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Manuscriptistan in 2025!¡!¡

Looking to the months ahead this New Year, I’d like to thank the folks at the Fluno Center Gallery for exhibiting 29 images from the Manuscriptistan Project in “Framing the Archive.” There’s still time to check out the show, though. It hangs for about another ten days before we take it down.

©2025 anthony cerulli

Soon after dismantling “Framing the Archive,” I’m thrilled to have an exhibit with Matthew Braunginn, called “Inverse Testaments of Creation,” at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison. That will hang from March–May. It will feature a smallish collection of evocative images from the project alongside Matthew’s wonderful and innovative paintings. Then, on May 22nd, I’m scheduled to hold a community event about Manuscriptistan’s multi-year history and future trajectories. Stay tuned for more info!

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Manuscriptistan: Upcoming Exhibits

I’m very excited about three new exhibits from the Manuscriptistan Project that are lined up. First, I’ll bring some images to Roberta’s Art Gallery in Whitewater later this fall (Nov–Dec) for a solo exhibit called “The Aesthetic Shape of History.” In Oct–Dec 2024, another set of Manuscriptistan images will make up “Framing the Archive,” a solo exhibit at UW–Madison’s Fluno Center Gallery.

©2025 anthony cerulli

More info will be posted on IG and LinkedIn as it becomes available.

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On the road again…

Fifty-seven images from the Manuscriptistan Project left Madison on a semi-truck last week for New York to be hung in the exhibit, “The Archive as Art,” at Hobart & William Smith Colleges. After a pandemic lull in gallery shows, it is wonderful to exhibit this work again!

And in print again…

Publications from the Manuscriptistan Project continue in 2023 with two images appearing in an exciting volume edited by Sonal Khullar that’s forthcoming with the University of Washington Press, called Old Stacks, New Leaves: The Art of the Book in South Asia (April 2023). I saw a pre-print of the book at the Annual Conference on South Asia last fall in Madison, and was happy to see that “Manuscriptistan 18” is being used for the book’s promotional flier. Can’t wait to get a copy of Old Stacks!

Publications from Manuscriptistan were abundant in 2022 thanks to Nicolas Filicic and Camille Pech de Laclause at the fantastic Parisian press, Les Belles Lettres, which published 17 images (plus a postscript by me) in Manuel du Prince Indien: L’Arthaśāstra. Introduction et extraits par Marinette Dambuyant et photographies et postface par Anthony Cerulli and 6 images (plus a short essay by me) in Le Bulletin des Belles Lettres 2022, nº3, “Science si humaine.”

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The Manuscriptistan Project: Updates

©2022 anthony cerulli

One of Manuscriptistan’s largest prints (above) appears on the cover of my new book with the University of California Press, The Practice of Texts (2022).

17 images from the Manuscriptistan Project appear in the new book, L’Arthaśāstra, plus a postface by me about the project, “L’art dans l’archive: Manuscrits dans l’histoire de l’Inde,” with Les Belles Lettres (Paris, April 2022).

“Manuscriptistan 18” and “Manuscriptistan 53” will appear in From Kitabkhana [Library] to Karkhana [Workshop]: The Arts of the Book in South Asia by Sonal Khullar (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022).

© 2025 anthony cerulli

An article about the Manuscriptistan Project, “Archival Aesthetics: Framing and Exhibiting Indian Manuscripts and Manuscript Libraries,“ appeared in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies in May 2020.

Four Manuscriptistan photographs hung in a juried exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art,  Madison, WI, Feb-May 2020.

In November 2019, I gave a presentation and there was a panel discussion about the Manuscriptistan Project at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, “Seeing, Framing, and Experiencing Manuscript Cultures in Contemporary India.”

An article by Shirya Karam about The Manuscriptistan Project appeared on Oct. 2, 2019 in the Daily Pennsylvanian: “New Van Pelt Library exhibit highlights aesthetics of Indian manuscripts”

The first exhibition of the The Manuscriptistan Project hung Sept. 9, 2019 — Dec. 13, 2019 at the Kamin Gallery of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania (advertisement).

©2025 anthony cerulli