Villa Giulia Painter

RISD Museum’s Manual 16 Embraces Intimacy

Intimacy reveals something deeply human in us. We need each other on a practical level, which means having to trust strangers. It’s analogous to what I understand prayer requires and what writing poems requires: an openness to the unknown, coupled with trust, a belief that we won’t be hurt. It’s at once akin to and the same as devotion.
-Carl Phillips

The RISD Museum’s sixteenth issue of Manual touches on the bonds of intimacy and its many expressions. This issue complements the exhibition Any distance between us, co-curated by Stephen Truax and Dominic Molon, on view at the RISD Museum through March 13, 2022.