Carpenter Center presents Salad Days: Primary Information

Carpenter Center presents Salad Days: Primary Information
June 18—August 16, 2026

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 18, 2026
6:00–8:00pm

This summer, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts launches Salad Days, a new annual summer series dedicated to publication-based projects that explore publishing as an artistic, research-driven, and collaborative practice. The inaugural presentation, Salad Days: Primary Information, is realized in collaboration with independent publisher Primary Information, which is now celebrating its 20th anniversary. 

Rather than a traditional exhibition, Salad Days centers publishing as a living practice. Throughout the summer, the Carpenter Center will temporarily transform into a working bookstore and reading space, operating as a research environment, gathering place, and site for conversation, screenings, and public programs. Visitors are invited to browse, read, and spend time with artists’ books, writings, and archival materials that foreground publishing as a mode of artistic production and exchange. 

Join us for the opening celebration on June 18, featuring a conversation between Primary Information co-founder, James Hoff and Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, David Joselit.

Additional programs, screenings, and gatherings will take place throughout the summer. 

Founded in New York in 2006, Primary Information is a nonprofit organization devoted to publishing archival and newly-commissioned artists’ books and artists’ writings and making them accessible to broad audiences. Working closely with artists, estates, and scholars, the organization publishes facsimile editions of out-of-print books  alongside new publications by contemporary artists. Recent titles include projects by artists and writers such as Barbara T. Smith, Tom Burr, James Van Der Zee, and Joseph Grigely, reflecting Primary Information’s ongoing commitment to circulation, preservation, and critical dialogue.