COMMENTARIVM is an atypical artbook publisher based in İzmir, Turkey — an archive of subversive knowledge where radical books and editions are available worldwide.

COMMENTARIVM publishes and distributes artists’ books, zines, editions, and sound works that circulate between art, theory, music, cinema, and underground life—not to document them, but to contaminate them. These are works from Turkey and elsewhere, developed in close collaboration with artists and printed to escape visibility metrics and polite relevance.

Operating at once as a publishing house, archive, and book space, COMMENTARIVM behaves like a gathering point and a rehearsal room—fluid in form, precise in intent. It follows a strict DIY ethic, sustaining itself entirely through book sales. No grants, no sponsorships, no institutional shelter or external control.

Rooted in the legacy of the burned, scattered, and stolen Pergamon Library, COMMENTARIVM approaches publishing as an act of defiance and sabotage against erasure. Beyond books, it hosts launches, exhibitions, gatherings, and collaborations that extend the life of each project and its ideas.

Available from our İzmir space and worldwide through our webshop.

The Library of the Beast is open. The Whore of Babylon is on the move. ⚑