Artists’ books, alternative publications, writing beyond the mainstream. 

The book fair pulls together a series of alternative and independent publishers from Scotland and further a field, aimed at anyone interested in contemporary art, design, architecture or new ideas.  Past participants have included Cornerhouse, Bookworks, Black Dog publishing, Film Video Umbrella, Transmission, Fruitmarket, Sick Happy Idle, Dot Dot Dot, Printed Project, Black Dogs Leeds and Aye Aye Book Depot.  Sandy Christie will be here with the sequel to Sandy Meets - Sandy Meets 2, which launched at the Collective Gallery on 26 October. The fair will include the launch of a new Aye Aye publication by Manchester based artist David MaKintosh, plus special guest speaker James Brook from Bookworks will give a talk. 

1pm:   Adrian Shaw from Sick Happy Idle gives a reading performance in the cinema.  Sick Happy Idle is a zine of art, words and poetry featuring pages that have been designed by regular and irregular contributors www.sickhappyidle.com.  Adrian also works as a programmer on the Late at Tate programme.

2pm:   Talk by James Brook of Bookworks, London. Established in 1984, with the mission to disseminate visual art practice to as wide and diverse an audience as possible, Book Works is a contemporary visual arts publisher, based in London. In addition to their main activity of book publishing, they also produce text-based works, installations, multiples, videos and new media projects. www.bookworks.org.uk

3.30pm:   Aye Aye Book depot will be launching their new publication by David Mackintosh - Imagine You are in a Room Full of Blind Fools Desperately Grasping at Nothing edited and with an essay by Simon Morrissey. This is the first major publication of the morbidly compelling work of David Mackintosh. Editor Simon Morrissey’s insightful essay begins: ‘By turns mundane then macabre, surreal then salacious, David Mackintosh’s drawings are always disarmingly simple. Whether depicting a pile of shit or parts of a dismembered corpse, the outline of ahead with what appears to be a bite taken out of it starkly rendering a pair of bare breasts, his drawings appear to have borrowed much of their graphic presence from cartoons or some kind of illustration… it is as if Mackintosh is dallying with the easy readability of these forms of drawing, and finding a comfort in their lack of discursive complexity. And with their graphic outlines, their swathes of opaque wash quickly filling shapes or dry drags of the brush scribbling a rough approximation to form, the drawings appear to convey immediacy and spontaneity…’ Complimentary refreshments during the launch will be provided by Aye Aye Book Depot www.aye-ayebooks.com

Next book fair, 9 February 2008.

If you are interested in being part of the book fair, please email gen@cca-glasgow.com