Reading Room
The Reading Room is a new incarnation of the longstanding Friendly Fire, which featured select politically-minded and social-justice oriented publishers. This new program, which debuted earlier this year at the LA Art Book Fair, proposes a set of themes as a point of entry into a closer study of select publishers at the Fair.
The 2025 NY Art Book Fair Reading Room is inspired by an exhibition on view at Printed Matter of Archivos Desviados, an ongoing queer archive project led by Juan Queiroz. The exhibition presents publications and ephemera published by members of the radical coalitions Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and the Third World Gay Revolution (TWGR), two groups that emerged in post-Stonewall New York, and Frente de Liberación Homosexual (FLH), Argentina’s first political action group for gay men, based in Buenos Aires.
Drawing from this historical material, the Reading Room traces some of the many lineages and legacies from this era in autonomous, grassroots publishing, namely the everlasting demands for self-determination and liberation. These interdisciplinary print histories—zines, flyers, movement newspapers, artists’ books—map the creative and militant infrastructures that queer organizers built in dialogue with broader movements for racial justice, anti-capitalism, and anti-imperialism. In spotlighting several publishers at the Fair whose work echo these same interwoven struggles, visitors are encouraged to make connections between different geographies and generations of artist publishing practices. In a time of mounting repression against queer life, especially here in the U.S., these contemporary projects demonstrate the ways in which independent publishing continues to be a tactic of dissent and solidarity.
The NYABF 2025 Reading Room features Allied Productions/Petit Versailles, Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina, DA HOLOGRAM, Dane Press/Crisis Editions, Pinko Magazine, and Publishing is Pleasure, among others.
We invite visitors to slow down, spend time, and engage with the material you find here—ranging from newly commissioned artworks, site-specific installation, and archival material. On display are many different approaches to documenting and resisting the times we live in. In contrast to the rapid speed at which visitors move through the Fair, the Reading Room offers an alternative space to engage in close reading, critique, and reflection.