The DART Book Prize—one of our favorite features—is back. For this Spring 2026 edition, readers—and I know many of you are artbook lovers—are invited to write a caption for the photo above. But first some information to get you headed in the wildest possible direction.

You can tell just by looking that this is event is situated in Chelsea because four out of the five participants are attired in black. The fact that the goods being rifled through are art and photo books and press proofs contributes to that impression. 

So here’s what led up to what happened on that afternoon, downstairs from Aperture’s Burden Gallery, back in 2002. An interim Executive Director had been installed following the untimely death of photo guru Michal A. Hoffman, who had commandeered the post for 36 years. Wanting to make a good impression on the Board of Directors—who had the power to name her the new ED—she launched a top-to-bottom cleanout of the beautiful townhouse headquarters at 23rd Street. She started with the warehouse/shipping room, which occupied the basement, ditching every book that should have gone out of print, but didn’t, for reasons that would have been obvious to pretty much anyone except Michael.

I [an editor and curator at the time] took this photo when the melee began, because there was a racket of feisty conversation much louder than the usual lunchtime banter as more and more passersby entered the melee. Soon the law showed up, and climbed five flights up to the ED’s office to issue a megabucks fine for breaking an obsolete law that was still on the books. The ED wisely summoned the assistance of Aperture’s wiley Foreign Editions negotiator, who was adept, in several languages, at convincing otherwise intelligent people that black was white. And Bingo, the officers quickly departed after charging Aperture a comparatively cheap fine for littering.

So I hope that this is enough to put you in the picture.

Three winners will be selected by DART’s cohort at AI-AP HQ. Please see criteria below. Prizes can be shipped domestically only, so if you live abroad and have a friend here who could keep your prize on ice for you, please join the contest. 

Good luck to all—I can’t wait to see what you come up with,

Peggy

Spring 2026 Book Prize Criteria

Write a caption in English that is 100  to 200 words in length.

The caption can be prose or poetry, typographic animation or alternate reality, or whatever is your thing—but ABSOLUTELY NOTHING GENERATED BY AI [seriously, I can tell].

Captions will be judged for originality, humor or gravity, relevance to the publishing world, the art scene, the photography scene, and the urban mess we love so much. 

Deadline: Midnight wherever you live, Thursday, April 9. 

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