Photography by Yancey Strickler

     There are two founders of the Underground Library; as per the secrecy that shrouds the organization, I was not allowed, upon meeting them, to know their names. I did learn that one of them often gets in trouble in museums for touching the art and that the other has an apparent criminal history as a library-book thief. It may be that only those with these sensibilities, unique to museum-art touchers and library-book thieves, could have created the nuanced and uncommonly thoughtful consideration behind the Library’s artistic and social endeavors.
     Many of the project’s sexier elements – the uniqueness of each hand-bound book; the aversion to promoting the names of those involved, foremost among them the founding Librarians; the ephemeral nature of one’s time with each work; the intimate hand-to-hand passage of the books – may seem closer to marketing gimmicks than artistic convictions. Under less considered hands, the project might have amounted to little more than the sum of its novelties. But the Librarians merely utilize these novelties as a fun means of luring others to the more salient content of their products. Each of the project’s idiosyncratic components is an active method of promoting its ultimate desire: to create new conditions that allow for a greater intimacy with works of art.