Tufts University Art Galleries (TUAG) presents Ulises: Assembly, a residency and exhibition engaging the labor of bookworkers from the Philadelphia-based collective Ulises. Founded in 2016 and run by members Nerissa Cooney, Lauren Downing, Kayla Romberger, Gee Wesley, and Ricky Yanas, the bookshop and project space explores the relationships between publics and publications through projects, exhibitions, and residencies asking: “what do you do?” as a means of delving into the printed matters of art publishing today. This project aims to render visible labor, friendships, conviviality, and collectivity of bookworkers as a tribute to their chaotic communality. Ulises: Assembly will be presented at TUAG’s Grossman & Anderson Galleries at SMFA at Tufts campus at 230 Fenway, Boston from August 13–November 10, 2024 and is the first institutional residency and solo exhibition of the collective.
The collective will realize a bookshop, curated selection of collaborators, and ongoing workshops at the SMFA campus in dialogue with faculty and students. The SMFA public billboard is contributed by Ulises collaborator Ken Lum.
Research for Ulises: Assembly Education Guide contributed by Phi Day, TUAG Post-Graduate Exhibitions Fellow, and supported by SMFA at Tufts Research & Instruction Librarian, Carrie Salazar
About Ulises
Installation shot of the Bidoun Library at Ulises during Publishing As Practice: Bidoun, November 2018. Photo: Constance Mensh
Ulises is a bookshop and project space dedicated to artists’ books and independent art publications that explores the relationship between publics and publications. They provide an inventory of titles not widely distributed in the United States on contemporary art, graphic design, art theory, architecture, criticism, curatorial practice, and adjacent fields. They support people who make books and expand the boundaries of what art publishing can be. Hosting projects, exhibitions, and residencies, Ulises’s open-ended programming explores publishing as an incubator for new forms of artistic, editorial, curatorial, and pedagogical practice. Ulises sees the democratic potential of publishing as a vehicle for activism, education, assembly, and exchange.
The name Ulises is a tribute to the work and legacy of Ulises Carrión, a Mexican-born poet, conceptualist, and avant-garde artist who was an early pioneer and theorist of the artist’s book, and the founder of the Amsterdam based bookshop Other Books and So (1975–78). Ulises was founded in 2016 by Nerissa Cooney, Lauren Downing, Joel Evey, Kayla Romberger, Gee Wesley, and Ricky Yanas. Additional contributors include Tim Belknap, Jody Harrington, and Nabil Kashyap.
Publishing As Practice by
On the work of three contemporary artist's-book publishers who have developed fresh ways of broaching politics in publishing This book documents Publishing as Practice, a residency at Ulises--a curatorial platform based in Philadelphia--that explores publishing as an incubator for new forms of editorial, curatorial and artistic practice. Over the course of two years, three publishers activated Ulises as an exhibition space and public programming hub, engaging the public through workshops, discussions and projects. Residents included Hardworking Goodlooking, the publishing arm of Philippines-based, social-practice platform The Office of Culture and Design; Dominica, an imprint run by Martine Syms dedicated to exploring Blackness as a topic, reference, marker and audience in visual culture; and Bidoun, a non-profit organization focused on art and culture from the Middle East and its diasporas. The book features a preface by David Senior, an essay by Gee Wesley and Ulises Carrión's 1975 publishing manifesto "The New Art of Making Books," alongside documentation of the works produced.
Call Number: SMFA: Z286.A77 P83 2021
“If publishing is an activity in constant flux, then readership is too. This book is hopeful evidence that print has the ability to respond to the now constant upheaval and crises in which we find ourselves—a physical alternative to our world of drag, drop, and Zoom.” (page 10 on source above)
“The lowly status of the book impacted our own thinking and anxieties in conceiving Ulises...Motivated by the very sentiments we hoped to upend, we became determined to activate our publishing space with a curatorial program of projects, artworks, and live events...Inspired [by] a history of contemporary art publishing as an alternative space for art, we sought to fashion Ulises as an alternative space for publishing.” (31)
“Following the lead of Carrión, our work with Ulises sought to activate the unfulfilled possibilities found in pivoting the traditional triangulation of exhibition organizing, programming, and publishing so as to render the publication central, or to collapse these boundaries altogether. We worked to create projects and activities that celebrated and centered publishing in the work of artists and other creative practitioners.” (Ibid 32)
Key Questions/Questions for Self-Guided Exploration:
- What makes a book an artists book? What makes a book art?
- How do printing processes influence the form and content of books?
- What are the benefits of working in a collective? Why would artists and publishers want to work collaboratively?
- How do print and collective practices embody subversive modes of making?
Resources for their Namesake: Ulises Carrión
Ulises Carrión at Other Books and So Archive, Amsterdam, 1975–79.
Ulises cites the work of their namesake, Ulises Carrión as a guiding factor in all of their creative decision making. Carrión (1948–1989) was a Mexican conceptual artist and writer who is credited with formulating the model of the artist book in 1975 with his seminal manifesto, “The New Art of Making Books.” In addition to being a prolific writer, he also founded and ran Other Books and So in Amsterdam, widely considered to be one of the first bookstores dedicated to artists books on which the collective Ulises modeled its own space. The sources in this section not only detail Carrión’s life, but also present a selection of his works and critical writings on his impact.
Tufts Resources
The Documenta 14 Reader by
Key quote: “A book may be an accidental container of a text, the structure of which is irrelevant to the book: these are the books of bookshops and libraries. A book can also exist as an autonomous and self-sufficient form, including perhaps a text that emphasizes that form, a text that is an organic part of that form: here begins the new art of making books.” (575)
First conceived in 1955 by Arnold Bode, the inaugural documenta exhibition endeavored to bring Germany back into artistic dialogue with the rest of the post-war world. More than sixty years later, documenta 14 returns to its initial motivation by extending its base in the city of Kassel, Germany to Athens, Greece. Accompanying documenta 14, this book functions as a "reader," evoking the various meanings associated with that term. Emphasizing the importance of literature, storytelling, performance, and pedagogy, it features illustrations and critical writings that address and expand upon the exhibition's theme of economic and cultural realities in a new world. As the current social and political trends in Europe and the world have divided people geographically and economically, this documenta returns to its roots-bringing to light another significant moment in world history.
Call Number: SMFA: N6488.G3 K3718 2017
Sonnet(s) by
A lost gem of permutational conceptualism from a key figure in artist's book culture, available again Known internationally as one of Mexico's most important conceptual artists, Ulises Carrión (1941-89) played a decisive role in defining and conceptualizing the genre of the artists' book through his manifesto, "The New Art of Making Books" (1975), which he wrote soon after the 1972 publication of SONNET(S) and his move from Mexico City to Amsterdam, where he opened the legendary bookshop gallery, Other Books and So, the first space dedicated exclusively to artists' publications and an important precursor to such artists' book hubs as Printed Matter. One of Carrión's earliest "bookworks," SONNET(S) represents a landmark shift in the artist's output from poetry to artists' books. Here, Carrión takes a single poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti through 50 typographic and procedural permutations. This republication is supplemented by new essays on Carrión's bookworks by contemporary artists, writers, and scholars from Mexico, Europe and the US.
Call Number: SMFA: PQ7298.13.A73 S65 2020
Ulises Carrión by
A richly illustrated account of the life and work of the twentieth-century Mexican artist and writer who reimagined what the book could look like, mean, and do Ulises Carrión (1941-1989) was one of the most remarkable artists and writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Part of a generation of artists that challenged the boundaries separating visual arts, literature, music, and performance, Carrión worked in a wide range of media: artists' books, sound poetry, performance art, mail art, video art, theoretical writing, and exhibitions. Today, Carrión's work is inspiring a new generation of artists, art historians, and cultural practitioners around the world. Ulises Carrión: Bookworks and Beyond presents a richly illustrated, panoramic account of his life and work and highlights how he transformed conventional understandings of the book by reimagining it as a material, semiotic, and social platform capable of redefining the artist's role in society. A promising young writer, Carrión left his native Mexico in the late 1960s to study literature in Europe. In 1972, he settled in Amsterdam, a progressive city where he could live as an openly gay man, and joined a community of like-minded artists. In 1975, he founded the legendary Other Books & So, a trailblazing bookstore-gallery that became a hub for exhibiting and promoting artistic experiments taking place in Amsterdam and internationally. Ulises Carrión includes an evocative and representative selection of the artist's books, artworks, and ephemera, most of them from Princeton University Library, which has one of the largest collections of his work in North America. Featuring original scholarly and literary essays, the book mirrors and engages with Carrión's own mixture of scholarly and creative work. With its key primary material, interdisciplinary critical perspectives, and new interpretations, the book sheds much new light on an important multimedia artist. Exhibition Schedule Princeton University Library, Princeton, New Jersey February 21-June 13, 2024
Call Number: SMFA and Tisch: PQ7298.13.A73 P75 2024
Ulises Carrión : mundos personales o estrategias culturales? = Ulises Carrión : Personal Worlds or Cultural Strategies? tomo 2 = vol. 2 by Call Number: SMFA: N6559.C37 U45 2003
Open Access
Ulises in the Press
Open Access