Inside the Milberg Gallery: Ulises Carrión - Collaborations

The following is the fifth 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. 

The Ulises Carrión exhibit in the Milberg Gallery

Carrión founded and collaborated with several artist-run organizations and small presses, the most notable of which was his Amsterdam bookstore and art gallery, Other Books and So. He regarded editorial, curatorial, and archival activities as “cultural strategies” laden with creative possibilities. Carrión stated, “I consider an archive to be a work of art” – thus, his projects questioned and instrumentalized both the ordering logic of the archive and the social structures of information distribution.

Through his prolific and multidisciplinary practice, Carrión assembled a network of collaborators and contributors whose work he helped produce, distribute, and preserve. These activities are embodied in the Other Books and So Archive, the historically-significant collection of artists’ publications that he assembled over the course of his life.

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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 April 19, 2024.

Media Contact: Stephanie Oster, Library Publicity Manager