The first day of the Setouchi Art Book Fair is in the books. We set out towards the venue this morning in some heavy rain to set up our booth. Luckily, the rain dissipated as the morning wore on and we just needed to wipe down our baggage and put our shoes in in a plastic bag before entering the Hiunkaku space inside Tamamo Park in Takamatsu, Japan.
We arrived on the early side of the installation so the venue was still empty as we started to lay out our books in our booth. We are located in the Daisyoin room of Hiunkaku which hosts about half of the participating artists/galleries/publishers. It is a big space with plenty of room between booths allowing for many visitors to browse through books at a relaxed pace. Even better, Art Byte Critique is located at one of the end rows of the space which gives us even more room in front of the booth with a walkway corridor adding more room for people to pass by our space. The Hiunkaku venue is a welcome change in venue as most of the rooms have tatami and exhibitors and visitors are required to take off their shoes before entering the venue. There are multiple rooms with large single booths, as well as the large Daisyoin space, along with a talk event space. The food and drink concessions are located right outside the entrance of Hiunkaku which is great for exhibitors and visitors.
Being a historical site, very few modifications could be made to the space. All the booth table legs had cardboard underneath to protect the tamami floors and all the folding chair legs were wrapped in bubble wrap to do the same. The Setouchi Art Book Fair is the first art book fair that Art Byte Critique has participated in which is not based in Tokyo. Traveling from Tokyo and bring books and display materials along with, we kept our display layout very simple. Most of the books lay flat on the 180 x 60 cm table with a handful of books placed on display stands toward the back of the table. The majority of the booths in the Daisyoin room have a similar layout although there are also some quite elaborate set ups as well. In contrast to previous art book fairs, we displayed the books along with their stock stacked underneath the sample which was also a common layout.
After a couple hours in the space to set up and refine our booth layout, we headed out to lunch at a bread buffet restaurant located near Takamatsu Station. We promptly returned to the venue in time for the 1 pm start of the Setouchi Art Book Fair. At this point, the weather had turned from rainy to cloudy with spots of sun. The venue itself is on the darker side with light fixtures sparsely placed in the venue. At the start, our booth was only lit by one overhead lamp along the corridor and it was darker than we would have liked. As the sun popped in and out, it got a bit better, but browsing the books in the dim light was a bit of a challenge. It was a common issue for several spots inside Daisyoin, but by the end of the day, the lighting issue was remedied by being able to shift our booth toward the single overhead light due to a cancellation in the booth next to us and the installation of a bright standing lamp near our booth. Tomorrow’s weather is forecast to be sunny and with these adjustments, it should make for it easy for visitors to enjoy browsing our booths.
Crowds in the early half of the day were steady, but light as it was a Friday afternoon. As the workday came to a close, we noticed a significant pick up in visitors probably due to the post work crowd and those visitors to the Setouchi Triennial returning to Takamatsu port. The last couple hours saw the sale of works by four Art Byte Critique artists. After a long day, we are all resting up for a busy and crowd filled Saturday at the Setouchi Art Book Fair.
Hopefully, the Day 2 Report will have pictures to share as Day 1 was spent setting up, adjusting, and optimizing our booth display for the weekend rush!
More tomorrow after the Setouchi Art Book Fair which is open from 10 am - 8 pm.