Galleries/Venues

The Reading Room is a project based in private spaces in Berlin, with the aim to maintain, archive and represent products of contemporary art practices evolving within printed and published formats. The project presents a curated selection of over 50 artist's publications (books, zines, magazines and newspapers) and related projects (such as fold-out posters or published audio projects), from a range of internationally based artists, both established and emerging.

In addition to the traditionally known artist-made books, artist monographs or exhibition catalogues, the published format itself is now regularly viewed as a primary site for an artist's engagement. While often considered as secondary to the more prevalent presentation space of the gallery, the act of publishing has developed itself into a self-contained and highly resonant method of artistic expression. The Reading Room focuses on the publication utilised as medium and context for art practices, in which the artists choose deliberately and critically to engage with the format, using its materiality, edges and frame as tools for both visual and semantic communication.

The Reading Room project was initially based on well-known institutional "reading rooms" (such as the one of the British Museum in London), and functions as such: it was open for public viewing, but with those wishing to use it being required to make an appointment, and in return being granted solitary time to explore the collection. The Reading Room also took its initial presentation format from the idea of the "salon", gathering its printed matters and materials under the roof of an inspiring hostess or host. The visitors and readers of The Reading Room rang the bell of a private apartment, climbed up the stairs to it, and then were able to sit in a separate study room within an otherwise domestic space, engaging themselves with the many publications and projects of the collection.
Refreshments were served.

The Reading Room is an initiative of artists Ciarán Walsh and Dominique Hurth.