Stage set
Melbourne Art Book Fair
Great Hall, NGV International
180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Friday 16th May – Sunday 18th May, 2025
“The most common form of nineteenth-century peepshow was made of flexible folding paper or linen bellows with lithographed or engraved, and often hand-coloured, scenes placed in succession to give the visual effect of receding space. Although it is impossible to know how many were published, they were common, and inexpensive, if not cheap. 19 This genre could be stored flattened and, importantly, no longer required a showman to operate. Instead, it could be held by the individual or placed on a table, offering an intimate viewing in the privacy of one’s own home”
The stage is set for the eleventh Melbourne Art Book Fair, and we are looking forward to showing you, in person, some of the new things we have made.
Once more our little blue found IKEA trolley, proved trusty book fair aid, and this year it was joined by another found marvel, a timber display case, just perfect for our peep show, centre stage.
Inspired by the peepshow souvenirs, those marvellous folding devices that gave the reader a three-dimensional view of the interior, be it the crystal palace or, like ours, an inky blue stage, How will they know there’s no-one left is but one of several new worlds for you to explore. Come talk to us of tunnel books, peepshow books, zines, wildlife, and more.
Opening tomorrow, and on all weekend, you’ll find us down the far end, stall 56, next to @tara_books and @taisnaith, and within a whisker of @ornate.gesture, @m.33_melbourne, and @sticky_institute.
“Peering through the peepholes, a viewer could join the crowd of other tourists depicted in the deeply receding space of the two pedestrian tunnels that were lit by gas. This shift, then, towards the inexpensive private apparatus coincided precisely with the public valorization of monumental industrial structures. Yet in peepshow representations, the spectator’s relationship to the gigantic building is inverted; a feat of modem industrial technology is transformed into an enchanted miniature world. As a souvenir, the peepshow is not only a commodity, but it also allows the physical experience of the space to dissolve into an idealized, dreamlike memory”
Melbourne Art Book Fair
Stallholder Fair
NGV Great Hall
NGV International
180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne
Friday 16th May 10am–5pm
Saturday 17th May 10am–5pm
Sunday 18th May 10am–5pm
Kids Pumpkin Storytime
Presented by NGV
Saturday 17th May 10.30–11am
With Gracia & Louise
Free, no booking required
Image credit: Theatre with stage decor: The Army Tents etching by Pieter Hendrik Jonxis, after drawing by Jan Bulthuis, after painting by Pieter Barbiers, from a series of fourteen stage decors of the new Amsterdam Theatre, 1787–1794, published by Jan Willem Smit, 1788, depicting a scene from the play Achilles, a tragedy by Balthasar Huydecoper, Amsterdam 1719.
Amy F. Ogata, ‘Viewing Souvenirs Peepshows and the International Expositions', Journal of Design History, 2002, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2002), JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/3527199, accessed 12th May, 2025, pp. 69–82.
