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Granary Books is an independent small press and rare books and archives dealer based in New York City. Owned and directed by Steve Clay, Granary has published hundreds of books that "produce, promote, document, and theorize new works exploring the intersection of word, image, and page." As a rare books and archives dealer, Granary Books also assists in the placement and preservation of authors' and artists' archives. In addition to these activities, Granary Books administers projects such as "From a Secret Location," a digital repository of materials related to the small press and mimeograph revolutions from the 1960s to 1980s. Its trade books are distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers and Small Press Distribution.
The poet and translator Jerome Rothenberg writes of Granary Books: "In the true history of American poetry...Granary Books, as a press & resource, is exemplary of how poets & related artists in the post-World War Two era were able to establish shadow institutions that operated, nearly successfully, outside the frame of any & all self-proclaimed poetic mainstreams." Kyle Schlesinger writes, "It is difficult to imagine that any syllabus (or practitioner’s bookshelf for that matter) about the artists’ book could be complete without at least one title from Granary"
Granary Books' works have been the subject of over 10 exhibitions, including most recently Participating Witness: The Poetics of Granary Books at Poets House, New York City, in 2020.
Clay says that publishing "became more self-conscious as a project" and "serious in its ambition" in 1991 with the publication of Nods, with text by John Cage and drawings by Barbara Farhner. In this spirit, Many of Granary Books' limited-edition publications continue to be collaborations or pairings between poets/writers and visual artists. Many also contain unique elements, such as handpainting; Susan Bee describes this creative process for her book, Talespin (Granary Books, 1995). These limited-edition publications are held in special collections and archives internationally, and explore the relationship between "image and the word and tactile comprehension," in collaboration with artists, poets, bookbinders, printers, and designers.
Starting in the mid-nineties Granary Books began publishing books that contextualize scholarship in the history of small press publishing, poetry, and artists' books. The first Granary Books trade edition was Johanna Drucker's The Century of Artists' Books, followed by Jerome Rothenberg and David M. Guss's The Book, Spiritual Instrument. Other trade books include Jerome Rothenberg and Steve Clay's A Book of the Book: Some Works & Projections About the Book & Writing, Betty Bright's No Longer Innocent: Book Art in America 1960–1980, and Stefan Klima's Artists Books: A Critical Survey of the Literature. Steve Clay and Rodney Phillips's A Secret Location on the Lower East Side resulted from an exhibition at The New York Public Library by the same name, and is considered "not only significant in its refusal to lose the evidence of the period it covers (1960-80), but for showing that entering the evidence into the public record is a means of shaping the discourse about the critical context of the period."
Granary Books also published out-of-print works for wider distribution, such as Joe Brainard's I Remember, originally published by Angel Hair Books, as well as trade poetry books by poets including Alice Notley, Ed Sanders, Larry Fagin, and numerous others.
As of August 2020, Granary Books has a checklist with over 177 publications that includes limited editions and trade editions of poetry, artists' books, and books about books.
Some of the archives that Granary Books has placed include: Charles Bernstein, Burning Deck Press, Ira Cohen (The Bardo Matrix, Gnaoua, and The Great Society featuring Angus MacLise, Jack Smith, and Piero Heliczer), Clark Coolidge, Robert Creeley, Ray DiPalma, Richard Foreman (Ontological-Hysteric Theater), Kathleen Fraser, Susan Howe, Susan King, Joanne Kyger, Ann Lauterbach, Bernadette Mayer, Poetry Project (literary organization archive), M/E/A/N/I/N/G (art journal archive), Patty Oldenberg Mucha (New York City Artworld in the Sixties & Seventies), Ron Padgett, Carolee Schneemann, Leslie Scalapino, Patti Smith (featured in the Janet Hamill Archive), Lewis Warsh, Marjorie Welish, Jane Brakhage Wodening, and Woodland Pattern Book Center (literary organization archive).
Granary Books has placed archives in: The Library of Congress; Beinecke Library; Fales Library, Mandeville Special Collections Library at University of California, San Diego; Bancroft Library; New York Public Library, John Hay Library at Brown University; and Green Library, among others.
In 2013, Columbia University Libraries/Information Services’ Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired the archive of Granary Books which includes over thirty years of materials which reflects the complete history of the press.
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