Print, Object, Spread, Trace ― POST and Fifteen Years of Art Books, 2011–2026

POST / limArt
912 pages, Softcover
240 x 180 mm
9784991313899
2026

POST is a bookshop in Ebisu, Tokyo, that has specialised in art books since it opened in 2011. Instead of selling a wide mix of titles, the shop regularly changes its entire stock to focus on one publisher at a time. This lets visitors see a publisher's work as a whole: its editing, design, printing and binding, and its work with artists and designers.

Since starting with Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, POST has presented around 50 publishers. They range from large international houses such as Phaidon, Thames & Hudson, Aperture and Gestalten, to small independent presses run by artists or designers, like The Eriskay Connection and Nazraeli Press, and publishers linked to non-profit or educational institutions, such as Book Works and AA Publications.

This book collects every publisher feature from 2011 onwards, in the order they were shown. Each one includes images of the books presented, with captions and short texts. Between the features, essays look at how the art book world has changed in five-year steps since 2000. The book works as a guide to each publisher, and read from start to finish, it also shows how art book publishing has changed over the past 15 years.

With interviews with:
Franz König (Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König)
Gerhard Steidl (founder of Steidl)
Lars Müller (founder of Lars Müller Publishers)
Michael Mack (founder of MACK)
Roger Willems (graphic designer, founder of Roma Publications)
Hans Gremmen (graphic designer, director of Fw: Books)