round preserved under a pane of glass. It also featured booklets of pictures taken over the night of the artists gathering for a game of high-stakes cards.
After seeing the exhbitions I was invited to take some time looking at the studio spaces, and I shyly did so— observing from a polite distance steel drums full of inks and posted displays of recent artworks cluttering up the wall by the modern electric printers.
The Center for Book Arts is a space that I walked away from with an absolute desire to make something. It is a space that joyfully welcomes artists and visibly supports and uplifts the ones currently under its wing. It is a space that says “so, all you have is some paper and ink? Well, let’s see what we can do with that.”
ADMISSION: Free
GIFT SHOP: Yes
BATHROOM: Yes
WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE: Yes
June 2: Fort Wadsworth
June 8: Fotografiska
June 15: Fraunces Tavern
June 22: Garibaldi Meucci Museum
Book arts!