(the drum) is one of Ulises Carrión’s early linguistic exercises in English, originally handwritten in black ink in 1972. The artist fragments the names of musical instruments to express a sound. His attitude to poetry precluded, to a certain extent, his book The new art of making books: “The text of a book in the new art can be a novel as well as a single word, sonnets as well as jokes, love letters as well as weather reports.

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Ulises Carrión (1941-1989) is one of the most important figures of Mexican conceptual art. His 1975 manifesto The New Art of Making Books help defined artist's books as an autonomous artistic genre. His work includes numerous artist's books—which was then designated as bookworks—but also video art, sound arts, performance and mail art.