Wendy’s Subway returns to the Bard Graduate Center for a second year to present the Reading Room, a platform to promote engagement with artists’ books, periodicals, and other publications. This year’s collection is curated by Some Other Books, a NY-based publisher of artists’ books and multiples founded by artist Kristen Mueller in 2018. Open during gallery hours, the Reading Room welcomes readers to an open, comfortable, and convivial setting in which to explore the collection of over 200 titles.
The Reading Room, inspired by our two exhibitions, Fabricating Power with Balinese Textiles and The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity is divided into two collections: Artists/Textiles— books focused on artists working with textiles in the fields of fine art, fashion, and publishing, and Artists/Books—focused on artists whose work takes the form of the book or zine. Each collection is comprised of a multitude of artists’ books, monographs, catalogues, periodicals, and zines produced in the last 10 years by an international array of publishers and artists, and also includes an extensive range of books for children. The Reading Room aims to introduce the reader to both a wide range of actors working today in the ever-expanding field of art book publishing, and to delve deeper into the work of contemporary textile artists and book-makers.
With books by: &: christophe daviet-thery, 2nd Cannons, Bom Dia Books, Colorama, Corraini Edizioni, Edition Patrick Frey, Extra Vitamins, Gloria Glitzer, Hardworking Goodlooking, Hato Press, JRP|Ringier, Kasper Andreasen, Miniature Gardens, Motto Books, New Documents, Nieves, Paraguay Press, Printed Matter, Purgatory Pie Press, Rondade, Sara MacKillop, Small Editions, Space Poetry, Textiellab and many more!
Once a month on selected Thursdays, the Reading Room will bring together writers, artists, and performers for a multi-disciplinary reading and talk series at the Bard Graduate Center, from 7 to 9pm. The Reading Room will also host a series of workshops to be announced soon.
About the Artists
Some Other Books is a NY-based publisher of artists’ books and multiples founded by Kristen Mueller in 2018. Forthcoming publications include Reading Room, an artists’ book documenting the Bard Graduate Center Reading Room, and a book by visual artist, poet and textile designer Francesca Capone. Kristen Mueller’s artists’ books include 3b (2014-ongoing), Partially Removing the Remove of Literature (2014) and Language to Cover a Page (2014). They have been collected by libraries such as MoMA (New York) and KASK (Ghent), and have been exhibited at Artists Space (New York), Serralves (Portugal), Mendes Wood DM (São Paulo), and elsewhere.
Studio Giancarlo Valle is a creative design agency founded in architecture. They create indelible interiors, objects, and architecture, working across art, fashion, hospitality, and home.
Wendy’s Subway is a non-profit library, writing space, and publisher located in Bushwick, Brooklyn. It provides an open, versatile space where cultural production flourishes through reading, research, and collaborative practice, and is manifested in performance, publication, and education. Wendy’s Subway hosts a range of public programs, including readings and screenings, interdisciplinary talks and lectures, discussion and reading groups, and writing workshops. The non-circulating library holds a collection of books and documents with a special focus on poetry, art, theory, and philosophy, as well as the Laurin Raiken Archive, an extensive resource for the study of art history and criticism. Wendy’s Subway is operated by its membership of poets, curators, novelists, artists, and critics with an interest in hybrid forms and cross-disciplinary discourse.
Originally designed by Tyler Polich and Hannah Wilentz, Reading Rooms have previously been installed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York); White Columns (New York); NADA New York (with Aeromoto, Mexico City); Brown University, (Providence, RI); and the Carnegie Mellon University School of the Arts (Pittsburgh, PA).
Special thanks to Sanjana Iyer, Megan Toye, and all the artists and publishers who kindly donated books to the Reading Room.
