In 2018, Marfa Book Co. took up residence on the bookshelves at ICA LA.

Marfa Book Co. is an independent bookstore, publisher, and project space in Marfa, Texas. After twenty years as a brick-and-mortar shop, Marfa Book Co. opened its first experimental pop-up at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. The residency launched in conjunction with Grandfather: A Pioneer Like Us, an exhibition by the groundbreaking Swiss curator Harald Szeemann, and featured select publishers in the fields of poetry, art, photography and criticism.

Each publisher was chosen for the depth of their editorial vision, with publications selected to reflect their distinct perspectives. Publishers include Gato Negro, an art and poetry press based in Mexico City; Dorothy, a publishing project, a St. Louis-based publisher dedicated to prose works by women; Haymarket, a publisher of progressive political theory and social history; and Primary Information, a specialist in facsimile reproductions of artists books and writings from the 1960s and 1970s. Marfa Book Co. also continued ICA LA’s partnership with local bilingual children’s bookstore LA Librería.

Marfa Book Co. is committed to the belief that bookstores can provide their communities with spaces for generative cultural encounters.