Kris Graves, the Jamaica-born, LIC-based photographer and +KGP photobook publisher, has teamed up with Michael Foley, of the eponymous LES-based Foley Gallery, to present the first LES Foto Book Fair this weekend. Running on Saturday from 11am-7pm and Sunday from noon to 6pm, this highly concentrated event offers an inside scoop on self-publishing, photography books in particular.

"We are interested in public engagement, and the idea stems from a lack of public/social art events in the city," says Kris Graves.  "We feel that there is a dire need for more art and cultural events, especially with many galleries relocating downtown."

Saturday 
3pm | Sara J. Winston on Homesick (Zatara)   
4pm | Jeanette Spicer on +KGP    
5pm | Magali Duzant on Light Blue Desire (Conveyor)

Sunday
2pm | Zoe Ames on Book Produciton (Puritan) 
3pm | Romke Hoogwaerts
4pm | Marteinn Jonasson on Book Production

Book signings on Saturday will feature artists Lois Connor (LOST Beijing, +KGP); Shane Rocheleau (Yamotfabaata, Gnomic); Sara J. Winston (Homesick, Zatara); Jeanette Spicer (Sea[see]), +KGP.

Graves is perhaps best know for his LOST book series, for which he shot in Long Island City for more than a decade. Among the images in LOST: Long Island City are views of 5Pointz while the graffiti art prevailed, and since its demolition and the ensuing corporate glass box buildings that have subsumed the neighborhood around MoMA PS1.

© Kris Graves, from LOST: Long Island City (+KGP)

“I’ve seen an old building stand and then it being demolished and then a new building in its place — the full gentrification of LIC for the most part,” he said. “Some pictures that are just gravel [in the book] are now 60-story residential towers.”

In addition to the Long Island City book, Graves has invited nine other photographers living in cities around the world to document the landscapes they live in, including Lois Connor, who will present LOST: Beijing on Saturday. Each book is 48 pages and the other cities included are Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Kolkata, Manhattan, Omaha, San Francisco and Seattle.

The Foto Book Fair Reading Room features books from the participating publishers: Aint-Bad, Corey Presha, Drittel Books, Foley Gallery, Gnomic Book, +KGP, Puritan Capital, RITA Books, Roman Nvmerals, TBW Books, TIS Books, Zatara Press

LES Foto Book Fair at Foley Gallery this weekend, 59 Orchard Street, NY, NY [map below]

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
+ Sara J Winston | Homesick is a diary of the photographer’s relocation and well-being as told through anecdotal photographs of food scraps, phantom limbs, and common objects that accompanied the journey. The narrative portrays her household’s health from the vantage point of an artist that is coming to terms with her own physical condition. 
+ Jeanette Spicer | Sea(see) is a photographic documentation of a relationship over the course of a year. This work was an opportunity for me explore and express my female gaze upon female body. 
+ Magali Duzant | Light Blue Desireinvestigates the power, failure, and fluidity of language. The project, in its current incarnation as an artist book, lyrically maps the amorphous definition and meaning of the word blue across languages. 
+ Zoe Ames | works at Puritan Capital. She will be lecturing and taking questions about book production, analog and digital. 
+ Marteinn Jonasson | works with multiple book production companies. He has produced books for many major collections, museums, and artists, and also works with first-time bookmakers. 
+ For the last two years, Romke Hoogwaerts has been developing a photobook and film on a working-class epic that takes place on the beaches of the The Hague, Holland, where every New Year’s Eve, two neighborhoods build rivaling bonfires. These days they are the biggest in the world.