The Museum of Modern Art Archives is pleased to announce the opening of the MoMA PS1 Archives to the public. Stretching over 300 linear feet in more than 11,000 folders, the archives is the comprehensive institutional record of the groundbreaking nonprofit art space from its independent beginnings in 1971 through its merger with MoMA in 1999 and into the 21st century. Nearly half of the collection comprises exhibition and press recordsdirect documentation of nearly 900 exhibitions and eventswhile seven other series contain records of the founder and director Alanna Heiss and other programs and administrative activities. The collection is an exceptional record not only of an individual organization but also of successive eras of the New York art world.

The primary guide to the collection is in three parts due to size (here, here, and here.) We have also created a set of web pages online to enhance access. These include a chronology of significant events in PS1's history, a bibliography of PS1 publications, a complete list of participants in the long-running National and International Studio Program, and a web page for last fall's exhibition telling the history of PS1's first ten years. Foremost among these new pages is a complete exhibition history list showing not only the participants in each project and event, but also listing the extant folders of documentation for that show within the archives. For any exhibition a user may be interested in, this list tells how many folders contain direct documentation and also whether specific documentation such as checklists, installation photographs, or press releases are present. The exhibition list is cross-linked to an artists index of 5600 names of the individuals and groups who have passed through PS1 in over forty years of activity. Thus you can see the full extent of activity of any single artist at PS1 over the years. 

The MoMA PS1 Archives can be consulted by appointment at the MoMA Archives reading room at MoMA QNS; open Mondays, 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. Appointments can be made through the Archives contact form.

Further information on this collection and other recent activities in the MoMA Archives can be found on the MoMA blog Inside/Out 


The MoMA PS1 Archives was arranged and described by Jonathan Lill and Alana Miller. Funding for the processing and creation of a finding aid for the MoMA PS1 Archives was generously provided by the Leon Levy Foundation.

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Jennifer Tobias
MoMA Library

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