Printed Matter Announces 50th Anniversary Program: Benefit Dinner Honoring Ed Ruscha, NY and LA Art Book Fairs, Gordon Matta-Clark Exhibition, and New Commission Mark a Year-Long Celebration
Printed Matter enters its 50th anniversary year with a dynamic slate of programs, events, and new commissions that celebrate a half-century of pioneering artist-made books and printed matter while looking ahead to the future of this vital medium.
On April 21st, 2026, Printed Matter’s Benefit Dinner will honor artist’s book pioneer Ed Ruscha, with a special tribute to founder Pat Steir and the artist-driven imprint BlackMass Publishing. The LA Art Book Fair (May 7th–10th) returns for its second year at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, while the NY Art Book Fair marks its 20th anniversary this fall, returning to MoMA PS1 from September 24th–27th. Launching this summer, Printed Matter will present a solo exhibition with artist and publisher Chang Yuchen, followed by a special archival exhibition exploring Gordon Matta-Clark’s iconic artist’s book Walls Paper (opening September 9th) in dialogue with a newly commissioned work by Laura Owens, among others.
Additional anniversary programming includes “50 Objects, 50 Years,” an online initiative inviting contributors to reflect on significant items from the organization’s history; the third cycle of the Printed Matter Publisher Work Grant, an unrestricted award supporting three independent artists’ book publishers; and a facsimile edition of GAAG: The Guerilla Art Action Group (originally 1978), forthcoming in fall 2026, co-published with Primary Information.
“Fifty years ago Printed Matter emerged from a moment of radical rethinking about what art can be, and how we experience it. We have always championed the belief that creative experimentation and direct encounters with art are critically important — that art can be passed hand to hand and person to person, and that publications by artists are a powerful instrument to this end. With artists’ voices — and the organizations that support them — increasingly under threat, we need Printed Matter now more than ever.”
— Lesley A. Martin, Executive Director.
In December 1975, a group of artists and art workers, including Edit deAk, Sol LeWitt, Lucy Lippard, Walter Robinson, Pat Steir, Irena von Zahn, Mimi Wheeler, and Robin White, circulated a letter calling for a new kind of publishing and distribution system for artists’ books. This initiative led to the founding of Printed Matter, with early meetings held at Franklin Furnace before the organization formally established itself in 1976 with a ground-level bookstore on Lispenard Street in Tribeca.
Printed Matter coalesced around the belief that artists’ books—works that “weren’t art in the conventional sense”—should be affordable, widely accessible, and rich with possibility. Founder Lucy Lippard and inaugural director Ingrid Sischy secured nonprofit status in 1979, defining the organization as “a service, an educational vehicle, an artistic practice.” It emerged alongside the creative energy of the 1970s Downtown art scene, in dialogue with organizations such as The Wooster Group, MoMA PS1, White Columns, Artists Space, and The Drawing Center, as artists increasingly embraced publishing as a way to circulate work directly outside the gallery system.
Fifty years on, Printed Matter continues this mission. Its current home—a two-level bookstore and office on 11th Avenue and 26th Street—is its fifth and largest location, housing over 15,000 artists’ books, zines, and periodicals alongside rare and out-of-print materials. Its publishing program includes nearly fifty titles, from early works like Service (1978) by Martha Rosler to more recent publications by Mark Gonzales, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Carmen Winant, and Jason Polan. Its Art Book Fairs in New York and Los Angeles have become a global model, redefining the art book fair as a major cultural gathering.
Across five decades, Printed Matter has sustained a vital ecosystem for artists’ books—supporting publishers, amplifying artists’ voices, and expanding audiences while maintaining its founding vision: that printed matter can carry the political, cultural, and artistic potential of art directly into people’s hands.
MORE: printedmatter.org
