Melbourne Art Book Fair at NGV International 2022

Overview

Love art, or just need a hefty tome to decorate your coffee table? Either way, the Melbourne Art Book Fair has you covered. The long-running annual literary lūʻau will this year see more than 90 publishers take over the Great Hall at NGV International, showcasing art books, independent zines, limited edition prints, magazines and more.

The fair is held across a handful of free-entry sessions, starting on Friday, March 18, when you can head in to browse goodies from a huge array of stallholders. There'll also be collaborative pop-ups, and installations like The Annotated Reader — a world-famous exhibition by Ryan Gander and Jonathan P Watts showcasing 281 personal responses to a chosen piece of writing.

Similar marketplace sessions are running on Saturday and Sunday (10am–5pm), while the Friday evening session (6–10pm) is being held as a special addition to the regular NGV Friday Nights program, complemented by pop-up bars, DJ tunes and late-night gallery access. A relaxed morning session (8.30–10am Sunday) is set to feature lighter crowds and reduced sensory stimuli — you can register for this one online.

Running alongside the IRL event, a Melbourne Art Book Fair online edition will pull together a hefty lineup of over 100 local and international publishers. And you can catch a statewide program of satellite events running through until Sunday, March 27, featuring poetry readings, book launches and more.

Top image: Wayne Taylor.