Curator’s Notebook: On Books at Curious Matter
Curator’s Notebook is an ongoing series of behind-the-scenes observations from the curators of Curious Matter—a place for reflection, context, and insight. As arts coverage continues to diminish, we offer these writings to deepen engagement with the work we do and to preserve the stories that unfold in our gallery.
Books are intimate objects, privately consumed. They also serve very public functions. Oaths are sworn upon them; collected, they signal our sense of institutional or personal identity. We read them closely or glancingly, return to them, mark their pages, lend them to friends, and live with them on our shelves. Even untouched, they can vibrate with meaning. They move between private and public worlds, between solitary reading and shared conversation. They carry ideas across time, and, marked by use, they accumulate histories of their own.
In 2026, Curious Matter will devote its program to an inquiry we’re calling On Books: The form, flow, and force of books.
Throughout the year we will explore books as artworks and artifacts; as structures that shape visual, textual, and material practices; and as vehicles through which ideas circulate, expand, and gather force. Books are not simply containers for information. They are objects that are handled, lived with, and returned to over time, companions in thought that shape how we see and understand the world. On Books will unfold through conversations, collaborations, and exhibitions.
We begin with two small but ongoing projects in the gallery.
Shown here, the Curious Matter book kiosk, Le Bouquiniste, at Hamilton Park in Jersey City. The kiosk is currently installed in the gallery.
Le Bouquiniste returns as our independent press kiosk, offering a selection of chapbooks, zines, artist publications, and small press works. Inspired by the booksellers along the Seine in Paris, and 4th Avenue in New York, the kiosk brings together publications that circulate outside traditional distribution channels. The voice you hear when reading a zine or artist-made chapbook might never appear in a commercial publishing house. The independent, and DIY publication can be revelatory, inspiring, personal and inventive beyond marketplace considerations.
Alongside it we introduce Random Marginalia, an evolving exploration of incidental discoveries among the stacks. Books marked by drawings in margins, underlined passages, inserted notes, and all manner of evidence left by their readers. The project began with an unexpected discovery in a copy of Past Tense, the first volume of Jean Cocteau’s published diaries, which contains a small pencil drawing of a minotaur in the margin. Such moments remind us that books do not remain static after publication.
This spring the inquiry will also extend beyond the gallery through a collaboration with the Jersey City Free Public Library.
Beginning in May, Curious Matter and the library will host On Reading & Response: A Different Kind of Book Club, a facilitated gathering where participants bring something they are currently reading and reflect together on how that text is shaping their thinking, experience, or ongoing work. Rather than centering a single shared title, the conversation grows from the diverse reading lives of those in the room.
Over the coming months the inquiry will continue to unfold. We hope you’ll visit the gallery and join in as the project develops.
