If books help us connect to the wider world of ideas, and art fulfills a similar, and similarly important, space, then what exactly does the art book do?
It wouldn't go too far to say that an art book just might serve double duty on the whole connection-to-the-world front. For art, and books, when put together, have a powerful way of addressing what it means to be human, and the 1,906,783 various things that can mean.
If you've long felt the power behind a tome celebrating sculpture, or a provocative 'zine created by an up-and-coming innovator, then best clear your schedule and head for a gargantuan art book gathering in the days ahead.
The LA Art Book Fair is free, first off. It's at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, is the second must-know. And third? It is on through Sunday, Feb. 26.
You won't need to peruse all 1,906,783 ideas that deal with being human, though, while you page through the 'zines and books and periodicals and catalogs.
You'll simply need to find the artists you like, the ideas that challenge and inspire you, the stuff that makes you laugh or feel flush with emotion. And then the next step? Buy the books you connect with and support those presses that support art.
More than 300 presses and book companies'll be out at the Little Tokyo-located art institution, so have your looking-around pants on, and best be prepared to spend the better part of the day browsing/buying.
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Or simply meeting and talking with other mavens of ideas, imagery, and the raw stuff that can impact the world through a single photo, painting, or video.
Printed Matter is behind the fair, which hosted over 35,000 visitors in 2016.
The book exhibitors include a global gathering, so stop by and see Perimeter Books of Australia and CLASSIC Paris of France and a host of California-based presses, too.
Was 1,906,783 too low a guesstimate? As to all of the ways we translate and view our humanity and how we are in the world and among each other?
Probably. Best make for The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and find a few art books that push that number upwards in terms of fresh ideas and ways of expressing how it is to be here, human, and full of imagination.
