Booklyn Artist Alliance (Booklyn) is an artist-run
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization
A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...
founded in 1999 that works to promote, distribute, and archive
artist book
Artists' books (or book arts or book objects) are works of art that utilize the form of the book. They are often published in small editions, though they are sometimes produced as one-of-a-kind objects.
Overview
Artists' books have employed a ...
s and book arts.
Booklyn was founded, and continues to be governed by, artists.
History
Originally located in the
Greenpoint neighborhood of
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, New York,
Booklyn moved to the
Brooklyn Army Terminal
The Brooklyn Army Terminal (BAT) is a large warehouse complex in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York City. The site occupies more than between 58th and 63rd Streets west of Second Avenue, on Brooklyn's western shore. The complex was originally u ...
in
Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York in early 2018.
This relocation included plans for new education and archives initiatives.
Booklyn initially originated out of several artist run projects: The Artichoke Yink Press run by Christopher Wilde, a Bookmobile artist book distribution system run by Wilde and Shon Schooler, and a Tuesday night artist gathering at 70 Commercial Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Marshall Weber, an original co-founder of Booklyn, remains involved as Directing Curator.
Activities
The work of Booklyn involves a wide range of activities: representing contemporary artists; cultivating a distribution network across international institutions that may acquire work by Booklyn artists for their collections; and curating exhibitions in its own gallery space as well as at other institutions. Education efforts at Booklyn involve lectures and workshops on various aspects of bookmaking, including bookbinding and zine-making.
Educational materials are also distributed through resources such as the
Booklyn Education Manual''
[Kulp, Louise A. “Teaching with Artists’ Books: An Interdisciplinary Approach for the Liberal Arts.” ''Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America'', vol. 34, no. 1, 2015, pp. 101–123. ''JSTOR'', www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/680568.]
The intention of Booklyn's artist-run distribution system was to interrupt the existing distribution networks dominated by private dealers.
Booklyn organizes the ''Sass & Zines: Celebrating QPOC / WPOC in Print'' event, and in 2019, Booklyn participated in the New York City Book and Ephemera Fair during New York's Rare Book Week by curating a Brooklyn Artists' Fair of forty artists whose work addresses diverse and contemporary issues.
The artistic works represented by Booklyn include artist books, prints, drawings, publications, and
zine
A zine ( ; short for '' magazine'' or '' fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very s ...
s, as well as the archives of individual artists. Booklyn also publishes and co-sponsors books.
Institutions that have worked with Booklyn to acquire materials for their own collection include
University of Puget Sound
The University of Puget Sound (UPS or Puget Sound) is a private university in Tacoma, Washington. The university draws approximately 2,600 students from 44 states and 16 countries. It offers 1,200 courses each year in more than 50 traditional an ...
,
Franklin & Marshall College
Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Fran ...
,
Bucknell University
Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineering ...
and
Long Island University - Brooklyn.
Booklyn has collaborated with
Iraq Veterans Against the War (now About Face), on a series of portfolio projects dating back to the ''War is Trauma'' portfolio in 2008; some of these have also involved collaboration with
Justseeds Artists' Cooperative and Combat Paper NJ.
Booklyn's organizational archive is housed at Library of Congress.
Exhibitions
Exhibitions presented by Booklyn include:
* ''Straight out of Booklyn'' (2017), at Bucknell University Special Collections/University Archives.
*''
'RISE (May–June 2015), Kelie Bowman, at Booklyn
*''Conflict Unknown'', Lale Westvind (November 2014 - January 2015), at Booklyn
* ''Asshats for Shitheads'', Sto Len (September - November 2014), at Booklyn
* NO/FUTURE, Mike Taylor (January - March 2014), at Booklyn
*
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Artists' books
Book arts
Non-profit organizations based in Brooklyn