The Boston Globe - 13.09.2019

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 The Boston Globe G3

By Cate McQuaid
GLOBE CORRESPONDENT
MEDFORD — When we
think of books, we think of their
texts: Stories, poems, histories,
polemics. The Mexican concep-
tual artist Ulises Carrión (1941-
89) thought differently. His
1975 manifesto, “The New Art
of Making Books,” reads like a
poem. It begins:
“A book is a sequence of
spaces.
“... Written language is a se-
quence of signs expanding
within the space; the reading of
which occurs in the time.
“A book is a space-time se-
quence.”
With “The New Art of Mak-
ing Books,” Carrión codified the
genre of artists’ books, which
experiment with form as well as
language, stories, and images.
In “Bookworks,” a rich exhi-
bition at Tufts University Art
Galleries, artists push at books’
edges. Those of us who cherish
holding a book in our hands
and imbibing its gifts can visit
this exhibition and newly awak-
en to the conceptual possibili-
ties of space-time sequences be-
tween two covers.
The exhibition has melan-
choly resonance in a digital
world. For more than a millen-
nium, since books were first
produced in China during the
ninth century, printed media
was the principal means of dis-

tributing information. The In-
ternet has inherited some DNA
from print, but its format is
quicker, more changeable, and
more user-driven. Like books, it
shapes the way we think. The
Internet has breadth; a book
has depth.
Print is still the most popu-
lar format for reading books,
according to a 2018 Pew Re-
search Center survey. Hooray
for that. Books are meant to be
long, dallying detours into oth-
er worlds. In my mind, for all
the convenience of eBooks, text
on a screen invites multitask-
ing. I can’t retreat into an
eBook. Holding a real one on
my lap, turning the pages, I can
be gone for hours.
We can’t seem to give up
that treasure. It’s why we still
read analog books, and why art-
ists make them.
Artists’ books often hinge
on the tactile experience of

reading. Following Carrión’s

lead, “Bookworks” breaks down

books into four themes: materi-

al, sequence, language, and

gathering and community. Ex-

hibition organizer Dina Dei-

tsch, the director and chief cu-

rator at Tufts, working with re-

search curator Chiara Pidatella

and several graduate fellows,

draws mostly from collections

in Tufts libraries for a show that

numbers nearly 90 objects.

These include specimens

from the Wild West of book-

making in the Western world,

when bookmakers were still

finding their way. A medieval

choir book, or antiphonary, is

printed on parchment at a large

size (maybe 18 inches long),

likely so all the singers could

read from the one score.

Is it an artist’s book? It’s

handmade, though by many

hands, including bookbinders

and scribes. Deitsch positions a

different progenitor of the

genre: William Blake, who in-

tend the idea of books in meta-

phor. Jen Bervin, whose “Silk

Poems” is in the section devot-

ed to materials, spent time at

Tufts’s Silk Lab, where silk is

liquefied to use in surgeries.

Her poem, inscribed on a silk

biosensor intended for implan-

tation, can be viewed through a

microscope. Written in a code

that represents the silkworm’s

DNA, the sinuous, murmuring

poem might be placed in the

folds of someone’s brain, a mes-

sage from silkworm to human,

and a literalization of reading’s

whispers in the mind.

Carolina Caycedo’s “Serpent

River Book,” a lush example of

sequential inventiveness, can

be unfolded in many ways, and

it contains many perspectives

(poems, maps, satellite photos)

on how rivers in South America

are privatized and industrial-

ized. Like the Internet, you can

enter it anywhere. Several

games also appear in this sec-

tion, because a deck of cards is

akin to a book that can be shuf-

fled.

Several artists play with text.

Mimi Cabell and Jason Huff e-

mailed text from Bret Easton

Ellis’s serial-killer novel “Ameri-

can Psycho” back and forth via

Gmail to see what Google ads it

would generate, then printed

their own version, replacing the

book’s text with footnoted ads.

The first page in the chapter

“Tries to Cook and Eat Girl” fea-

tures ads for a mattress and a

chiropractor. It’s a chillingly

comic extension of a book

about capitalism’s poisons.

Books are compendiums of

ideas and breeding grounds for

conversations. “Bookworks”

heartily concludes on that note,

with Steffani Jemison and Ja-

mal Cyrus’s reading room in-

stallation, “Alpha’s Bet Is Not

Over Yet.” The title calls out to

theorist, artist, and rapper

Rammellzee’s position that the

alphabet is a bet — a social con-

tract that can be rewritten.

Jemison and Cyrus display

photocopies of African-Ameri-

can periodicals published be-

tween 1915 and 1922. I picked

up an issue of “The Crisis — A

Record of the Darker Races,”

and read an essay about how

“the little mothers of tomor-

row” are being brought up to

nurture, and not neglect or

abuse, their children.

In 1920, nearly a third of the

black population was illiterate,

according to the National Cen-

ter for Education Statistics.

Reading is nourishment and

power. Sharing printed matter

builds communities.

The marvelous intimacy of

reading drives us to learn, reach

out, and grow. “Bookworks,”

with its fervent exploration of

the form, is at times mind-

bending and at times sweet. It

sometimes takes you where you

don’t expect. That’s fine; as in a

good book, the ride matters

more than the destination.

Cate McQuaid can be reached

at [email protected].

Follow her on Twitter @cmcq.

DAVID DE ROZAS © MUSEUM ASSOCIATES/LACMA

Beyond the

bounds of books

ArtexhibitionatTuftsservesupboundary-pushing

andbigthinkingonprintedmedia

ART REVIEW

BOOKWORKS

At Tufts University Art

Galleries, Aidekman Arts

Center, Tufts University,

through Dec. 15. 40 Talbot

Ave., Medford. 617-627-3518,

artgalleries.tufts.edu

vented a technique called relief

etching that enabled him to

print images and text on one

page. He wrote text backward

on a copper plate and added il-

lustrations. There’s a copy here

of a handful of pages from his

poem “Jerusalem,” crawling

with spidery text and flashy,

proto-comic-book illustrations.

Most of “Bookworks” fea-

tures art of the last 60 years.

Certain fantastical objects ex-

Carolina Caycedo’s

“Serpent River

Book” (top) and Xu

Bing’s “Book From

the Ground” (above)

are in “Bookworks”

at Tufts University

Art Galleries.

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