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Center for Book Arts

@centerforbookarts

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Est. in 1974, we promote active explorations of artistic practices related to the book as an art object.
📍28 West 27th St, New York, NY 10001

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✨"Vico's Spiral: Half a Century of Artists' Books Memorabilia" is on view in the Grinter Gallery from September 10th - December 2nd, 2026

As a companion gallery to "Vico’s Spiral: Half a Century of Artists’ Books" in the Gary R. Libby Focus Gallery, this curated collection is focused on various ephemera including posters, flyers, and postcards, and further reflects on the rich history of the artists books, and more specifically, the Center for Book Arts in New York.

By displaying materials from the 50-year history of this institution, visitors are given a sense of the trends and longevity of the Center for Book Arts, through a collection which compliments the narrative of the main gallery, which uses the historical model envisioned by Giambattista Vico, Vico’s Spiral, to convey the cyclical yet expanding nature of history.

This collection emphasizes the role of the Center for Book Arts in the continued development and preservation of artists’ books and displays the endurance of an artistic medium which replicates yet improves on the traditions of the past.

@centerforbookarts

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🌟Artist Highlight from Vico’s Spiral Half a Century of Artists’ Books: Barton Lidicé Beneš

“The Book as Material Subverts Access to Content”

Barton Lidicé Beneš was a New York-based artist. From an early age, Beneš developed a love for artifacts in part through frequent visits to the American Museum of Natural History, and he would later create artifacts of his own. Beneš graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and became active in New York’s LGBTQ+ scene in the post-Stonewall era, exploring themes including the AIDS epidemic and death in his work.

From the catalogue: “After testing HIV positive and losing close friends, Barton Lidicé Beneš confronted subjects that were then taboo with books made of pills, capsules, bodily fluids, relics, intravenous tubes, HIV-infected blood, and cremated human remains.”

By focusing on these subjects, Beneš often had difficulty finding galleries and museums that would display his work, but his work was exhibited in locations ranging from North Dakota, United States, to Lund, Sweden. Some of his works are currently held in the collections of The Art Institute of Chicago and The Smithsonian.

Barton Lidicé Beneš, Censored Book, 1974, book tied in rope, nailed, gessoed, and painted.
@centerforbookarts

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My black-eyed Susan quilted book object Sew/Sow was unveiled to the public yesterday. Thank you for Creased Press, @origamisok and @centerforbookarts.

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Work stuff, Slide Away stuff, Met stuff

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This artist book is constructed from fragments of contemporary life: discarded printed matter, packaging, found photographs, advertisements, political imagery, personal ephemera, and materials that have already been consumed, circulated, rejected, or forgotten.

Through mixed-media collage, I dismantle these remnants and reorganize them into a visual narrative about consumer culture, political power, memory, identity, environmental neglect, and the social systems that determine what—and whom—we consider valuable or disposable. The book functions simultaneously as an archive and a disruption of the archive. Images removed from their original contexts collide, contradict one another, and acquire new meanings.

The work is rooted in the mission of The Trashy Art Museum, which asks audiences to reconsider the meaning of waste. TAM is not simply concerned with recycling materials; it is concerned with transforming perception. Recycling often reduces an object back into raw material. Upcycling preserves its history and gives it a new artistic, cultural, or symbolic value.

In this book, discarded materials are not hidden or beautified until their origins disappear. Their damage, age, commercial language, and political associations remain visible. They become evidence of the society that produced and abandoned them.
The intimate format of the artist book invites the viewer to encounter these fragments slowly and sequentially. Turning each page becomes an act of excavation—through layers of consumption, propaganda, desire, contradiction, and collective memory.

This work proposes that trash is not an inherent condition. It is a judgment. By reclaiming what has been dismissed, I challenge the systems that assign value and expose the environmental and human consequences of a culture built around constant consumption and disposability.

The book ultimately asks the viewer to do what The Trashy Art Museum asks of every visitor:

Look again.

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First Suminagashi lesson with @sheryloppenheim organised by @centerforbookarts in New York. So lovely to see all the different things people produced and to pick up some trouble shooting tips. Will be using soap nuts for surfectant from now on. Tried out some new papers too. Here are some traditional Suminagashi prints from the lesson and some of my own style finished at 2am as the lesson was New York time! So lucky to be able to attend a class with such a fabulous, inspiring artist taking place in America.

#suminagashi #floatingink #japanese #soapnuts #washi

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@_whatthewaterknows_ is now part of the archive at the @centerforbookarts in New York. Wonderful touring their center today and adding some William Stafford and @adriftprints to their collection!

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The @centerforbookarts is a non-profit arts organisation dedicated to contemporary interpretations of the book as an art object while preserving traditional practices of the art of book making.

We are delighted to share our reimagining of their third floor entry space which is home to the bookshop and an extension of the main gallery.

The bookshop itself was conceived of as an exhibition space in which to display the uniquely conceptual and sculptural book as art objects supported by the CBA.

Designed in collaboration with @willemsmithclark

Drawing by @adapattersonn

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If you write a play… ya gotta make playbills…. 🌀 letterpress printing the programs for MEADOW SONG on the good ol Vandercooks at @centerforbookarts ~ a tricky lockup but I’m loving this beetle shade of green 🪲 ~ this was typeset in: Chisel, Futura Bold, Bell Monotype, Caslon Oldstyle Italic, and Twentieth Century Medium. My record number of typefaces in a single print 🔡 thanks @rhonda_khalifeh for keeping me sane in the studio!

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💋🖨️Teaching riso tricks and tips @centerforbookarts

‼️Signups still available‼️- link in bio

Class overview:

Meet the Risograph: part photocopier, part screen printer, wholly unique. This machine-based printmaking process combines the speed of digital duplication with the warmth and character of analog printing, creating work that feels both contemporary and handmade.

In Kyle Canyon’s “Riso I: Foundations of Risograph Printing” workshop, students will gain direct interaction with the risograph machine through class collaboration and experimentation. Over the four-week course, you will learn how this Japanese duplicator became a beloved tool in artist studios, zine communities, and independent publishers worldwide, while mastering basic operations and exploring how technical choices shape aesthetic outcomes.

Don’t miss your chance to register for this foundational workshop and leave CBA with your very own two-color poster edition.

🎨 Wednesdays, September 2nd - September 23rd, 6PM to 9PM ET
🎨 In-person
🎨 $420 + $25 materials

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a place full of my favorite people <3 Til we meet again… 🫧🕸️🚏

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Thank you to the American Trust for the British Library. Will be in London this summer continuing my research on xerography and queer diy zines at the British Library. @britishlibrary 🤍

If you’re in London, reach out!

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