Join Center for Book Arts for the opening reception of two concurrent exhibitions celebrating the artists' book and the printed page as sites of artistic and poetic experimentation.
after futura, curated by Camilo Otero and Eva Parra, revisits Hansjörg Mayer's futura (1965–68), a series of twenty-six broadsides bringing together artists and poets working at the intersection of experimental publishing, typography, and language-based art. Produced at a moment when artists' publications were emerging as an independent field, Mayer's project positioned the printed page as both exhibition space and circulation network, connecting an international community engaged in conceptual and material approaches to language. The exhibition presents the complete futura series. These broadsides are being shown in New York in 2026, nearly sixty years after they were made. Fourteen artists and designers have been invited to respond with a new series of broadsides, printed on site in risograph and added gradually over the course of the exhibition.
Sarah Plimpton: Artists’ Books presents a selection of artists' books by Sarah Plimpton, drawn in large part from Center for Book Arts Fine Arts Collection. The exhibition marks the first time this substantial body of work will be presented together in New York. Born in New York City and living between New York and France for much of her career, Plimpton has developed a practice that moves fluidly between drawing, printmaking, painting, poetry, and the book form. Her artists' books, many of which incorporate or originate in her own poetry, foreground mark-making, repetition, and the spatial sequencing of the page as structures for both narrative and abstraction. Working across handmade and printed formats, her work reflects, and quietly shapes, the development of artists' publishing as an independent field since the 1960s. Although her books are held in major public collections, including the Morgan Library, the New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, her sustained contribution to the field has not received institutional attention commensurate with its scope.
The curators and artist will be in attendance.