This year marks the United States’ bisesquicentennial, or semiquincentennial, or sestercentennial, depending on what you feel like calling America’s 250th birthday. Whichever word you choose, it’s zero fun to pronounce. Even less fun is thinking about how free the United States doesn’t feel in this moment.
‘Who Is America at 250?’ Interrogates the Principles of the Land of the Free
‘Tipping Point’ by Art Hazelwood. (San Francisco Center for the Book)
God bless the San Francisco Center of the Book, then, for reflecting the anxieties of everyone in this fine land who’s despaired at — oh, I don’t know — tax dollars paying to bomb other countries, an ICE agent fatally shooting Renee Good in the face, and the federal defunding of pretty much anything that helps the arts, the environment and the most vulnerable people living on this soil.
SFCB’s current exhibit, Who Is America at 250? Artists’ Books on the State of Democracy, takes a long, uneasy look at the issues plaguing the nation two and a half centuries after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The exhibit examines what it means to be an American, what rights citizens really have, and how — and where — law and order is wielded.
Curated by Betty Bright, Mark Dimunation, Maymanah Farhat, Yuka Petz and Ruth Rogers, the exhibit is both an interrogation of where the U.S. is today and a look back at how we got here. Technically, the exhibit is broken up into four distinct sections: (1) Hope / Possibility / Transformation / Vision, (2) Truth / Awareness / Responsibility / Questioning, (3) Justice / Equality / Rights / Resistance, and (4) Belonging / Memory / Compassion / Voice.
If there’s a single overarching thread, however, it concerns white supremacy — how racial inequalities weaved their way into the fabric of the nation, how they continue to impact daily culture, and what bigotry has taken away from citizens. Many of Who Is America at 250?’s most impactful pieces encompass these themes.
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The book formats on display vary wildly. Messages are conveyed via screenprints, building blocks, accordion books, wood engravings, hand-stitched pages, leather panels, formica boxes and more. Viewed together, the diversity of textures used to convey the artists’ perspectives only strengthens their individual points.
One standout is Beth Theilen’s The Tower Book, appearing as screenprints constructed to look like a prison tower but with a base that flips open to reveal four handmade books. Thielen created the piece in collaboration with incarcerated women and men, some of them at San Quentin. Pages from one book in SFCB’s display case are left open to reveal the words of Shonna Larabee, describing her arrival at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco.
“Walking to the R and R department,” Larabee writes, “I remember seeing all new faces watching me and someone yelling from the window above, ‘Welcome to Hell and Satan is your coordinator.’”
Another memorable moment is provided by Kyle Goen’s The Black Panther Party Stamp Book (2021). This blue clamshell box emblazoned with the Black Panthers’ logo contains sheets of postage stamps honoring Angela Davis, George Jackson, political prisoners, and 22 other designs. Goen created the piece inspired by a single line in Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power”: “Most of my heroes still don’t appear on no stamp.”
Uncomfortable though it may be to hold the United States under a microscope at the very moment we’re supposed to be celebrating it, Who Is America at 250? reminds the viewer that independent, critical thinking is as American as stars and stripes. More than that, the exhibit constitutes an important reminder of something else: the healing power of the arts, and how art itself can guide us through turbulent times.
An opening reception for ‘Who is America at 250? Artists’ Books on the State of Democracy’ takes place on Jan. 23, 2026, at 6 p.m. at the San Francisco Center for the Book (375 Rhode Island St., San Francisco). The exhibition will be on view through March 8 before traveling to venues in Boston and Minnesota.
