Nieves publishers / Zürich
Little prints
Starting on a shoestring, Benjamin Sommerhalder moved from making his own magazine to building up a small publishing house with a gallery and shop space. And on the way he’s kick-started an old-fashioned publishing boom.
On the first floor of the naughtiest corner in Zürich’s red light district (yes, it has one; no, it’s not especially seedy) sits Benjamin Sommerhalder, the softly spoken 32-year-old one-man-band behind niche publishing house Nieves. Releasing roughly 30 to 40 titles a year, from the lo-fi stapled Zines to the full-on artist books, Nieves has positioned itself comfortably on the shelves of the world’s best bookstores – operated by Sommerhalder almost singlehandedly from a rickety desk on Zürich’s Brauerstrasse, with its not-very-bookish vista…
