When discussion of the market for contemporary art makes its way into the popular press, it often centers on how immune the market seems to be to broader financial trends. Last fall, as the latest round of art auctions concluded, Carol Vogel stated it plainly in the New York Times: “Never mind the gyrations on Wall Street or the subprime mortgage and equity crisis. There's still plenty of money out there and an unquenched appetite for art.” Although the market's imperviousness might be severely tested in the coming year, there is no question that record-breaking auction prices for the art of the most recent past are front-page news along the lines of opening weekend grosses for Hollywood blockbusters. Thousands of collectors attend dozens of art fairs annually in New York City, Miami and several European venues where they collectively spend hundreds of millions of dollars. Here and abroad cities announce new museums dedicated to contemporary art (the Eli Broad Museum of Contemporary Art at the L.A. County Museum, Denver's Museum of Contemporary Art) or add wings to existing museums designed by the select list of “starchitects” favored by the contemporary art world (the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Mo., last year added a wing by Steven Hull).

How are the major art book publishers addressing this growing market for contemporary art? How do they choose to commit time and resources to a project where the artist is hardly a household name, as is often the case with contemporary as opposed to classic art? “The contemporary art world is still finite,” says Charles Miers, publisher of Rizzoli USA. “An artist's success at auction or in galleries may not translate into [book] sales.” He adds, however, that in the past several years Rizzoli has revitalized its contemporary art program and now does four—five monographs a year for that market. At Harry N. Abrams, editorial director Deborah Aaronson says, “We have always done well with contemporary art. The secret is to choose wisely, to choose the right artist at the right moment.”

A look at recent and upcoming lists from publishers reveals several shared approaches toward producing books for different niches within the already niche market for contemporary art.

The Introductory Series

Since its inception, Taschen Books has been known for its Basic Art series, an affordable list of paperback titles designed to introduce students and the interested public to major figures in art history. Over the past 20 years, the series has undergone periodic format changes, and the list of artists has grown well beyond the initial of lineup of old and modern masters. Now, along with Monet and Dalí, Taschen offers, at $9.99 each, 96-page introductions to such artists as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Francis Bacon. In its Basic Art Movement series, Taschen stays even more up-to-date, with recent volumes on New Media Art (2006) and Land Art (2007). The newest entry to the movement series, not due until spring 2009, is tentatively titled “Non-commissioned Public Art,” which sounds like either an expanded or euphemistic description of graffiti.

Abrams has become the distributor of the Tate Modern Artists Series from the Tate Gallery in London. According to Aaronson, this sort of distribution offers Abrams “the impeccable taste and curatorial expertise” of the Tate and allows it to do books on lesser known artists “we couldn't otherwise commit to.” The Tate series has focused on the generation of British artists that includes Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, although the veteran American painter Ed Ruscha becomes the ninth artist on the list this October.

The Contemporary Artists series from Phaidon Press takes by far the most in-depth approach to a wide range of artists working today. Begun in 1995, the series now offers 60 titles in a format that incorporates a historical overview, critical essays, interviews, selections of the artist's own writings and extensive reproductions of work. According to Liz Thompson, publicity and marketing director, North America, “We try to time the books just as the artist is emerging onto the international scene.” The entire series remains in print at prices ranging from $39.95 to $49.95, and several older titles have undergone updates and revisions. This season Phaidon has published surveys on the artist/designer Jorge Pardo, American photographer Stephen Shore and the British painter Peter Doig. A volume on performance artist Marina Abramovic is due out in October.

Survey Volumes

The field of contemporary art would seem to move too quickly to be amenable to the sort of large, in-depth survey volumes that publishers customarily produce on historical movements. But several publishers have committed themselves to innovative approaches to presenting what are in effect snapshots of the current moment.

Taschen has produced two volumes in its Art Now series. A reprint of the 2005 volume Art Now 2 has already sold out a second 2008 printing, and Art Now 3 is scheduled for October. Each volume profiles over 100 new artists who have emerged internationally, which gives a good indication of the size of the field from which editors can make their selections.

Phaidon has several programs that survey the contemporary scene. In 1998 the company published Cream, for which it invited 10 international curators to each choose an artist. This format has continued with Fresh Cream (2000), Cream 3 (2003) and Ice Cream (2007), and similar books pairing curators and artists have looked at such fields as architecture, design and fashion. A new Cream volume can be expected every three to four years.

Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting (hardcover 2002, paperback 2004) initiated a series focused on individual disciplines. Each Vitamin title features over 100 artists, with each entry giving biographical information and several pages of color reproductions. Vitamin D, for drawing, and Vitamin PH, on photography, have extended the series, and in spring 2009 Vitamin 3D will bring sculpture and installation art into the program. These higher priced volumes are aimed, according to Thompson, at art collectors interested in keeping up with trends and the wide range of names that burst on the scene. Photo Art: Photography in the 21st Century (Apr. 2008) from Aperture also makes a direct address to collectors. Each of the 100 plus entries includes contact information for either the photographer or the gallery that markets the work.

Monographs and Catalogues

As the publishing equivalent of the one-person show, a major monograph remains the most desired format for any exhibiting artist. But producing and marketing monographs is expensive and chancy and most publishers look for partnerships with museums or galleries before proceeding with such projects.

For some years, Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P.) has taken the lead in this field of partnering by working as a distributor for many European publications. “When we started in 1991,” says Todd Bradway, director of publications at D.A.P., “we had three client publishers. Our current catalogue has about 200 publishers and over 500 titles, and at least 300 of those are on contemporary art or photography.” Since the company is distributing rather than producing the books, it can work with smaller quantities of more specialized titles. In August Hatje Cantz published the catalogue for the Peter Saul retrospective currently touring the U.S., and this German publisher continues to work with an increasing list of American museums. JRP:Ringier in Zurich works with American galleries, producing significant catalogues for artists not yet on the museum circuit.

D.A.P. has begun placing its own imprint on several books per season, mostly done as copublications with European museums. Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons (Sept.) is the catalogue to that American painter's retrospective originating at the Tate Modern in London. Since the exhibition tours Europe but does not come to the U.S., D.A.P.'s catalogue is the only presence the show will have in the States. Painting People: Figure Painting Today (July) is a survey not related to an exhibition that D.A.P. produced on its own.

Close relationships with exhibiting organizations prove to be an important source of material for several publishers. The Revolution Continues: New Art from China is Rizzoli's first collaborative project with the Saatchi Collection in London. This just-published title initiates a series that will systematically come from the collection, continuing with a book on American abstract painting for spring 2009 and a sculpture volume in the fall. Phaidon has been working with the New Museum in New York City since that museum's SoHo reopening last year. Phaidon produced Unmonumental, the catalogue for the museum's inaugural exhibition in 2007. Live Forever: Elizabeth Peyton (Oct.) accompanies this young American artist's retrospective that will tour the U.S. and Europe for the next year.

Aperture is working with the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago to develop and distribute catalogues for its exhibitions, and Street Life, Street Art (Sept.) is a catalogue copublished with the Bronx Museum of Art. Much of the work in Street Life comes from artists not identified with the traditional photography world that one associates with Aperture, but “the boundaries between categories are collapsing,” according to Lesley Martin, director of publications. “Aperture has a long history with the roots of photography, but you have to remember that those early photographers were experimenting in their own time.” More and more, Martin is presented with projects that cross over between the photography world and the contemporary art market.

Monographs not directly tied to exhibitions are much rarer for contemporary artists than for more established names. Choosing a project, according to Miers at Rizzoli, is “a very subjective process. First I have to fall in love with the artist and the work. Then a combination of experience and instinct determines if we go forward.” Those qualities have served Rizzoli well with recent successes on such artists as Lucien Freud, Elizabeth Peyton and Jenny Savile. Some of the monographs, such as a recent volume on West Coast sculptor Robert Therrien (May 2008), coincide with major gallery exhibitions but do not serve as catalogues to those exhibitions. Others are artist-initiated projects, like Matthew Ritchie: More than the Eye (Nov.). A Keith Haring title due out in November is a greatly expanded version of a book Haring was planning at the time of his death in 1990. This deluxe, boxed edition will be the most authoritative work done on an artist who still has both popular appeal and critical support.

Beneath the Roses (Mar. 2008), a monograph on photographer Gregory Crewdson from Abrams, fits well into what Aaronson says the publisher is attempting to do with contemporary artists. Crewdson creates mysterious color photographs, shot with the sorts of crews and digital manipulation the public associates with filmmaking. “He is not a household name,” she says, “but this could be a breakout publication, with appeal outside the niche market.” The publisher expects coverage in both the art press and the mainstream media, which it received for an earlier Crewdson title, Twilight, in 2002. For the text accompanying the images Abrams has enlisted novelist Russell Banks rather than an art expert. Abrams hopes that Crewdson may develop into an artist with the combined popular and art world appeal that it has found with British landscape sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. Says Aaronson, “Andy has the respect of art connoisseurs and his work resonates with people interested in nature. There is a strong emotional response to the work.” Abrams has seven Goldsworthy titles in print, with a new work, Time, due this month in paperback.

Deluxe and Limited Editions

Rather than remaining on the sidelines of the contemporary market, several of these publishers have chosen to enter the ring with deluxe editions they market directly to the public through galleries, their own Web sites and the few bookstores interested in handling such high-ticket items—books that in themselves are art works. Since its publication of the Helmut Newton SUMO edition in 2000, which came with a custom display stand designed by Philippe Starck, Taschen has continued to develop artists' editions. This year it has sold out a $4,000 signed edition of a Jeff Koons title that is also available in a more deluxe $12,500 version. Other artists receiving special editions this season include abstract painter Christopher Wool (Oct.) and Olafur Eliasson (Oct.)—he of the waterfalls currently flowing into the East River in New York. Both Phaidon and Aperture have active programs for collectors' editions, which usually involve a signed print along with a specially bound copy of the book.

New Markets

All the publishers interviewed for this article mentioned that increasing numbers of these contemporary titles are going into nontraditional retail stores. For D.A.P. that can mean placing books in such trendy venues as Giant Robot, the Los Angeles specialty store for Japanese youth culture, or new, hip fashion outlets like Opening Ceremony. Bergdorf's, Neiman Marcus and Stanley Korshak were all mentioned as retailers who will add what they see as the right book to their mix. Phaidon's catalogue for the New Museum's Elizabeth Peyton exhibition will be featured in major markets by Banana Republic, the exhibition's major sponsor.

“These stores are selling a lifestyle,” says Aaronson, “and art is a part of that lifestyle.”