8 of the coolest things we saw at the SF Art Book Fair

In 2020, four years after moving from Oakland to Emeryville and in the midst of COVID lockdown, Jessalyn Aaland decided to learn more about the history of her new city. Each new rabbit hole led to a copy of Things to know about Emeryville C☺☺La monthly one-page newsletter about Emeryville’s canneries, strikes, the 1980s punk scene, public art, streetcar lines, and more. With a risograph printer at home and a pandemic prompting her to return to more human forms of contact, she stapled her insightful, conversational, and often hilarious newsletters to poles around the city, adding a phone number at the bottom. Emeryville Cool Fun Brochure compiles all nine issues, along with responses from readers who called the number. (“One elderly woman said, ‘I live alone,’ and told me stories about her landlord,” Aaland said.) I took it home and devoured it in one sitting.

‘The invisible’

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon (Colpa Press, $40)

When Luca Antonucci of Colpa Press met supergraphics pioneer Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, she was in the process of producing her own books at Kinko’s in San Francisco. Now, two months after Solomon’s death at the age of 95, he has printed their fifth and final book together, spiral-bound in an edition of 200 copies. It consists of collages that Stauffacher Solomon cut out directly and glued onto a Swiss Grid. The invisible was delivered by Stauffacher Solomon just two weeks before her death in May – along with accompanying handwritten instructions that Antonucci volunteered to include. “Scanning her was super emotional,” he said, “almost like she was speaking to me from the grave.”

“You will miss me / Your love”

(The Tymes 5 featuring Michael Jang, $16)

Visitors to this year’s fair may notice a large wheat paste nearby at the corner of 23rd and Tennessee, the work of the dizzyingly prolific Michael Jang. Jang, a San Francisco photographer, street artist and subtle prankster, was once also… played in a garage band in the 1960s?! Here’s the proof: a 7″ by The Tymes 5 with Jang playing guitar, recorded in 1965. The band covers songs by 13th Floor Elevators and the Zombies, is out of tune, the vocals are over the top, the off-tempo drums sound like cardboard boxes. It’s great! “They sold like crazy – more than we expected,” said Zafron Munkres of Park Life. The giant wheat bran paper advertisement down the street probably doesn’t hurt.

‘Bodega Rider’

Martha Naranjo Sandoval (Matarile Ediciones, $14)

Not everything at the SF Art Book Fair is local. This photography magazine, distributed by Seaton Street Press in Brooklyn, features self-portraits of the artist on coin-operated rides outside New York City bodegas. What fascinated me was the range of emotions on Naranjo Sandoval’s face as she revisited these sources of childhood joy: excitement at seeing them, nostalgia for what they once offered, sadness at their diminishing importance, frustration at getting too old for simple pleasures. “She publishes specifically for immigrants in the diaspora,” said Seaton Street’s Lindsay Buchman, but anyone who has spent 90 seconds and 50 cents on a bucking horse outside a store will relate.

“This is how an art book fair works”

Paul Shortt (Shortt Editions, $10)

Speaking of meta! This guide to art book fairs was sold at the art book fair by Paul Shortt, who woke up in Florida at 3:30 a.m. Thursday morning before flying to San Francisco. “There are a lot of books that teach you how to make books,” he said, “and not many books that teach you how to sell Books.” (He should know, he’s been to over 50 art book fairs in the last decade.) I had assumed this zine would be a snarky troll about art book fairs, but no—it’s a practical guide to their ins and outs, based on Shortt’s experiences as a seller (“I’m very explicit about my own mistakes in the book,” he joked) and input from other veterans of the scene. Most of the advice is overspecific, while some is refreshingly simple, like “don’t be a jerk.”

“If you listen, the music will find you: 35mm photographs of the Bay Area underworld”

Ezra Gonzalez (nematode, $30 each)

I guarantee your older punk friends have complained that the music sucks now, or that the scene is dead. To which I always say: go to more concerts! Now there’s a solid document to contradict those bearded, whining guys in denim vests: Under the eponymous Nematode, Bay Area photographer Ezra Gonzalez has published two volumes documenting the local underground music scene. The photos span 2018–2020 and 2021–2023 and include some recognizable locations (Eli’s Mile High Club, the Rickshaw Stop), but most are from concerts in basements, on sidewalks, and at house parties. “It’s been really fun since we’ve had them,” says Matt Brownell, co-owner of Cone Shape Top in Oakland. “People pick up the book and say, ‘I was at that concert!’” Here’s to more photo books documenting the Bay Area’s rich DIY punk scene. (Please do that, Rob Coons!)

“Advertising is messing with your head: strategies for resistance”

Vyvian Raoul and Matt Bonner (PM Press, $15.95)

While strolling through the Art Book Fair, it is easy to be seduced by eye-catching book titles (What is post branding?, 8-bit porn video games, Uncreative writing by Taylor Swift). Some of these clever titles deliver on their promises, but many do not. This is indeed a microcosm of the advertising world! So I was happy that Advertising is killing your head is both substantive and humorous. As well as an introduction to the way advertising invades our daily mental lives, the book focuses on “subvertising” – the art of changing, remixing or defacing billboard advertising. “Many of these things, like bus shelters, are easy to invade. And if it looks like it belongs there, it will stay there for a while,” says Dan of Oakland’s PM Press. “It’s a public space! Use it for your own ends!”