How to put on a book art show in the Bay Area?
July 11, 2019 8:54 PM   Subscribe

I have a friend who's wondering how she can set up an exhibit of her book art in the San Francisco Bay Area.

My friend has been making book art for a number of years and feels ready to show her work. However, she's never done anything like this before and doesn't really know that many people in "the scene" (and I know even less). She has no illusions about (or aspirations to) becoming a name or whatnot, she simply wants to exhibit her work and hopes people will connect with it. So what would be the best way for an unknown book artist to exhibit her work? (I'd guess that the best way would be to do a group show with other artists, but as noted neither she nor I really know any other people that are currently doing book art in the Bay Area). She'd prefer to do the exhibit in San Francisco, but I get the feeling she'd be okay with doing it in the East Bay (Berkeley, etc.).
posted by gtrwolf to Media & Arts (5 answers total)
 
Are you looking for an evening, or a month?

A few-day art fair might be a good place to start. STARTUP's annual hotel shows are among the best and not a bad way to meet local artists.

If there's someone in town with enough room to display things for a weekend, registering with Open Studios is worth a try. (In my friends' limited experience, you can expect 30 visitors and no sales. But, it's a start.)
posted by eotvos at 10:05 PM on July 11, 2019 [1 favorite]


Do you mean book illustration, or design, or calligraphy, or what? Your friend can talk to the Book Arts and Special Collections folk at the Main Library in SF -- they have an online calendar that is by no means exhaustive. If that's not the area your friend is working in, it's still worth asking them who might be involved in that field and where/how to get in on an exhibit or group show.

The San Francisco Center for the Book might also be a good place to start if your friend hasn't visited them already.
posted by vickyverky at 8:43 AM on July 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


Also, here is SFPL Book Arts' Instagram page. Yes, a lot of what they show is historical, but I would look at who's following them and maybe go down a rabbit hole or two to see what other artists are doing.
posted by vickyverky at 8:45 AM on July 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


The Codex Foundation is in Berkeley; they exist to promote book art and book artists - they put on one of the biggest artist's book shows in the country every spring, in Richmond at the Craneway Pavilion. They would have (or could point to) info about group shows, juried shows, calls for submissions, etc.

The Environmental Design Library at UC Berkeley has a pretty big collection of book art books, and they hold a recurring event called Hands On during the academic year which is basically a way to get artists' books into peoples hands and out of the rare book vault. These events are awesome and lots of local book people attend.
[full disclosure: I work pretty closely with them; I photographed most of the books in the guide linked to]

And agreeing with above comments: the San Francisco Center for the Book is kind of the locus of this kind of activity in the city.
posted by niicholas at 10:02 AM on July 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Thanks for the answers so far! She didn't have any concrete plans (re: evening or a month) but she was thinking probably closer to a weekend. (Though again, anything longer would likely be okay as well).
posted by gtrwolf at 2:08 PM on July 12, 2019


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