Reading Room at Bard Graduate Center (NYC) is a platform to promote engagement with artists’ books, periodicals and other publications. The 2018 collection was curated by Some Other Books. Open during gallery hours from February 23 to July 8, Reading Room welcomed readers to a comfortable and convivial setting in which to explore the collection of over 200 titles.
Reading Room was inspired by BGC's then-current exhibitions, Fabricating Power with Balinese Textiles and The Codex and Crafts in Late Antiquity. The Reading Room was 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 was 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 included an extensive range of books for children. Reading Room aimed to introduce the reader to both a wide range of actors working contemporaneously in the ever-expanding field of art book publishing, and to delve deeper into the work of contemporary textile artists and book-makers.