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Cafe Royal Publishing House (2013)

Café Royal Books, founded by Atkinson, specialises in producing artists’ editions. Working with artists of international significance, offering them a new space with few restraints within which to test new work, Atkinson curates and creates 15 collectible titles each year. Emphasis is given to work not normally publishable by a major imprint. As a publishing house its strategy is to develop new ways of thinking about existing material or language which demonstrates the importance of the use, documentation, collection and observation a particular process or subject.

For example, Café Royal Books produces a serial publication, ‘Bits’ in which Atkinson questions the notion and role of the multiple; the authenticity and reproducibility of ‘the book’. Each edition is unique, the series being unified by binding, numbering and display mechanisms and parameters. Numbering is a part of the title and cover itself. Atkinson’s lecture ‘The Future of the Photobook’ at the London Design Festival 2011, University College London examined this title.

The publishing house is widely discussed and documented, being highlighted as an essential point of reference in many international exhibitions and publications, including ‘Fanzines’,Teal Triggs, Thames and Hudson at The Well Gallery (London). Café Royal Books is recognised internationally as “an influential and pioneering publishing house, pivotal in the small-press boom of the past five years” (Lawrence Zeegen).

Café Royal Books publications have been acquired by the collections of international art galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art New York; Tate UK, Victoria and Albert Museum UK, National Art Library UK, National Library of Scotland, The National Gallery of Canada and 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan.