“Not only does a book gather ideas together, but also it develops a community of shared readers.”

William Blake – author, artist, printmaker, and prophetic visionary – observed that, “the imagination is not a state, it is the human existence, itself.” At the opening of the 19th century, Blake employed his own fevered and fertile imagination to expand the boundaries of poetry and publishing. Two centuries later, artists continue to push against what we mean by what we call a book.

Bookworks, an exhibition at Tufts University Art Galleries in Medford, Massachusetts, considers bookmaking as a distinctive art form and questions the structure, function and value of printed matter in the 21st century. According to Dina Deitsch, Director and Chief Curator of the Tufts University Art Galleries in Medford and at the School of the Museum of Fine arts at Tufts University in Boston, the nearly 90 works on display consider books as material objects; as containers for sequences of thoughts and expression; and as the ground on which to build communities.

“In its very basic structure, the book is a gathering of ideas, a gathering of pages, words, ideas, concepts. And then, the book’s great contribution to human knowledge is that it’s the way to circulate information,” explains Deitsch, who organized the show with Chiara Pidatella, Research Curator, and Tufts graduate fellows Emily Chun and Kevin Vogelaar. “Not only does a book gather ideas together, but also it develops a community of shared readers.”

Bookworks borrows its title from Ulises Carrión (1941–1989), a Mexican conceptual artists and champion of “artists’ books.” Apart from illuminated medieval manuscripts and works by Blake, the show emphasizes contemporary works and draws largely from special collections at Tufts University.

“I think we’re living in a print Renaissance right now,” noted Darin Murphy, a librarian and artist who currently serves as the Head of the W. Van Alan Clark, Jr. Library at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. He specializes in developing library collections on contemporary art with an emphasis on artists’ books.

“Artists are participating in how [a book] is designed and how their work is represented in really unprecedented levels right now,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “I think print remains the ruling entity in the various art worlds, and artists will most certainly continue to make interesting vibrant publications similar to the work that are on exhibit at Bookworks.”

Bookworks continues at the Tufts University Art Gallery through December 15^th.