Peggy Roalf: What were you involved with when you decided on your career choice?

Paul Kopeikin: I studied theater at UC Santa Cruz and thought I would be a firm director, or at least that was my dream at the time. I had a weird thing happen where I was admitted to Graduate School at NYU (same class as the Coen Brothers) on a Monday and then told that Friday they had made a clerical error and I actually didn’t get it. I was living in San Francisco at the time and that disappointment really threw me off. I was bartending and started working for a gallery, first as a bartender and then as an assistant. These were good years to start a gallery, but I was still focused on a career in the movie business and so I left San Francisco after a couple of years to go down to LA. I was starting my independent post-college life, trying to write a screenplay while working in the Industry. But I was still unfocused and not very talented and so I had a languishing career, bouncing between below the line production work and above the line working as for a couple of different producers. At one point I got sick of the entire thing and decided I needed to do something different. Starting a gallery seemed like an easy thing to do and something I could do on my own, so I went for it and opened in November 1991.

PR: When did you realize that books would be important in your life? 

PK: Books seem to have always been important to me. Even as a child I loved my books and I continued to buy and read books throughout my school and college years. I have never lived anywhere where there were not a lot of book cases, not always full. I consider it an essential piece of furniture.

PR: When did you realize that you had become a true collector of photo- and artbooks?

PK: I had been buying photography books since college but they were always kept in my house. My first gallery was too small to have any books there and so when I moved to  my second gallery I built bookshelves behind the front desk. I remember building them with art books in mind. Maybe the shelves were four feet long and I can remember when I filled the first one with books that it felt as if I was really starting a “library.” At this point I only bought photography books and you could easily buy every significant one that came out as comparatively few were published back then.

PR: What went into your current choice of bookcases — any research? Any seen/envied among friends/colleagues? Any particular manufacturer?

PK: I knew that bookshelves had to be built to fit the books that were going to go into them, and so I always had large shelves. I made the mistake of making built-ins so that when I moved I had to leave them. So at one point I made the shelves modular so that they could move with me, and that worked out really well. Somewhere in the early 2000’s I already had several hundred books and had started to buy duplicates of anything I felt was important enough, so I was building a small, separate library of duplicates that I kept at home as well as the main library at the gallery. And actually I started a third collection after my daughter was born; I made a concerted effort to buy art books that might interest her rather than photography books. When I got divorced I kept the art library and duplicates of the photography collection mostly at my ex-wife and daughter’s house while at the same time building shelves and starting to fill them when I eventually moved into my own house.

I should say that one of the reasons I could buy so many books was that when I opened the gallery I contacted all the major books distributors and set up accounts as a book-seller, operating from the gallery. But I was able to buy all I wanted at 40-50% off the retail price, and this was mostly before Amazon.com, so I bought a lot of books. It seemed the more I acquired the more I wanted.

PR: What do you like most about your bookcases?

PK: They’re the right size for large art books.

PR:: Are they everything you every hoped for or is there room for improvement?

PK: There’s just room for, or at least the desire for, more shelves, always.

PR: What went into your research and design process when you contemplated building your own?

PK: I actually did build my own books shelves for my second gallery. I’m not a carpenter so I measured it all out and had the wood cut at a lumber yard. The workers at a lumber yard usually aren’t the most careful, but I explained to them that I needed their finest work and it turned out they could do a great job if motivated. Those shelves eventually went home with me when my library got too big and they’re still in my ex-wife’s house.

PR: If you had planned on building your own but changed your mind in favor of readymades, what happened?

PK: My requirements outstripped my ability to fulfill those requirements.

PR: Have your shelves ever collapsed under the weight of your books? Or have your photo-and-artbook caused any other type of disaster caused by big heavy books?

PK: Early on before I fully knew what I needed, I under-built my bookshelves; they collapsed and books were ruined.

PR: How you organize your photo-and-artbooks?

PK: At the gallery they were alphabetical, but by the time I was in my last place the collection had grown to around 2,000 books and overtook even the shelving I thought I had had enough of, so things started to get haphazard.

PR: How do you maintain your library? For example, do you periodically take it apart and reorganize, or something along those lines?

PK: No, it rarely gets touched.

PR: Have you ever had to move your library? What are the best and worst things about moving this kind of collection?

PK: I have moved my library too many times! I hired two people who worked for several weeks the last time I moved. Each box was photographed and numbered, coordinated with the photo so I am sure what is in each box. There are over 150 boxes and they are in storage as we speak. That’s the main library, which, by-the-way, is for sale. There remain hundreds of books at my ex-wife’s house and my house combined, where the pictures here were taken. And I still have many duplicates in storage.

PR: Please feel free to make this a mashup:

• What is the first photo-or-artbook you ever bought and why did it catch your attention?

I can’t remember the first photo book I ever bought but I can tell you that the book that started me on my path in photography is “The Family of Man” which was in my house growing up. I know that is true for many of my colleagues

• What was the last photo-or-artbook you purchased?

I recently purchased David Benjamin Sherry’s landscape book published by Radius, but can’t remember if I bought anything since.

• What is the next photo-or-artbook you might purchase?

There is so much published now that I am really only buying books I feel will last the test of time, which has greatly reduced what I buy. But I m always on the lookout for any books that have to do with snapshots and vernacular photography in general.

PR: Is there a rarity that somehow got away that you regret not grabbing when it was affordable?

PK: I passed up a pristine first edition of Robert Frank’s "The Americans” because I didn’t have the $2,500 at the time.

PR: Can you advise the readers on anything you feel should be avoided in the planning and construction/installation of bookcases?

PK: Build them in sections so they can be moved. Build as many lineal feet as possible because you’ll fill them. Build them large enough to hold 90+ percent of your books and then build a section for the extra large books that won’t fit in the regular shelves.

Read the February 2020 L'Oeil Interview here. Read the 2012 DART interview with Paul here