Brian Slattery Photos
Lewis.
Here Come Swords. I Married a Ranger. Heaven Has Claws. Goodness Had Nothing to Do with It. All through the pandemic — and for years before that — these curious titles were hiding in plain sight on the shelves of the Institute Library, before being plucked off by a staff member, volunteer, or patron for inclusion in “Cover Story II: Return to the Stacks,” the latest art exhibit in the Chapel Street library’s gallery that invites viewers, once again, to judge books by their covers, though this time with a twist.
“Cover Story II: Return to the Stacks” also actually marks a few different returns. First, as the title suggests, the exhibit is a sequel to a previous art exhibit of book covers that ran in the spring of 2021. Second, artist Martha Lewis has returned from a residency abroad to curate the show. Third, as the library reopens once again for normal hours, it hopefully marks a return to people being able to visit the library more regularly, see the exhibit, and use it as both a way to explore the Chapel Street collection, and perhaps think about the world slightly differently.
Lewis decided to do another installment of “Cover Story” because she felt the exhibit in 2021 was “the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “The collection and the library itself seems like a work of art that you can go through at any time and pull things out of.” Moreover, “this time of year is a good time to do it. If we were going to close down again for Covid, there are no artists involved, so the show can stay up. And it’s around the time of the Great Give. It celebrates us at a time when we need to be doing that for all kinds of reasons, because we need to survive.”
Perhaps most important, “it was so much fun last time.”
In putting together “Cover Story II,” however, Lewis decided to broaden its parameters. Whereas she and then-gallery intern Ava Hathaway Hacker curated most of the titles themselves in the first installment, this time the library’s staff, volunteers, and patrons could all suggest titles, and they did.
When Lewis had the full selection of books in front of her, she looked for themes. Birds. Food. Spring. Murder. Some books focused on “different kinds of traveling adventures,” Lewis said, whether a trip by wagon, or to the moon, or to more far-flung parts of the earth. Some were chosen strictly for the titles, or even the spines.
“I think I could do a whole section of books by women who married someone and then wrote a book about it,” Lewis said with a laugh. Or “Western women who go somewhere else and then write a book.” Or “we could have a whole show of books with titles that start I Was or I Am. I Was Winston Churchill’s Private Secretary. I’ll Never Be Young Again. Or You Can Always Tell a Harvard Man.”
Lewis grouped others by intentionally superficial criteria. “Some are beautiful. Some are funny. Some are either really weird, or really boring. Here’s the boring section,” referring to a string of titles including Old Towpaths, So This Is Florida, Iowa Interiors, and Longer Plays by Modern Authors. “No, please make it shorter!” Lewis joked. Other covers were grouped together because of their design or illustration.
The group search for intriguing covers also yielded a section on animals, including such intriguing titles as There’s a Seal in My Sleeping Bag and Men and Pandas.
It’s all, as Lewis says, mostly for fun. There’s pleasure in the absurdity of some of the titles, and in the datedness of others. Some books simply have beautiful covers, and beauty of the sort not seen in modern book design.
Yet the exhibit’s appeal to surface-level detail is also a bit of trap, as one corner of the exhibit is dedicated to books about the former Soviet Union.
“I couldn’t leave history out of it,” Lewis said.
With the war in Ukraine, that history is also suddenly all too relevant again. That history contains the context for our latest horrific headlines. It can help us understand the massive scope of Putin’s ambitions for Russia, and helps explain just why Ukrainian resistance to the invasion has been so fierce — why many Ukrainians would rather die than live under a Russian regime again. Those dated covers, those outmoded perspectives, also contain some hard truths. “Cover Story II” thus shows both the pleasures and the dangers of taking the past lightly. The work lies in knowing how to tell which from which.
“Cover Story II: Return to the Stacks” is running now at the Institute Library, 847 Chapel St. Visit the library’s website for hours and more information.