On view at the Boston Athenaeum until May 16, 2026, is the traveling exhibition,
“Who Is America at 250? Artists’ Books on the State of Democracy”.

Organized by the San Francisco Center for the Book and presenting works related to immigration, social injustice, racial inequity, and wage inequality, the exhibit prompts questions about the challenges and prospects of democracy. Its curators see the artists’ book as a meaningful conduit for open contemplation of democracy.

Among the contributions by artists across the nation, Robert Kalman’s 2025 project, “What’s it like for you to be an American?” features portraits of 77 people in both urban locales and green spaces. He notes: “I invited my subjects to answer on a single notebook page. Their responses proved to be a mix of sincere, emotional expressions: pride, deep ambivalence, and even shame.”

A 2022 project, “The Last Green Book,” by Chicago-based artist, designer, and researcher Nia Easley, focuses on the 1962 edition of the Green Book, which covers sites on the South Side of Chicago. She found that most of the buildings housing Black-owned businesses and establishments are now vacant; some have been redeveloped; and some were razed, leaving empty lots. Easley portrays these Bronzeville sites of memory in postcard-sized images.

Terri Cohn captures the essence of this fine collection of works in “Who Is America at 250? Artists’ Books on the State of Democracy,” San Francisco Center for the Book (Roborant Review, February, 2025):

To ask “who” of a country is to personify it—to give it a body, a voice, a conscience. The name of the nation becomes porous, opening outward to include the people who inhabit it. In this framing, America is no longer a fixed idea or a singular story, but a living question, collectively shaped by many hands, many histories, and many acts of imagining.

–April 27, 2026:  Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol & Liz Levin