Bookish: On the Art World’s Publishing Boom

Depending on how you look at it, the art-book industry is either in precarious straits or the midst of a golden age. Brick-and-mortar bookstores specializing in art books continue to close, giving way to online purveyors like Amazon, which don’t do so well with pricy art tomes. And traditional trade publishers have cut back on funding art titles. Meanwhile, blue-chip galleries, flush with cash in a booming art market, have picked up the slack with increasingly ambitious publishing programs. At the world’s wealthier galleries, an in-house imprint has become an essential part of business, as common as a front desk, PR team, and exhibition checklist.

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And artists have come to expect it. Since it opened 30 years ago, Gagosian has published or co-published 419 books.  

http://www.artnews.com/2015/09/09/bookish-on-the-art-worlds-publishing-boom/