Passionate About History and the Making of History: in situ dialogues with artists and their assistants about studio archives

Heather Gendron, Art Librarian - UNC Chapel Hill hgendron@email.unc.edu

WE ARTISTS’ STUDIO ARCHIVES

Funded by:Artist Support Partners Grant, Joan Mitchell Foundation H.W. Wilson Foundation Research Award, Art Libraries Society of North AmericaUNC Chapel Hill – University Research Council, Faculty Small Grant

• increase the visibility of their work (get it in shows, have it written about and researched)

• sell their work to collectors and museums, get grants, and manage their fiscal operations

• manage their legal rights and estate

• create new works• and ultimately maintain control

over their image as an artist and their legacy.

STUDIO ARCHIVES help artists:

• Benefits of organizing & preserving• Figuring out what you gave &

deciding what to keep• Studio archives assistants (hiring,

managing, etc.)• Managing the artwork (physical &

digital)• Managing and preserving digital

content (e.g., digital images & video, audio, email, websites, documents, etc.)

• Databases• Working with institutional archives

& museums• Estate planning

STUDIO ARCHIVES publication:Case studies

Forms & Worksheets

METHODOLOGY & PARTICIPANTS

Semi-structured interviews with artists, studio assistants, archivists and art historians.

SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEWS

DEMOGRAPHICS - ARTISTS

MALE FEMALE

50+

30’S-40’S

AGE of ARTISTS

GENDER of ARTISTS

DEMOGRAPHICS - ARTISTS

< 10 YEARS

10-20 YEARS

40+ YEARS

30-40 YEARS

YEARS AS AN ARTIST

Mel Chin

“With conceptual work there's a lot of paper, a lot of digital files, a lot of research…and the artwork is a huge part of it…"

Rose Candelara, Archives Assistant

Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project Philadelphia Museum of Art2009

Cai Guo Qiang “fireworks” & “explosion events”

Closing Rainbow: Fireworks Project for the Closing Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic GamesBeijing, China2008

THE ARTISTS’ STUDIO

ARTISTS’ STUDIO ARCHIVES

“The archives has to blend in with the working functions of the studio…”

-Bonnie Huie, Archives Assistant (Cai Studio)

personal photos

unsorted slides

plans/photos galleries museums

video stills

STUDIO ARCHIVES

STUDIO ARCHIVESTHE (ART)WORKTHE DOCUMENTATION OF/ABOUT THE (ART)WORKINSPIRATIONAL & SOURCE MATERIALS• Artwork inventories & databases (image & video libraries, sales

records, preservation records, exhibition history, etc.)• Artist statements, CVs, websites• Financial and artwork sales records• Correspondence – personal and with “art world” people

(collectors, gallery owners, museum staff, art critics & historians, etc.)

• Recorded interviews, presentations, materials from courses taught• Personal & studio libraries• Exhibition catalogs and announcements• Source materials (e.g., unedited video used or to be used in final

works)• Sketchbooks• Artwork not yet sold• Collections of artwork by other artists

STUDIO ARCHIVESRight now it feels like the word “archive” seems a lot bigger than my practice so far…This is a great thing for me to be talking about because it’s not something that I think about in an extended way. I do my process of creating a digital file and put everything in it…then I go to the next project and that’s it.

-early career artist (A)

It’s hard for me to apply that word [archive] to myself. I have my computer and my hard drives and I guess that’s my archive. It depends on if it’s my work or other things that led up to the work because then it goes a lot deeper….There’s a lot of flow between my life and my work.”

-early career artist (B)

STUDIO ARCHIVES databases

Main SectionsArtworksCVBibliographyDocumentationAcquisitionsConservation LogRegistrar LogVideo

Artwork EntryTitleDateMaterial(s) LocationExhibitCollaborator(s)DimensionsWork type (installation, drawing, etc.)

STUDIO ARCHIVES digital filing

Juan LoganPlease Save This

STUDIO ARCHIVES physical storage

STUDIO ARCHIVES digital/video storage & preservation

I also didn't know how to go through them [artworks on video] and what to eliminate because formats keep changing so much that I have no idea and I try to ask people and I've gotten nowhere...I have 3/4 inch tapes that most of the work was done on for a period of 15 years...They're cluttering up the whole back [area] there...a space...that used to be my edit(ing) room and now it's just a storage room.

- late career artist

READINGS - current favorites

Artists' estates : Reputations in trust, ed. Magda Salvesen. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2005.

The Artist Interview : for Conservation and Presentation of Contemporary Art, Guidelines and Practice. Lydia Beerkens , et al. Heyningen: Jap Sam Books, 2012.

Artists’ records in the archives : Symposium proceedings / New York, NY. Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York (2013) – available online

Full bibliography available upon request.

Why artists keep studio archives…

1. Business needs and goals.

2. To develop and promote artist’s work.

3. Legacy & estate planning.

Challenges…

Time, money, and/or skills.

THANKS!