Inside the Milberg Gallery: Ulises Carrión - From Old Art to New Art

“The New Art of Making Books,” in Kontexts no. 6/7, edited by Michael Gibbs, 1975 Theoretical essay.

The following is the second in a series of inside looks at the current exhibition in Princeton University Library’s Ellen and Leonard Milberg Gallery in Firestone Library - “Ulises Carrión: Bookworks and Beyond.” 

Curated by Sal Hamerman, Metadata Librarian for Special Collections at PUL, and Javier Rivero Ramos, a recent Ph.D graduate from the Department of Art & Archaeology, who is now Assistant Curator at Art Bridges Foundation in Arkansas, the exhibition explores Carrión’s pioneering reinvention of the book as a material and social platform, primarily featuring Princeton’s extensive holdings, drawn from the Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology and PUL’s Special Collections. PUL is steward to one of the most substantial collections of Carrión’s book and mail art in any American library.

Carrión was regarded as a promising young literary author in late 1960s Mexico, but by the time he settled in Amsterdam in 1972, he had transformed into an artist, working with language and the book in unconventional ways. He described his approach in his 1975 text “The New Art of Making Books,” where he envisions the book as a “space-time sequence” that brings craft, materiality, and rhythm to the fore.

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The exhibition is open and free to the public during Milberg Gallery hours of operation, February 21 through June 13, 2024.

Discover more through the accompanying digital exhibit.

Published March 11, 2024.

Media Contact: Stephanie Oster, Library Publicity Manager