CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago and TASCHEN are pleased to announce a new landmark arrangement between the country's second-largest art museum and the publisher of best-selling art books. The Museum Shop of the Art Institute has recently opened a "shop within a shop" devoted exclusively to books from TASCHEN, the German art, architecture, and design publisher. The selection of TASCHEN titles carried in the Museum Shop will cover all areas of art, art history, photography, and design, and the arrangement will provide increased exposure for one of the Art Institute's best selling publishers while also allowing the museum to continue to carry the wide selection of art, architecture, and design books for which it is already known. The Art Institute is the first museum in the United States to enter into such a historic agreement with TASCHEN.

"Books from TASCHEN have been some of the best selling books in our Museum Shop," said David Thurm, Chief Operating Officer of the Art Institute of Chicago. "It certainly made sense for us to pursue an arrangement that allowed us to prominently feature their titles and make clearly visible to customers the place where they can find the extremely popular TASCHEN titles within our Shop. We are very excited to be the first American museum to partner with TASCHEN in this innovative way, and we look forward to TASCHEN flourishing even further in our retail spaces."

"In a city with a traditionally strong and vibrant art scene such as Chicago, I could not think of a better place than the Art Institute to start a new kind of partnership," says publisher Benedikt Taschen. "I am happy and excited to take our relationship to the next level."

TASCHEN will occupy approximately 25% of the floor and wall space devoted to books in the Art Institute's Museum Shop at 111 South Michigan Avenue, forming a "shop within a shop" exclusively carrying TASCHEN titles. Discussions are also underway for a similar arrangement in the Art Institute's Modern Shop in the two-year-old Modern Wing of the museum. The Art Institute will continue to offer titles from other publishers.