As I continue working on the critical publication for Belén Uriel, I’ve been thinking about how a book can reflect an artist’s way of working—not just explain it. Luckily, I found Chris Ware’s 2017 Monograph at my local library, and it proved to be just what I was looking for. It’s not a traditional monograph or catalog. It reads more like an archive: a mix of drawings, notes, process materials, personal photos, and unfinished work. Chris Ware is a cartoonist and graphic novelist, whom I originally read back in my undergrad program, with his experimental printing of Building Stories. His 2017 book Monograph is a large-format, self-designed overview of his career, filled with comics, notes, photos, and personal archives. Rather than a straightforward retrospective, the book presents his work as an evolving process. It feels like moving through Ware’s process rather than looking at it from a distance.
The book doesn’t follow a straight line. Pages shift between sketches, commentary, diagrams, and photos. Some text is handwritten, some typed. There’s no clear hierarchy—everything’s in conversation. That looseness made me rethink how we approach Belén’s publication. Rather than clarifying or packaging her work, the goal is to let the structure reflect the way she works—iterative, physical, sometimes unresolved.
Ware also includes things most books would leave out: failed ideas, awkward drawings, and personal fragments. That kind of transparency is useful. Belén’s archive includes just as much in-process material as finished work. It’s not about building a clean retrospective; it’s about showing how things come together, or even, fall apart.
Monograph shows that a book doesn’t have to wrap things up. It can hold space for process, uncertainty, and partial ideas. That’s the approach we’re taking too. This isn’t a publication about Belén’s work from the outside. It’s a record of how she thinks through making—and a way of staying close to that process in print.
