Community Service, a new art book fair set to launch in LA this weekend, aims to live up to its name. That’s how co-founders Mike Krim and Paige Silveria put it to us over a back-and-forth email correspondence, before laying out their heavy lineup of exhibitors: six dozen and counting. Office Magazine, What Youth, and Purple Magazine will be on site selling early issues, along with Anteism Books, Deadbeat Club, Glen Luchford’s Freeway Zine, and Coloured Publishing (for the exhaustive list, head here). Artists and photographers Dana Boulos, Joe Garvey, Julian Klincewicz, Kingsley Ifill, Brad Elterman, Remy Holwick, and Alessandro Casagrande are also showing, with Manon Macasaet curating a show group show out of a rental truck stationed outside the venue.
Mike and Paige’s grander ambition is for Community Service to grow into a large, flexible platform fostering collaboration between artists and publishers, between the old guard and the new. “The bigger that a fair or space gets, the further it’s taken from the younger generation,” Paige explains. “We want to make sure we provide a platform that’s accessible to everyone.”
Here, Paige, a creative director from New York, and Mike, founder of the publishing house Paper Work NYC, share what’s in store.
Hey guys, thanks for taking the time today. We’re excited about what you’re doing. Wanna start by getting into how Community Service came to be?
Mike: Community Service came about after Paige and I worked on a few other projects together and things just clicked really well. When we heard the larger fair was canceled, we decided to act quickly and start our own. We were able to pull an amazing group of independent publishers, artists and magazines together from both coasts. If things go as planned, we’ll have set the tone for something new and refreshing in the art book marketplace.
Paige: And we definitely hope to recreate it in different cities. We’re looking at New York next for September.
Mike: Then I’d like to crash land in Melbourne and activate.
Okay, there’s a lot in store. Book fair, plus an exhibition, and some limited-run merch, plus clothes from Peels Paints… anything missing? What’ll we find at Community Service?
Paige: You’ll find an array of artists and creatives selling their work and the work of others–and it’s not necessarily just visual artists that we’re engaging. For instance, Terrible Records has a table. We figured, why not? Music is an art as well. Let’s just involve as many creatives as we can. Our friend John Hoyos did the logo and Felix drawing for us. I reached out to Manon Macasaet and asked how she’d like to be involved. She hadn’t curated before now, so her show–consisting of really unknown emerging artists–really fell into place. And Brooke Wise’s film series Aloha From Hell hadn’t been shown on the West Coast yet, so we’re making that happen here as well.
So, you’re doing this in LA, but you’ve got people from all over participating. Obviously Paper Work NYC is East Coast, and there’s some international guests coming too, right?
Paige: I’m based in New York and brought over a big suitcase filled with sculptures, books, magazines… everything from New Yorkers. Was a bit funny when the TSA went through my bag and were handling Nicole Nadeau’s Titty Tiles. We also have Classic Paris flying out and taking over a zone. Luke Dobron is sending things from Berlin. We just kind of reached out to everyone.
Mike: Yeah, and Australia-based photographer Lloyd Wellington, who recently released a zine with PWNYC, will have a second edition of Everybody’s Enemy available. It sold out within a few hours last year. Lila Gold and Josue Hurst’s collective called Delicate Porcelain is also offering zine contributions from Aussies — like Jesse Lizotte’s Born Too Late and Hard Body — in addition to those by local friends.
Community Service Art Book Fair runs February 23rd to 24th @ The Void, 801 Mateo Street, Los Angeles, 90021. @community_service