X Artists’ Books

X Artists’ Books is a Los Angeles-based publisher focused on artist-driven publications, collaborations, and interdisciplinary practices. Our publications range from artists’ books to institutional partnerships that focus on putting the artist back in the center of their practice.

X Artists’ Books (XAB) was founded in 2017 in Los Angeles to address the need for artist-driven publications that focus on collaborations and interdisciplinary practices. We have created 29 publications with twelve more in the pipeline, which range from artists’ books to institutional partnerships that focus on putting the artist back in the center of their practice. We are artists. What makes XAB unique is our prioritizing of the artist in every project so that every book is the dream book of the artist we are working with. We hold space for the artists we work with to embody themselves in publication form.

With X Artists’ Books, each project’s format is a discussion between artist, designer, institution (if applicable) and publisher, which takes into account the subject matter of each project and how best to present it as a printed work.

Carolina Caycedo, We Place Life at the Center / Situamos la vida en el centro, Co-published in 2025 with Vincent Price Art Museum as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, presented by Getty, 2025 © Carolina Caycedo

We Place Life at the Center / Situamos la vida en el centro is a publication that directs dialogue and points of exchange among art, science, and environmental justice in the Americas. The project stems from the work of Los Angeles-based Colombian artist Carolina Caycedo, whose art and activism engage with issues related to water rights, land stewardship, food sovereignty, and just energy transition.

This expansive publication features diverse artworks by Caycedo and collaborators from across the Western Hemisphere. It also highlights the research and ecological and social transition practices of more than 20 affiliated environmental organizations and social movements through poems, essays, and writing by Diana Alexandra Bernal Arias, maria campo, Carolina Caycedo, Mercedes Dorame, Megan Dorame, Carolina Duque Alzate, Arturo Escobar, Joel Garcia, Gwennhael Huesca Reyes, Camila Marambio, Hema’ny Molina Vargas, Pluma Bárbara Moreno, Daniel H. Rey, Lylian Rodriguez, Bárbara Saavedra, Bárbara Santos, Comunidades Sembradoras de Territorios, Aguas y Autonomías (SETAA), Joseph Daniel Valencia, and María Wills Londoño.

Co-published in 2025 with Vincent Price Art Museum as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide, presented by Getty, and supported by Museo de Arte Miguel Urrutia, Banco de la República, Colombia.

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Rubén Ulises Rodríguez Montoya, Skinchangers: Begotten of my Flesh, Co-published with Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, 2026 © Rubén Ulises Rodríguez Montoya

Forthcoming Summer 2026
Skinchangers: Begotten of my Flesh is the exhibition catalog that accompanies Rubén Ulises Rodríguez Montoya’s first solo museum exhibition, which took place at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (moCa). Skinchangers weaves the story of a vampire forced to reconstitute its body from space debris following the destruction of the last spaceship leaving an apocalypse-ravaged Earth. Sculpted from detritus and discarded materials scavenged from the US-Mexico border, Rodríguez Montoya’s artworks are shape-shifting creatures that feed off each other. Rooted in speculative fiction, this exhibition explores how violence erases and eradicates communities of color.

The publication, exhibition, and related programming are part of Toby's Prize, a biannual artist award at moCa sponsored by Toby Devan Lewis (1934–2022). The exhibition was curated by Lauren Leving and was on view at moCa from June 28 through December 29, 2024.

Rubén Ulises Rodríguez Montoya is an artist based in Mexico City. Montoya received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2020. He creates sculptures that are fantastic beings centered around self-made mythologies and social issues concerning border culture, abjection, adaptation, and mestizaje. Montoya’s practice is influenced by Speculative Fiction, Nahualismo, Sci-Fi, and the labor of his family. His work hybridizes and creates parallels between land, human, and animal as a way to investigate the process in which violence eradicates, erases, and erodes communities of color. In fall 2025, he will mount a solo exhibition of new work at ICA San Diego. Recent exhibitions include Flow States – LA TRIENAL 2024 (El Museo de Barrio, 2024–2025), an untitled group exhibition (Artists Space, 2024), Perhaps the Truth (Ballroom Marfa, 2023–2024), La Casa Erosionada [The Eroded House] (Anahuacalli Museum, 2023), James Webb and The Thestral Born Without a Vertebrae (Sargent’s Daughters, 2022), and were-:Nenetech Forms (MOCA Tucson, 2021–2022).

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