Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair opened Thursday at ArtCenter College of Design’s South Campus in Pasadena and runs through Sunday, returning to the Raymond Avenue venue for a second consecutive year.
ArtCenter says the 2026 edition will feature more than 250 exhibitors from approximately 24 countries — artists, collectives, small presses, galleries, and distributors — across four days of book sales, talks, music, workshops, and special exhibitions.
Admission is $8 on Saturday and free with registration on Sunday.
The fair is held in the 950 building at ArtCenter’s South Campus, 950 S. Raymond Ave. in Pasadena.
This year’s exhibitor list, posted by Printed Matter, includes Aperture, David Zwirner Books, DelMonico Books, Gagosian, Hauser & Wirth Publishers, Regen Projects, Semiotext(e), and The Getty Research Institute, alongside collectives, zine makers, and antiquarian booksellers.
Programming includes The Classroom, a discussion series organized in collaboration with David Senior, Director of the Library at SFMOMA; The Stage, a music and performance program organized with Orange Radio & Homebody; and the Reading Room, which Printed Matter says explores the relationship between sound, geography, and ecology through the print medium and features newly commissioned works, videos, listening stations, and a collective reference library, with participants including Aventures LTD., Cynthia Magazine, F.A.G. Archive, groupsports, Khabar Keslan Magazine, Living Earth, and Metabolic Studio.
Project Space presentations include an archival exhibition of newspapers by Chicano in Print; a curated selection of Ed Ruscha’s Sunset Strip project by The Getty Research Institute; a courtyard installation of Vince Skelly’s bookstools from Marta; artifacts of pre-Y2K Asian girlhood from the 1990s band Emily’s Sassy Lime, organized by Ooga Booga; an illuminated installation of publications for cinefiles by Paint It Black and Three Star Books; Risograph history and printing workshops by RISO Studio Arts; and a site-specific billboard project by Werkplaats Typografie, according to Printed Matter.
A featured exhibition, titled “¡Afuera! Publishing Queer Liberation—From the Collection of Archivos Desviados,” traces the network of influences between 1970s activist coalitions: New York’s Gay Liberation Front, the Third World Gay Revolution, and Argentina’s Frente de Liberación Homosexual, presented from the archive of Juan Queiroz.
The Shannon Michael Cane Award, given to four first-time exhibitors in the early stages of their publishing practice, and the Volume Grant, supporting four BIPOC artists and publishers, will continue this year, Printed Matter said. Both awards include a complimentary table and an unrestricted stipend, according to Printed Matter. The 2026 Shannon Michael Cane Award recipients are 林家夯 Lin Jaihang of Taipei, Lost and Found Press of Berlin, Strangeways Magazine of California, and UNDERTOW of Colorado. The 2026 Volume Grant recipients are A.R.D.O. of California, Gueari Galeri of Indonesia, Pide un Deseo of Peru, and Shadowbanned Magazine of New York.
ArtCenter says its on-site Archetype Press, which Printed Matter describes as California’s largest letterpress printing facility, will be open throughout the fair. Visitors will be able to make a bookmark at the press, the college said.
Printed Matter says advance registration is encouraged “due to limited capacity in the buildings and crowdflow throughout the different spaces.”
Tickets and the full schedule are available at laabf2026.
The fair runs through Sunday evening at 6 p.m.
