Digest Spring 2015 A. N. Devers

Greetings from Booklyn

The Brooklyn nonprofit that specializes in book art, fine press, and artists’ books
Courtesy of Booklyn.

76 Manifestations of American Destiny (2014) by David Sandlin is an accordion book featuring silkscreen and lithograph prints “examining American culture and politics.” Published in an edition of twenty. 

If there is one word to describe Booklyn Artists Alliance, the fifteen-year-old art and publishing concern, it might be prescient.

Booklyn was brought to the borough by artists previously located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 1990s, and named after one of the founders, C. K. Wilde, misread the sign when he crossed the bridge as “Welcome to Booklyn.” 

“We didn’t know then that Brooklyn would become an international brand,” explained directing curator Marshall Weber, who described Booklyn as a part of the second wave of artists that migrated to Brooklyn, and as one of the early book-focused initiatives, long before the corporate interests moved into the neighborhood to capitalize on the borough’s creative character.

“I remember meeting the folks at Ugly Duckling Presse,” Weber said, recalling another thriving independent press in Brooklyn, “and their publications were packed in a single suitcase. Things have changed since then.”

Robbin Ami Silverberg, book artist, professor, and current member of Booklyn’s board of directors, relocated in 1988, eleven years before the nonprofit. 

“There were no bookstores here whatsoever,” said Silberberg of her Greenpoint neighborhood. “There weren’t presses. There was me, and one letterpress, and that was it. I was thrilled when Booklyn came in. I loved living in Greenpoint before it was what it is now … it was another world. I can love what I had then, but love it now. There are so many more presses and people doing readings and events. It speaks of the presence of the book in an online culture. It’s essential and important.”

Booklyn has thrived by going against the grain, stepping into a role usually reserved for private dealers. “What we do,” curator Felice Tebbe explained, “is we distribute works on paper … prints, photographs, drawings, artists’ books, publications, and zines. I try not to say ‘book art’ because that sends people to an idea of people in academia making letterpress things. But the majority of our artists are independent artists not associated with universities.”

Booklyn sells directly to museums, universities, and public libraries. When librarian Amber Billy served on its board of directors, she taught fellow board members how to make an archive of their business, bringing in a team of librarians to compose a finding aid (inventory) of Booklyn’s business papers and production department files, including the original artwork from its publishing arm. Tebbe then sold Booklyn’s archive to the Library of Congress. “Since then,” Tebbe explained, “we have seventeen archives we’ve worked on, and we’ve sold six—these are other artists’ archives and full sets. We sold Bongoût’s archive to the University of Minnesota.” Plenty of companies assemble and sell archives, but they are not, like Booklyn, nonprofits governed by artists. 

Another significant and successful project is Occuprint Portfolio, a collection of artwork that emerged from 2011’s Occupy movement, published in an edition of 100 (and almost out of print). Weber noted another recent offering: the world’s first 3-D printed accordion-fold book, which he described as “super crazy exciting.” He said, “Tom Burtonwood essentially did an entire codex with a 3-D printer—the pages, the artwork, the binding, all of it is 3-D.”

La autonomia es la vida, la sumision es la muerte (2014)
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Courtesy of Booklyn.

La autonomia es la vida, la sumision es la muerte (2014), a series of 19 silkscreen and woodcut prints celebrating autonomy in numerous communities and spaces around Mexico, emphasizing the Autonomous Zapatista Communities. Published in a custom box in an edition of 85. 

Buddy’s Story (2014)
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Courtesy of Booklyn.

Buddy’s Story (2014), a unique, large-scale accordion book by the San Francisco graffiti artist CUBA, containing a poem by Marshall Weber. 

Chicago artist Tom Burtonwood’s Orihon (2014)
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Courtesy of Booklyn.

Chicago artist Tom Burtonwood’s Orihon (2014), the world’s first completely 3-D printed accordion-fold artist’s book, printed in an edition of fifty. Burtonwood is represented by Booklyn.

Booklyn is content with its current situation, yet ambitious. In addition to its robust representation of artists, they publish three or four books a year, they co-sponsor books, run a gallery that shows mostly flat art, and manage an education program that invites anyone with an idea to come in and receive guidance and training on making editions and artist’s books. They coach artists and give them career advice. “How do you become a book artist? Just come and see us,” said Tebbe. Last year they sold $750,000 in artwork. This year, Weber said, “We hope to break a million.”

Book artist Russell Maret described Booklyn as an organization that is “blanketing the earth with artists’ books.” He first worked with Weber and Tebbe in 2009 for his book Æthelwold Etc. “It was my most successful book, and they sold 20 of 44 in a matter of a couple months. This was a book that was multiple thousands of dollars. They are good at selling work.”

Maret continued, “Marshall is an artist as well, so they come out of this world. Booklyn locates talented living bookmakers and promotes their work. They’re trying to create an understanding in the book-collecting public that there are contemporary books worthy of collection rather than just being books collected by dead people, which, don’t get me wrong, I also love.” 

Silverberg said she sees Booklyn’s role as distributor as a demonstration of the significance of the printed word. “There’s a timeline. Collectors should see that this container of information of civilization’s most important evidence is on a continuum. It’s very much an alive thing and the people who collect and adore it should look not only past but forward.”

When Tebbe meets book collectors who are more familiar with first editions by famous writers, she shows them what she described as “a hodgepodge of incredible things”: signed fine press books by artists like Maret, hand-drawn works by graffiti artist CUBA (Clarence Robbs), and prints by the anonymous Egyptian artist known as Ganzeer. “I would show the Zapatistas prints, because they should see them,” she added. 

Now that Brooklyn’s book scene has exploded, with new dealers, bookstores, publishers, and book fairs, the borough’s popularity has caused some trouble for the Booklyn name, a registered trademark the organization has recently had to sue to defend. Booklyn has turned out to be a descriptor of the borough as a whole, and, as Booklyn knows well, everyone around the world wants a piece of what it has to offer.