Dear colleagues,

I am pleased to announce a new publication featuring The Museum of Modern Art Archives: Modern Artifacts, which is co-published by Esopus Books and MoMA. With essays and an introduction by me, and designed and edited by Tod Lippy, the book brings all 18 installments of the eponymous series that originally appeared in the nonprofit publication Esopus between 2006 and 2018, together with six newly realized projects by contemporary artists Mary Ellen Carroll, Rhea Karam, Mary Lum, Clifford Owens, Michael Rakowitz, and Paul Ramirez Jonas.

For the series, Michelle Elligott, Chief of Archives, Library, and Research Collections at The Museum of Modern Art, plumbed MoMA’s Archives for long-unseen gems ranging from the records of the Art Lending Service launched by the museum’s Junior Council in 1951 to Alfred Barr’s diagrams mapping art-historical influences for the 1936 exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art. In other installments, handwritten notebooks reveal the process that went into Scott Burton’s early performances, and content from contributors such as Erik Satie and Harold Rosenberg commissioned in the early 1950s for the never-published second issue of Robert Motherwell’s journal, Possibilities, finally finds its way into print. 

Each chapter of Modern Artifacts pulls back the curtains on the inner workings of an institution that helped define the course of modern art by offering meticulous facsimile reproductions—many in the form of removal inserts—of archival documents including curatorial and personal correspondence, loan negotiations, photographs of artworks, and other materials.  Modern Artifacts also includes additional material not included in the original series due to space constraints.

For their projects, the six artists were invited to select a particular aspect of the MoMA Archives for further investigation. Rakowitz was drawn to the proposal and research materials for a never-realized exhibition planned for 1940 that was meant to rally the public against fascism, while Lum explored collage in her exhumation of the museum’s 1961 exhibition The Art of Assemblage. Several of the projects feature original artworks, including a hand-pulled screen print inserted into each book by artist Rhea Karam, who encourages readers to wheat-paste it onto public walls in keeping with the “Street Works” series documented in the Archives that inspired her contribution. 

Should you wish to buy a copy, we are pleased to offer ARLIS members a discounted price of $40 (compared to the list price of $60).  Just use discount code STACKS20.

All my best wishes,

Michelle