Young Artists’ Books Fair

“When you open a book, a world spreads before you”, comments Micheri, one of the 99 artists participating in Pepper’s Project and Kinokuniya’s “Young Artists’ Books Fair”. The project is communication art that removes art from its exhibition space and places it in retail space as an object to be sold.

Blasphemy! Sacrilege!

But wait, books as art sold as books in a proper bookstore…by making this attempt to reach out to a broader audience, the “Young Artists’ Books Fair” has highlighted the commercial element to the display of art, turning art space into full-on retail space and retail space into art space.

Two of the 99 young artists are on hand each day to talk to the customers who show some interest, and when I talked to them, it was clear to me that they were artists and not salespeople. Micheri waxed on about her mobiles: closed in a box that opens like a book, they express the most innocent, almost infantile desires—a world unlocked by her “reader”.

Then there was Tanuki, with her thick book of satirical manga and illustrations straight from the horse’s mouth, literally. She flipped her book open to a spoof of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper in which everyone’s favorite American president sits in the middle…you can see below the table that Bush happens to be stepping on a cross.

If you happen to find yourself in Kinokuniya, you might want to stop by this little exhibition and give it a read.

In conjunction with Pepper’s Gallery’s current exhibition “Draw VI”, the “Young Artists’ Book Fair” is being held on the 6th floor of Kinokuniya’s South Shinjuku Branch in Takashimaya Times Square until February 4th. Opening hours are from 10:00 to 20:00 (Sat until 20:30/Sun until 18:00).