Organized by Printed Matter, “The world's largest non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of publications made by artists,” the 4th annual New York Art Book Fair was, more than anything else, an exhibition of some of the most creative, inspiring, and significant art being made today. The fact that it was held at one of the most revered venues in contemporary art, taking up three floors of space on a beautiful fall weekend in New York City, attests to the prominence of book arts and the status of independent publishing today.

PS1 is a legendary artists' space, "founded in 1971 by Alanna Heiss as the Institute for Art and Urban Resources Inc., an organization devoted to organizing exhibitions in underutilized and abandoned spaces across New York City.” In 1976 the organization opened a permanent space in Long Island City, and in 2000 became an “affiliate” of MOMA. While this affiliation with New York's grand temple of Modern Art has done some damage to PS1's street cred, it has done nothing to discourage the blossoming of the institution and everything associated with it. Indeed, to be a part of PS1 today is, by most standards, to be a success.

Waiting for the fair to begin, however, it was hard not to notice how much more creative the yellow facade of the building directly across the intersection looked. In comparison to the Berlin-Wall-esque concrete facade of PS1, the corner block of lofts across the way displayed a mixture of high and low brow graffiti, serving as a reminder that the art inside any museum's walls is almost always rivaled by what can be found immediately outside.

On display at this free-of-charge weekend, besides the wonderful collection of “vendors” themselves, were signings, talks, screenings, and a special exhibit of Richard Prince posters and books. The main attraction was a never-ending buffet of printed art in the form of prints, t-shirts, zines, silk-screened canvas bags, and other types of visual ephemera like matchbook art. Dominating the exhibit, however, was the art of the book.

Highlights for this critic included the work of Vladimir Shinkarev, whose sister publications “Gloomy Paintings” and “Cinema Paintings”, published by the Bruno Bischofberger Gallery in Switzerland, which dispelled the theory that paintings don't translate well onto the inked pages of a book, and a series of print-on-demand books made by German photographer/artist/critic Joachim Schmid, who in recent years has worked almost exclusively within the framework of small-run, self-published books made through Blurb.com. Small, simple, and elegant, his white, gray and black square books sport simple black text on the cover, and represent an approach to photographic bookmaking explored heavily in recent years most famously by Stephen Shore (over 100 of Shore's are in the collection at the Met). Utilizing modes of printing and self-publishing previously unavailable, such works have significantly expanded the possibilities of what can be considered an “art book” today and how one can be produced.

Some of the most beautiful unique objects were made by New York artist Dan Walsh, whose books combine drawing, painting, silk-screening, and even sculpture (they were also among the most expensive objects at $1,500 to $5,000 per). Artist Karl LaRocca's “14 Regular Polygons Approach a Circle”, and Scott McCarney's book “Photographs”, were two examples of the best conceptual books. LaRocca's 16-page pamphlet-bound and silk-screened volume featured liquid graphite polygons, one to a page, following shapes from a square to a hexadecagon. The delicacy and precision of the printing, the paper quality, and the subtle yet luminous colors take LaRocca's simple concept to a convincing and satisfying conclusion. McCarney's “Photographs”, featuring page after page of photo corners (little stickers in albums that hold family photos in place) floating in black, was dedicated to “lost family histories.” A reflection on war, violence, and the destruction of millions of families, the work stood out as a serious and powerful commentary.

One of the better displays of books fell somewhere between the corporate giants and the individual artist displays. A-Jump Books and The Ice Plant shared a display featuring each independent publishing company's innovative, intelligent, subtle, and often humorous books, all very finely printed. They also gave away some really nice postcards. And, as might be expected in the contemporary scene no matter where you go, the work of Japanese artists stood out for its ability to challenge, to combine sharp social commentary with the spirit of freedom, and to display a firm grasp of (if little reverence for) traditions of aesthetic practice.

“I Hate Photography!” by Fumiko Imano mixed autobiographical and diaristic photographs, reproduced as low resolution facsimiles, with journal notes and sketches. “Like a very beginner,” she writes, referring to the style of construction and image-making that looks (deceivingly, like a Basquiat painting or an Eggleston photo) like anyone could have made it. The culmination of this high and low concept was arguably a special Project Room exhibition titled “Japanese Pop Then and Now” by Gallery 360° in Tokyo. Featuring poster art, paintings, lithographs, and silk-screens, the works by a variety of Japanese artists mixed cartoon fantasy with military propaganda, history, satire, and erotica.

Of course, in an event this big and influential, it was not all creativity and freedom. There were the usual corporate players on the top floor of the exhibition, apparently trying to get some of the creative stink of the cramped spaces on the lower floors to rub off. Aperture, Steidl, PowerHouse, Artforum, D.A.P., Frieze - these booths were basically mobile shops featuring no special exhibit or discounted deals. Looking mostly to sign up subscribers (and according to my eavesdropping, to sign up unpaid interns), Aperture in particular did give away some beautiful postcards and catalogues.

Offered free on the first floor, as close as you could be to the entrance to the show, were copies of a large format newsprint magazine called “The Journal of Radical Shimming”. Well worth the price (just kidding) the journal was full of documentary photographs, drawings, illustrations, essays, interviews, letters, and other forms of visual reportage well worth a look if that's your bag. But, after a while one's head is left spinning by all of the visual stimuli. It becomes clear that so much at one time is too much if the viewer wants to digest more than a handful of works. Sure as I am that the works I've mentioned deserve praise, I am equally sure that there were overlooked or under-examined works that equally deserve a mention. With all apologies, 200 vendors each with an array of material is a lot to see, though I wholeheartedly intend to try again next year.