Wendy Yang

My trip to the NY Art Book Fair was very interesting. I got to enjoy a lot of artworks, paintings, books and etc. It was more of an exhibit than a book fair since many of the publications where for eyes only or behind a glass case. However, the whole experience was very nice even though I only got to go to two floors. While I was there I picked out six books that interested me the most.

The first interesting book is called “Inside World” by Richard Prince. The price was not listed and the binding style was perfect binding. This book comes in edition size of 250. I wasn’t able to flip through the book since it was locked up behind a case but the cover did catch my eyes. It’s a red hard cover book with large gold letters saying “INSIDE WORLD”. On the side of the book there were three more red books with a white paper on top of each that is signed and with its own original handwritten joke. The first joke was: ”If I refuse to go to bed with you,” she whispered, “will you really commit suicide?” That’s been my usual procedure. Second: With all I’ve heard about A-bombs that’ll destroy a city and H-bombs that’ll destroy a state and chain reactions that’ll destroy the world – you know I just don’t have the incentive to buy a two pants suit. Lastly the third joke: I remember practicing the violin in front of a roaring fire. My old man walked in. He was furious. We didn’t have a fireplace.

“Like Ghosts” by Adam Shecher is a colorful cartoon picture book that seems to be a story of a wolf. The price and edition size where not listed. It was printed on glossy paper and was stab sewn binding. This book caught my eyes because it had a cartoon drawing of a wolf in an outfit. Throughout the book you just see cartoon pictures of the same wolf in different scenarios. The book was very simple and fun to flip through.

Third, is a book called “One Million Years” by On Kawara. The book was opened on the display table and weren’t allowed to be touched. The binding style seemed to be perfect binding and edition size of 500. Even though we weren’t allow to touch it but the book caught my eyes with it only filled with numbers of years in BC and AD. A little paper on the side said: Past “For all those who have lived and died” – Future “For the last one”.

“Drawings” by Julie Nord was one of my favorites. It cost $40, perfect binding and came in edition size of 1,000. Originally the book was in Danish and was then translated into English. This book was very unique. It was full of pictures that were both cute and evil, good and bad, very unique drawings.  Here is a picture of the cover of the book. As you can see on the left side you see an adorable girl with butterflies surrounding her and flowers in her hand, but if you look very closely notice that the flowers have skulls in it. The drawings show good and evil.

“My Shit is Gold” [Volume I] by Paul Herbst is a stapled bounded book that has a brown slip cover with gold letters. It comes in edition size 250 and the price was not listed. The book contains glossy pictures in mostly black and white, very little colors. I just like the book because of the book’s title.

Lastly, the sixth book is called “Reading Your Face” by Franticham.  It is a large book that has cardboard reused boxes as its cover and toilet brown paper as pages. On each page is a picture of a human face that was drawn with different colorful chalk. This book was $130, saddle stitched with 3 holes and came in the edition size of 23.