About Miss Read

Founded in 2009, MISS READ is dedicated to building a community and creating a public meeting place for discourse around artists’ books, conceptual publications and publishing as artistic and political practice.

Miss Read: The Berlin Art Book Fair brings together a wide selection of the most interesting artists/authors, artist periodicals and art publishers and is accompanied by a series of lectures, discussions, book launches and workshops exploring the boundaries of contemporary publishing and the possibilities of the book. In conjunction with Miss Read, the annual Conceptual Poetics Day explores the imaginary border between visual art and literature.

Exhibitors are treated egalitarian, that means that any exhibitor, say Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, will get the same amount of space as any other exhibitor, say a small zine. Entrance to Miss Read and Miss Read events is FREE.

While dedicated to the dissemination, understanding and appreciation of artists’ books and related publications, Miss Read also aims to empower artists who operate independently from the commercial gallery system. Miss Read is interested in publishing as an explicitly political act and the desire to challenge an (not just art-) establishment as well as publishing as an implicitly political act and its challenge to imagine a new kind of reading.

Continuing its shared exploration into Decolonizing Art Book Fairs, Miss Read is committed to broaden the spectrum of what publishing represents and aims to nurture different cultures and communities from around the world. Beyond being an annual art book fair and festival taking place in Berlin, Miss Read also participates in other Art Book Fairs around the world, publishes books, produces radio and MISS READ TALKS throughout the year.

Miss Read was founded in 2009 by KW Institute for Contemporary Art, argobooks and Michalis Pichler.

For three successive years, Miss Read took place at KW Institute of contemporary art, starting with 27 exhibitor stalls and a publishers wall in 2009. In 2012 and 2013, Miss Read took place parallel to the commercial art fair Art berlin Contemporary ABC at Station Berlin. Even then, entry to Miss read was Free to all visitors.

For two years, Miss Read took place at Akademie der Künste Berlin, featuring 129 exhibitors in 2015 and 177 exhibitors in 2016. Since 2017, Miss Read takes place at Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin (HKW), with the number of exhibitors always growing. In 2022 Miss Read featured 318 exhibitors.

Since 2015 Miss Read is artist-run. Previous co-organizers and curators of Miss Read were Yaiza Camps (2015-2023), Kristen Mueller (2015), Moritz Grünke (2015-2022), Pascale Obolo (since 2020) and Michalis Pichler (since 2009).

Moritz also initiated Miss Read´s radio program Miss Readio and curated and hosted its inaugural program in 2022, together with Maja Milic from reboot.fm.

Over the years Miss Read has been supported by many interns, among them Yuma Carpenter-New, Raül Fernández Gil, Ethan Levenson, Olivia Lynch, Nikita Moutsoupoulou, Nina Rose-Lewis, Natalia Saburova, Helene Cunningham, Emma Deutsch and Alexander Zondervan.

In 2019 Miss Read embarked on Decolonizing Art Book Fairs and started working together with Mosaiques publisher Parfait Tabapsi (2020-2022), and founder and director of AFRIKADAA and African Art Book Fair Pascale Obolo.

Many artists have participated at Miss Read with individual tables, and been there throughout fair hours, among them Fiona Banner, AA Bronson, documentation Celine Duval, Gloria Glitzer, GRRRR, Takashi Homma, Jonathan Monk, Dexter Sinister, Mladen Stilinovic, Temporary Services, Joachim Schmid, Elisabeth Tonnard and Eva Weinmayr.

A new poster of Miss Read is created every year by another artist: Miss Read posters have been created by Michalis Pichler (2010), Achim Lengerer (2011), rakete/Erik Steinbrecher (2012), Lawrence Weiner (2013 & 2015), Cia Rinne (2016), Karl Holmqvist (2017 & 2018), Åse Eg Jørgensen (2019), Natalie Czech (2020), Jay Ramier (2022) and Aziza Ahmad (2023).

Posters for the Conceptual Poetics Day have been created by Michalis Pichler (2013), John Stezaker (2014), Cia Rinne (2015), Haris Epaminonda (2016), Pavel Büchler (2017), Mariana Castillo Deball (2018), Natalie Czech (2019), Nontsikelelo Mutiti (2022), and Claude Closky (2023).