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The New Art of Making Books (2016)
In the context of the digital revolution, the book as a vehicle for transmitting knowledge has been challenged as a medium: a victim of its own functionality, a pariah of technophilia. The metamorphosis of paper and ink into pixels on a screen promises permanence and abundance. Information takes on new forms, expands and multiplies, appearing everywhere. Yet books endure. Who, then, makes books?
In the context of the digital revolution, the book as an object exists in a state of prosperity. Nostalgia, innovation, preservation, apprehension. Books continue to be produced across the full spectrum of their formal diversity. Beautiful, alluring volumes whose tactile and visual qualities often surpass their contents in terms of temptation. More than instruments of dissemination, they are objects of seduction. Libraries, surely, will one day become museums. Who, then, makes books?
For several years now, it has been an architect who makes books: Maricris Herrera (Ciudad Juárez, 1974). Her work in the publishing field has attracted the attention of artists, curators, and cultural institutions both in Mexico and abroad. In a short time, Estudio Herrera has become an international point of reference for design in the fields of art and culture.
Herrera’s entry into this field began with the development of the identity for the Museo de Arte de Sinaloa (MASIN) in 2010. Her early efforts continued through projects related to music and film, but took shape through her relationship with art and cultural initiatives, defining a working approach that she herself describes as “non-design.”
Some time later, Herrera took charge of the graphic design department for the Museo Jumex project. Working in collaboration with English designer John Morgan, they developed an identity system for the museum. Herrera conceived and structured what is now the museum’s iconic visual identity, extending it to Fundación Jumex and creating an online platform for the institution.
This is how Herrera began making books. As part of her work at Museo Jumex, she was responsible for developing a publishing program that generated content beyond exhibition catalogues. Fundación Jumex’s editorial division became a platform for the dissemination of critical thought, historical revision, and research projects on contemporary art. During this period, she produced publications such as Las ideas de Gamboa, Dodo, La revolución permanente, James Lee Byars 1/2 an Autobiography, and Guy de Cointet – Tempo Rubato, among others. She also contributed to the more academic dimension of these publications with titles such as El cubo de Rubik: Arte mexicano en los años 90 and El cristal se venga: Textos, artículos e iluminaciones de José Luis Brea.
In 2014, together with Mariana Munguía and Juan A. Gaitán, she developed the concept for Excursus, the catalogue that emerged from the 8th Berlin Biennale. This project marked a turning point in Herrera’s practice, as it required close engagement with the working processes of more than sixty participating artists. Later, through Estudio Herrera and firmly established as a key figure in design within the cultural sector, she was entrusted with the task of reinventing the image of Museo Tamayo.
Last year, together with Patrick Charpenel and Moisés Cosío, Herrera founded Ediciones MP (Manufacturados en Papel, or Manufactured on Paper), conceived as “a preservation initiative” aimed at renewing the idea of printed publishing. The project envisions four collections—Reference, Academic, Artist’s Book, and Monographic—focused on the study of modern and contemporary art. Its production program is based on inviting collaborators to edit materials on subjects that interest them. This is why they call themselves “Ediciones MP,” distinguishing themselves from the conventional model of a publishing house. In February of last year, they presented their first title: Otra literatura by Jorge Méndez Blake.
Who, then, makes books? Maricris Herrera’s working processes are closely tied to her education and thinking as an architect. In her own words, making books “brings her back to being an architect”: to thinking in “four dimensions,” generating spaces to be inhabited by emptiness, words, lines, and visual material. To building structures within a collaborative framework involving author, concept, text, medium, support, and reader. Her books, in this sense, are not subordinate to the text; they are objects with their own language and framework. They are configurations that she designs, constructs, and allows others to inhabit.
(1) These latter publications earned her recognition from The Design Observer and AIGA as part of the Best 50 Books of 2014.
(2) For Herrera, the fourth dimension is time. According to Ulises Carrión, “A book is a sequence of spaces. Each of these spaces is perceived at a different moment—a book is also a sequence of moments. A book is a sequence of space-time.”