I was able to make it out to Printed Matter's 2023 LA Art Book Fair on August 13th at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA which did not disappoint. This was the first LAABF since 2019, which was fantastic, so I wanted to get up there for it. Ticket demand was high, so I ended up going up on Sunday during the masked-up visitor time which actually worked out great because there were less people there and I was even able to find a parking spot after driving around for half an hour.
The organizers did a fantastic job bringing the fair back to life after the pandemic. I saw lots of great material, things that were innovative ways for sharing art, and lot of well-crafted print on demand or self-produced works. I saw work I thought was amazing and had strong artistic value and there were things that saw which I thought were weak. A lot of the sexually explicit works seemed to fail as art in my opinion. Solid erotica for some folks I guess, I just didn’t see much more value in a lot of it. One of the most beautiful aspects of art is every visitor brings their own background to the viewing experience so everyone’s take on something can be different. I will also say that most all the booths were professional and tasteful about the display of their work so most people could enjoy LAABF without being offended.
The organizers remembered their past layouts in this epic facility and once again it was outstanding how the exhibit was set up. Photo books in their own area, and the traffic flow throughout the show worked well. I roamed around the entire exhibit a couple of times.
Below is a gallery of images from my visit, I am also authoring a couple other blog post about two books I bought there and my visit with Clint Woodside founder of Deadbeat Club publishing. If you are in Los Angeles, the next time LAABF is up you need to check it out.
