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4 great independent art bookshops in Berlin (according to our Art Editor)

Looking for your next coffee table art book? Our Art Editor has the lowdown on where to find truly inspiring art books.

Photo: Zabriskie

As the son of an antiquarian art book seller, you’d think I’d love hanging out in art bookshops, flipping through the oversized tomes, nodding to other literary-minded Berliners as we sift through catalogues, monographs and all the inventive oddities that constitute artist books. But the truth is I tend to avoid them.

I’ve had enough of the chaos, the time sink, the self-important shopkeepers whose stores – opened as beacons for the best of human creativity – settle into a weary resignation, offering Taschen coffee table books about “1,000 chairs”.

It all stems from my childhood, waiting around while my dad, “just popping in”, disappeared into every bookshop we passed, only to emerge hours later with stacks of books to plug up our already heaving hallways. And then the endless book fairs, travelling around the South of England, lugging my dad’s collapsible blue plastic boxes from Volvo estate to town hall (the start of my back problems), the slimy smear of flask tea…

But, childhood trauma aside, I’m coming to appreciate just how much bookshops
have changed. The white, male-dominated temples of my youth have given way to a vibrant, eclectic scene. Berlin, in particular, boasts a rich array of independent art bookshops – safe spaces that champion the radical and the alternative, offering an inky arsenal to shake the mind free from the fog of convention.

She Said

Photo: Savannah van der Niet

No space encapsulates that more than She Said on Kottbusser Damm, a bookshop dedicated solely to female and queer authors. Technically it’s more novels and theory than art books, but what is contemporary art if not a jumble of objects anchored by some abstruse quote from a book of queer theory?

Open, colourful and vibrant, here you’ll find a book about how to implement polygamy in your life, an admirable spread of Fitzcaraldo Editions including Kirstie Bell’s excellent The Undercurrents, and shelves dedicated to marginalised voices with an excellent selection of underground zines and pamphlets.

There’s a café, too, and much as I abhor the persecution of laptop users, it was good to see them enforcing the rule and exiling one gadget-rich customer to the corner table.

  • She Said, Kottbusser Damm 79, Kreuzberg, details.

Zabriskie

Photo: Zabriskie

A 10-minute walk away, you have the quieter but no-less-inviting Zabriskie, with its focus on nature and culture. (I saw a great talk here with the art historian and writer TJ Demos a year ago.) They’ve been around for about 10 years now, though don’t bother engaging the workers in small talk – there’s a reason why they’ve become booksellers.

Much like She Said, rather than packing the displays, the books regularly swapped around. And despite the predictable range of smug Robert Macfarlane offerings, there’s a terrific collection of artist books and multiples, from a book about raving in World War II bunkers by artist Julie Hascoët to affordable, fungi-like sculptures by Astarte Posch.

  • Zabriskie, Reichenberger Str. 150, Kreuzberg, details.

MottoBooks

Photo: MottoBooks

As a shop, distributor and publisher, MottoBooks on Skalitzer Straße is a Berlin institution. Unfortunately, it’s been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, with allegations of not paying staff or its suppliers, with some even accusing the management of “systemic fraud”.

It’s a shame, as beneath the dust is a trove of lesser-known artist books (a few so bleakly obscure it’s a wonder they were ever published). There’s an attitude to the place, and one US citizen, who made the mistake of asking for Berlin-focused books, was scathingly sent away to König Books (Berlin’s art-book megastore).

  • MottoBooks, Skalitzer Str. 68, Kreuzberg, details.

Hopscotch Reading Room

Photo: Hopscotch Reading Room

Browsing, it should be said, is fine, but is not exactly what bookshops are hoping for, so after almost buying a secondhand Octavia E. Butler book from Hopscotch Reading Room’s well stocked sci-fi section on Kurfürstenstraße, I ended up leaving with a slim pamphlet on German Universalism – they have a small printing operation on-site.

Visiting so many stores, I felt bamboozled: theoretical books promising to shift your perspective, guides to unlocking your mind through psychedelics, books on racism and discrimination, and self-published artist books capturing nothing more than sunlight in a backyard. Each one offering, in micro- or macrocosm, a new perspective, a chance to see the world anew. Though, for some of us, the first step is just walking through the door.

  • Hopscotch Reading Room, Kurfürstenstr. 14/Haus B, Tiergarten, details.