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.
The papers of contemporary art collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel measure 47.5 linear feet and date from the 1960s to 2009. Found is scattered general correspondence, artists' files, subject files, business records, and printed material relating to the Vogel Collection. Artists' and subject files create the bulk of the collection, the majority of which is printed material but includes some correspondence from artists.
Scope and Contents:
The papers of contemporary art collectors Dorothy and Herbert Vogel measure 47.5 linear feet and date from the 1960s to 2009. Found is scattered general correspondence, artists' files, subject files, business records, and printed material relating to the Vogel Collection. Artists' and subject files create the bulk of the collection, the majority of which is printed material but includes some correspondence from artists.
Scattered general correspondence is with friends, acquaintances, and corporate entities.
Files for artists represented in the Vogel Collection include Carl Andre, Stephen Antonakos, Richard Artschwager, Alice Aycock, Will Barnet, Mel Bochner, Andre Cadere, Ann Chernow, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Peggy Cyphers, Claudia DeMonte, Richard Francisco, Dan Graham, Jan Groth, Don Hazlitt, Jene Highstein, On Kawara, Sol Lewitt, Sylvia and Robert Mangold, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Robert Ryman, Barbara Schultz, Lori Taschler, Richard Tuttle, and Lynn Umlauf among many others. Materials within artists' files may include printed material, correspondence, writings and notes, and scattered business records.
Subject files are found for Dorothy and Herbert Vogel's friends and colleagues within the art world including art historians, writers, gallerists, dealers, and collectors. Extensive letters are from Sandy Seawright and Bernadine Tabler. Exhibition related materials are found among the files.
Scattered business records of the Vogel Collection document exhibitions of the collection at U.S. institutions and at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld Museum in Germany.
Printed materials include clippings, posters, and exhibition catalogs and announcements.
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged as 5 series:
Missing Title
Series 1: Correspondence, 1971-1987 (0.3 linear feet; Box 1)
Series 2: Artists' Files, 1963-2009 (30.4 linear feet; Boxes 1-31)
Series 3: Subject Files, 1969-2008 (9.8 linear feet; Boxes 31-41)
Series 4: Vogel Collection Business Records, 1974-1988 (0.3 linear feet; Box 41)
Series 5: Printed Material, 1960s-2000s (6.7 linear feet; Boxes 41-47, OV48-58)
Biographical / Historical:
Dorothy (1935- ) and Herbert Vogel (1922-2012) were contemporary art collectors in New York City, New York. The middle-class couple bought and collected art for forty-five years and amassed an extensive collection.
A life-long New Yorker, Herbert Vogel was born in 1922 and dropped out of school to work in a garment factory. After joining the U.S. Army, Vogel became a postal clerk and began to frequent Greenwich Village's Cedar Bar, a popular bar of the arts crowd. Vogel developed a deep appreciation for art and for the artists themselves.
In 1960, he met librarian Dorothy Faye Hoffman and they quickly fell in love. During their honeymoon, they visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Dorothy and Herb's first purchase was a sculpture by John Chamberlain. On their civil servant salary, the Vogels continued to collect and purchase art, beginning with young artists of the 1960s and 1970s while bypassing the dealer system of the New York City art scene. The result was a collection of 5,000 pieces which had to fit in their one-bedroom apartment.
In 1992, the Vogels donated the bulk of their collection to the National Gallery of Art, with fifty pieces intended to go to a museum or institution in each of the United States. Herbert Vogel died in 2012 in Manhattan and is survived by Dorothy.
Separated Materials:
The Archives of American Art also holds material lent for microfilming (reel 2435) including three notebooks containing clippings, articles, press releases, exhibition catalogs and announcements. Lent materials were returned to the lender and are not described in the collection container inventory.
Provenance:
Dorothy and Herbert Vogel donated their papers in several accretions from 1980 to 2009 and lent three notebooks for microfilming in 1982.
Restrictions:
Use of original papers requires an appointment and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference 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 and is limited to the Archives' Washington, D.C. Research Center. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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:
Dorothy and Herbert Vogel papers, 1960s-2009. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Sponsor:
Funding for the processing of this collection was provided by the Smithsonian Institution Collections Care and Preservation Fund
