Art Book Show

Art & The Book

Warburg Institute

May. 22nd – Aug. 2nd 2025

Art & The Book explores artists making, publishing, and collecting books. In a season encompassing an exhibition, public conversations, a book fair, and bookshops in residence, Art & The Book draws attention to the recent history of the book as an art object and field of bibliographic experimentation.

Artists’ books, presses and libraries have flourished in recent decades, carving out new territory independent of established literary and art worlds. It is a practice that approaches the book as both a document and work of art – its scale and form encourage grassroots distribution amongst communities of producers, disseminating artworks in personal, democratic ways unique from other art forms.

Art & The Book’s exhibition presents a selection of critical moments from the history of artists’ books, from their modern origins in the 1960s to the work of contemporary artist bookmakers. Alongside their history and practice, the display also explores the work of artists’ book libraries, whose approach to collections and access are drawn from the form’s inventiveness and play.

Throughout Art & The Book, a rotating series of independent bookshops will take up residence inside Edmund de Waal’s permanent artwork library of exile in our gallery. Each week brings a different bookshop from across the UK, offering a curated selection of artists’ books and books on art - many of which are rare or hard to find. These bookshops span a wide range of approaches: some are also publishers, community projects or arts organisations, each bringing their own unique perspective to the space.

During 20–21 June, the Warburg will host the inaugural Biblioteka Art Book Fair. Bringing together nearly 50 international publishers, booksellers and artists, the fair will offer a mix of stands and a programme of talks across both days.

Throughout the season, a series of talks will bring together artists, librarians, publishers, collectors and designers to discuss curating, databases, cataloguing, libraries, connoisseurship, and to exchange ideas for the future of book arts.