The records of Artists Talk on Art (ATOA) measure 64.4 linear feet and 317.43 gigabytes and date from circa 1974-2018. The bulk of the records consist of extensive video and sound recordings of events organized by the group featuring artists, critics, historians, dealers, curators and writers discussing contemporary issues in the American art world in hundreds of panel discussions, open screenings, and dialogues held in New York City. Events began in 1975 and continue to the present; recordings in the collection date from 1977 and 2016. A smaller group of records include administrative files, panel flyers, three scrapbooks, as well as photographs, slides, and negatives of panel discussions and participants.
Scope and Contents:
The records of Artists Talk on Art (ATOA) measure 64.4 linear feet and 317.43 gigabytes and date from circa 1974-2018. The bulk of the records consist of extensive video and sound recordings of events organized by the group featuring artists, critics, historians, dealers, curators and writers discussing contemporary issues in the American art world in hundreds of panel discussions, open screenings, and dialogues held in New York City. Events began in 1975 and continue to the present; recordings in the collection date from 1977 and 2016. A smaller group of records include administrative files, panel flyers, three scrapbooks, as well as photographs, slides, and negatives of panel discussions and participants.
ATOA's recordings chronicle the American art world, covering critical discussions and significant art world issues over five decades. Thousands of artists such as Will Barnet, Louise Bourgeois, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Robert De Niro, Agnes Denes, Michael Goldberg, Robert Longo, Ana Mendieta, Robert Morris, Elizabeth Murray, Alice Neel, Philip Pavia, Howardena Pindell, Larry Rivers, Sylvia Sleigh, Kahinde Wiley, Hannah Wilke, David Wojnarowicz, and others speak about their work. The original recordings exist in a variety of formats, including U-Matic and VHS videotape, MiniDVs, sound cassettes and sound tape reels. ATOA digitized most of the video and sound recordings prior to donating the collection.
The collection also includes printed histories, board and program committee meeting minutes, financial statements, general correspondence files of the president and chair, attendance statistics, grant files, panel participant release forms, sixteen panel transcripts, a complete set of panel flyers (many are annotated) and other printed materials, three dismantled scrapbooks, as well as photographs, slides, and negatives of panels and panel participants.
Arrangement:
The records are arranged into nine series.
Series 1: Adminstrative Files, 1974-2013 (0.4 linear feet, Box 1)
Series 2: Director's and Chairman's Correspondence, 1977-2006 (0.4 linear feet, Box 1)
Series 3: Grant Files, 1977-2009 (1 linear foot, Boxes 1-2)
Series 4: Panel Release Forms, 1978-2012 (1 linear foot, Boxes 2-3)
Series 6: Printed Materials, 1975-2015 (0.8 linear feet, Boxes 3-4; 0.434 GB, ER02)
Series 7: Scrapbooks, 1975-1989 (0.2 linear feet, Box 4)
Series 8: Photographic Materials, circa 1975-circa 2000 (1 linear foot, Boxes 4-5)
Series 9: Video and Sound Recordings of Events, 1977-2016 (59 linear feet, Boxes 6-65; 317.43 GB, ER03-ER04)
Biographical / Historical:
Established in 1974 and still active in New York, Artists Talk on Art is the art world's longest running and most prolific aesthetic panel discussion series organized by artists for artists. Founded by Lori Antonacci, Douglas I. Sheer, and Robert Wiegand, the forum has presented 6,000 artists in nearly 1,000 documented panels or dialogues. ATOA held its first panel, "Whatever Happened to Public Art," on January 10, 1975 and it drew a "crowd" of 77 people. In the decades that followed, ATOA presented dozens of panels or dialogues a year, tackling such diverse topics as "What is Happening with Conceptual Art," with Louise Lawler and Lawrence Weiner; "Painting and Photography: Defining the Difference," with Sarah Charlesworth, Jack Goldstein, Joseph Kosuth, Barbara Kruger, and Robert Mapplethorpe; "Organizing Arts Activism," with Lucy Lippard; "The Artist and the Epidemic—an information panel about AIDS"; "Cross-generational Views of Feminism"; and hundreds more.
Provenance:
The Artists Talk on Art (ATOA) records, including digital files of the video and sound recordings, were donated to the Archives in 2016 by Douglas Sheer, Chairman of ATOA.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center.
Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
An interview of Anne Rorimer conducted 2010 November 15-16, by Judith Olch Richards, for the Archives of American Art's Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts project, at Rorimer's home, in Chicago, Illinois.
Rorimer speaks of her family background; her early life and education in New York City; her father, James Rorimer, and his influence as director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; college life at Bryn Mawr; how she became interested in modern art; her internship at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London after college; her master's degree thesis on Tony Smith; her job as a curator at the Albright-Knox Gallery and then at the Art Institute of Chicago; memorable exhibitions at the AIC throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, including the annual "American Exhibition," "Europe in the Seventies: Aspects of Recent Art," (1977), and "Idea and Image in Recent Art" (1974); her close relationship with Anne D'Harnoncourt; how she left the AIC in 1984 to write, "New Art in the '60s and 70s: Redefining Reality," (2001); her role in acquisitions of contemporary art at the AIC; her thoughts on art education; her work with collectors; the process of getting her book published and reactions to it; her curatorial projects in the 1980s and early 1990s that focused on conceptual art; her relationship with artists like Michael Asher and Daniel Buren; her extensive book collection; her thoughts on being a freelance curator and writer. She recalls Whitney Stoddard, Robert Beverly Hale, Theodoros Stamos, Leo Castelli, Henry Geldzahler, Anne D'Harnoncourt, Renee Marcuse, Bates Lowry, Tony Smith, Marcia Tucker, A. James Speyer, Bruce Nauman, Lawrence Weiner, Vito Acconci, William Wegman, Robert Morris, Lucy R. Lippard, Katharine Kuh, Sol Lewitt, John Maxon, Eva Hesse, Muriel Newman, Judith Kirschner, Dan Graham, Benjamin Buchloh, and Marcel Broodthaers.
Biographical / Historical:
Anne Rorimer (1944-) is a curator and art historian in Chicago, Illinois. Judith Olch Richards (1947-) is a former executive director of iCI in New York, New York.
General:
Originally recorded on 4 memory cards. Reformatted in 2010 as 6 digital wav files. Duration is 5 hr., 36 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
Occupation:
Art historians -- Illinois -- Chicago -- Interviews Search this
The papers of curator and museum director Marcia Tucker measure 2.4 linear feet and date from 1973-1994. The collection documents Tucker's tenure as the Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York through artists' files, correspondence, project files, printed material, and photographs. The papers also reflect Tucker's activities as an advocate for women in the arts.
Scope and Contents note:
The papers of curator and museum director Marcia Tucker measure 2.4 linear feet and date from 1973-1994. The collection documents Tucker's tenure as the Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York through artists' files, correspondence, project files, printed material, and photographs. The papers also reflect Tucker's activities as an advocate for women in the arts.
Artists' files include correspondence, artists' statements, exhibition lists, press releases, printed material, and photographs of artwork. There is extensive correspondence with Richard M. Allen, James W. Johnson, Bruce Melamid, and Earl and Suzanne Staley.
Correspondence consists of a mix of professional and personal letters between Tucker and artists, business colleagues, and friends. Correspondence relating to the founding of the New Museum includes draft versions of the mission statement. Among the notable correspondents are: Louise Bourgeois, Joan Brown, Howardena Pindell, Markus Raetz, Joan Snyder, and Idelle Weber. Project files reflect Marcia Tucker's activities as an educator, writer, and advocate for women's role in the arts.
Photographs include an inscribed photograph to Marcia Tucker from Raymond Lark.
Arrangement note:
The collection is organized into 5 series. The papers are arranged by material type and chronologically thereafter.
Missing Title
Series 1: Artists' Files, 1976-1994 (Boxes 1-2; 1.3 linear feet)
Series 2: Correspondence, 1976-1994 (Box 2; 0.6 linear feet)
Series 3: Project Files, 1973-1990 (Boxes 2-3; 0.15 linear feet)
Series 4: Printed Material, 1984-1994 (Box 3; 0.15 linear feet)
Series 5: Photographs, 1985-1994 (Box 3: 0.2 linear feet)
Biographical/Historical note:
Curator and museum director Marcia Tucker (1940-2006) lived and worked in New York.
In 1961, Marcia Tucker received her Bachelor of Arts from Connecticut College. She then went on to earn a Masters of Art from New York University's Institute of Fine Arts in 1965. In 1969, Tucker became curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Influenced by the political ferment of the 1960s, Marcia Tucker directed her curatorial efforts to organizing exhibitions that reflected the political and social currents of the day. An early exhibit that she co-curated with James Monte, "Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials," was one of the first major exhibitions dedicated to Process Art or Post Minimalism. She curated major surveys for the work of Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Bruce Nauman, Richard Tuttle, and Jack Tworkov. Some of Marcia Tucker's curatorial choices were critically received by colleagues and others in the artistic community. In 1977, she left the Whitney Museum to take on the role of founding director at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. At the time, the New Museum was one of the few experimental centers for contemporary and emerging artists working in graphic arts, video, and film, serving as a venue for artists outside the mainstream, gay artists, and members of radical Hispanic and feminist groups. During her tenure at the New Museum, Tucker directed a number of major exhibitions, such as "Bad Girls," 1994; "A Labor of Love," 1996; "The Times of Our Lives," 1999, among others.
Marcia Tucker's interests extended to writing and teaching. She was the series editor for the New Museum's Documentary Sources in Contemporary Art. Tucker was also a freelance art critic; her criticism appeared in such publications as Art in America, Artforum, and ArtNews. Tucker also taught and lectured at academic institutions and art schools, including the School of Visual Arts, Bard Center for Curatorial Studies, Cornell University, and Colgate University.
In 1999, Marcia Tucker left her post as Director of the New Museum, though she continued to be engaged in the contemporary art scene. In recognition of her innovative practices as a curator, Tucker received a number of awards, including the Skowhegan Governors Award for Lifetime Services to the Arts, 1988; Bard College Award for Curatorial Achievement and the Art Table Award for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts, 2000. She was also the recipient of three Yaddo fellowships from 2003-2005.
In 2006, Tucker died in Santa Barbara, California. She is survived by her husband, Dean McNeill, an artist and their daughter, Ruby Tucker.
Related Archival Materials note:
Also found in the Archives of American Art is an oral history interview with Marcia Tucker conducted by Paul Cummings, August 11-September 8, 1978.
Provenance:
The collection was donated by Marcia Tucker to the Archives of American Art in 2000.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Topic:
Museum directors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Educators -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
An interview of Faith Ringgold conducted 1989 September 6-October 18, by Cynthia Nadelman, for the Archives of American Art.
Ringgold discusses Harlem from the 1930s through the 1970s; her background and education; her art and political activities; feminism; the evolution of her work; her paintings, soft sculpture constructions, quilts, and performance pieces. She recalls Robert Gwathmey, Tom Lloyd, Robert Morris, Marcia Tucker, Lucy Lippard, her mother, and others.
Biographical / Historical:
Faith Ringgold (1930- ) is an Afro-American painter, sculptor, and performance artist from New York, N.Y.
General:
Originally recorded on 8 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 15 digital wav files. Duration is 10 hr., 50 min.
Provenance:
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics, and administrators. Funding for this interview provided by the Lannan Foundation.
Occupation:
Painters -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Sculptors -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Quiltmakers -- New York (State) -- New York Search this
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Marcia Tucker, 1978 August 11-September 8. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Elizabeth Murray Oral History of Women in the Visual Arts Project Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Anne Rorimer, 2010 November 15-16. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
An interview of Marcia Tucker conducted 1978 August 11-September 8, by Paul Cummings, for the Archives of American Art.
Ms. Tucker speaks of many aspects of her life. She starts with the incredible poverty she has experienced at times as a young girl and a married woman. She recalls her work with women's organizations and tells us she was in at the start of the women's movement in the USA. She talks about the people she has met, her time in France, her work as a curator at the Whitney and starting the New Museum.
Biographical / Historical:
Marcia Tucker (1940-2006) art historian and curator of New York, N.Y.
General:
Sound quality of the first tape is poor.
Originally recorded on 4 sound tape reels. Reformatted in 2010 as 8 digital wav files. Duration is 8 hr., 20 min.
Provenance:
These interviews are part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and others.
Restrictions:
Transcript available on the Archives of American Art website.
Occupation:
Art historians -- New York (State) -- New York -- Interviews Search this
Ray Johnson. Ray Johnson mail art to Dr. Frye and Lucy Lippard, 1970 July 3. Lucy R. Lippard papers, 1930s-2010. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Faith Ringgold, 1989 September 6-October 18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Group Material (Firm : New York, N.Y.) Search this
Type:
Sound recordings
Interviews
Place:
New York (N.Y.) -- Description and travel
Washington (D.C.) -- Description and travel
Citation:
Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Julie Ault, 2017 November 14-16. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
The papers of ceramicist, educator, and arts administrator James Melchert measure 7 linear feet and 12.28 Gigabytes, and date from circa 1949 to 2021. The collection documents Melchert's career through biographical material, personal and professional correspondence, professional files documenting Melchert's teaching, residences, exhibitions, and other professional activities, writings, printed material documenting exhibitions and more, photographic material including images of Melchert and his artwork, and artwork comprising slide projection works.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of ceramicist, educator, and arts administrator James Melchert measure 7 linear feet and 12.28 Gigabytes, and date from circa 1949 to 2021.
The writings series includes interviews, talks, panels, symposia, notes, artist statements, and autobiographical texts. Printed material includes clippings and exhibition documentation. Photographic material includes images of Melchert and his artwork from various stages of his career. Artwork includes Melchert's slide projection works represented by slides, and an artist multiple by Nam June Paik.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged in seven series:
Series 1: Biographical Material, circa 1949-2019 (0.1 Linear feet: Box 1)
Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1953-2021 (3.1 Linear feet: Boxes 1-4; 3.93 Gigabytes: ER01-ER02)
Series 3: Professional Files, circa 1965-2020 (0.8 Linear feet: Box 4)
Series 4: Writings, circa 1960s-2020 (0.7 Linear feet: Box 5; 8.35 Gigabytes: ER03-ER05)
Series 5: Printed Material, circa 1960s-2020 (1.4 Linear feet: Boxes 5-7)
Series 6: Photographic Material, circa 1952-2017 (0.6 Linear feet: Box 7)
Series 7: Artwork, circa 1968-1990 (0.3 Linear feet: Box 7)
Biographical / Historical:
James Melchert (1930-) is a ceramicist and educator living in Oakland, California, known for his uniquely conceptualist approach to ceramics which draws from other disciplines including painting and performance art.
Born in New Bremen, Ohio, Melchert's education followed an unorthodox path: upon finishing his undergraduate degree in Art History in 1952, he spent four years in Japan teaching English at a high school, during which time he met his wife to be, a missionary and collage artist named Mary Ann Hostetler, with whom he would have three children. Melchert received a first master's degree from the University of Chicago in 1957 in painting, followed by a second master's degree in ceramics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961. He shifted his focus to ceramics while completing his painting degree and attended a five-day workshop with the highly innovative and influential Peter Voulkos, with whom he would study at Berkeley and for whom he would serve as studio assistant. Melchert's career as a ceramicist began with a close association to Voulkos and the California Funk art movement.
Melchert's evolving interests led to his work including performance art and slide projection works, one of which was exhibited at Documenta 5 curated by Harald Szeemann in Kassel, Germany. After a trip to Europe in the eighties, Melchert began his experimental investigations with ceramic tile, working with cracks and imperfections in tiles and painting on the resulting works, a theme that would be an occupation of his studio practice to this day. Melchert taught fairly steadily throughout the early stages of his career and is known as a dedicated instructor to artists of various disciplines, including Paul Cotton and Theresa Cha.
Notably Melchert served as a faculty member at University of California at Berkeley from 1964-1994, with a stint living in Washington D.C. serving as the Director of Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1977 to 1981, and in Rome, Italy as the Director of American Academy, Rome from 1984 to 1988. As an artist, in addition to being exhibited around the world, Melchert's ceramic works including commissions are held in numerous collections such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum's Renwick Gallery, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Yale University Museum of Art.
Related Materials:
Related materials include Archives of American Art's Oral history interview with James Melchert, 1991 Apr. 4-5, and Oral history interview with James Melchert, 2002 September 18-October 19.
Provenance:
Donated 2004 and 2019-2021 by James Melchert as part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America.
Restrictions:
This collection is open for research. Access to original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Researchers interested in accessing born-digital records or audiovisual recordings in this collection must use access copies. Contact References Services for more information.
Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Use of original papers requires an appointment. Use of archival audiovisual recordings with no duplicate access copy requires advance notice.
Collection Rights:
Reels N70-38 and 62: Authorization to publish, quote, or reproduce requires written permission from Helen Tworkov or Hermine Ford. Contact Reference Services for more information.
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Jack Tworkov papers, 1926-1993. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
This series contains professional and personal correspondence from artists and business colleagues to Marcia Tucker in her role as the Director of the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Letters from artists ask Tucker to review their work for inclusion in the New Museum's exhibition schedule. Files also include artists' statements and exhibition lists, printed material, and photographs, slides, and a transparency of artwork. Among the printed materials are press releases, clippings, and announcements.
Arrangement note:
The files are arranged in alphabetical order by surname of artist, followed by 3 categories (various, eccentric, and miscellaneous). Material within folders is arranged chronologically.
Collection Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment.
Collection Rights:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Collection Citation:
Marcia Tucker papers, 1973-1994. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
