Exit Art Archive: Exit Art Archive: NYU Special Collections Finding Aids

Call Number

MSS.343

Dates

1979-2014, inclusive

; 1982-2010, bulk

Creator

Exit Art (Gallery : New York, N.Y.) (Role: Donor)

Ingberman, Jeanette

Colo, Papo

Extent

234.68 Linear Feet

(468 containers)

Extent

1 websites

in 1 archived website.

Extent

1.68 Gigabytes

in a computer file

Language of Materials

The collection is in English.

Abstract

Founded in 1982 by Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo, Exit Art was an interdisciplinary cultural center in New York City that presented innovative exhibitions, films and performances that reflected a commitment to contemporary issues and ideas. The Exit Art Archive includes exhibition administrative files, artist research and records, events promotional and press materials, correspondence, ephemera, photographic elements, audiovisual, and data storage components.

Historical Note

Founded by director Jeanette Ingberman and artist Papo Colo as an alternative art space in 1982, Exit Art was an interdisciplinary cultural center that presented innovative exhibitions, films and performances that reflected a commitment to contemporary issues and ideas. With a substantial reputation for curatorial innovation and depth of programming in diverse media, Exit Art was always changing.

During its first decade, Exit Art presented artists whose work challenged notions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and equality. It mounted a series of mid-career retrospectives which helped to bring wider public attention and critical acclaim to artists who are now firmly established, including Jimmie Durham, Willie Birch, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Tehching Hsieh, Martin Wong, Adrian Piper, David Wojnarowicz and David Hammons.

In its second decade, Exit Art identified a new generation of young, emerging artists with diverse backgrounds and organized a series of exhibitions, launching the careers of artists such as Shirin Neshat, Fred Tomaselli, Nicole Eisenman, Roxy Paine, Patty Chang, Julie Mehretu, Sue DeBeer, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Chakaia Booker. Fever (1992), the first exhibition in the series, was named one of the ten most important shows of the decade by Peter Plagens in Newsweek.

In its final decade, Exit Art became a leading voice in experimental art, producing exhibitions that illuminated the pressing issues of its time while supporting artists whose works reflected cultural transformations. By 2012, its 30th and final year, Exit Art had organized more than 200 exhibitions, events, festivals and programs featuring more than 2,500 artists.

Biographical information provided by the Exit Art website.

Arrangement

The first ten series are available for research while the media Series XI - XIV are not available for consultation. This collection is arranged into the following series:

Series I: Exhibition Files

Series II: Jeanette Ingberman Files

Subseries A: Jeanette Ingberman Exhibition Files
Subseries B: Jeanette Ingberman Personal Files
Subseries C: Jeanette Ingberman Administrative Files

Series III: Potential Exhibitions

Series IV: Artists Files

Series V: Photographic Materials

Subseries A: Exhibition Photographs
Subseries B: Exhibition Slides
Subseries C: Exhibition Negatives
Subseries D: Exhibition Transparencies
Subseries E: Events and Administrative
Subseries F: Potential Exhibitions

Series VI: Alternative Histories

Series VII: The Apartment Store

Series VIII: The Cultural Space / The Laboratory

Subseries A: Exhibition Files
Subseries B: Administrative Files

Series IX: The Warehouse

Series X: Development Files

Series XI: Audio

Series XII: Data Storage

Series XIII: Film

Series XIV: Video

Series XV: Archived Website

Oversize Series IV: Exit Art Artist Print Editions

Scope and Contents

The Exit Art Archive consists of records documenting all aspects of the exhibition process, from conception, to execution, to reception. This collection includes administrative files, artist profiles and research, ephemera, financial documents, promotional and press materials, professional and personal correspondence, photographic elements, and project proposals, in addition to audio, film, data storage, and video components.

Subjects

Organizations

Exit Art (Gallery : New York, N.Y.) (Role: Donor)

Genres

Press kits.; Negatives (photographic); Résumés (personnel records); Invitations.; Exhibition catalogs.; Administrative records; CD-Rs.; VHS; Transparencies.; Compact discs.; Art galleries (institutions); Correspondence.; Photographs.

People

Scaritt, Alan (Role: Artist); Wong, Martin (Role: Artist); Wojnarowicz, David (Role: Artist); Rand, Archie (Role: Artist); Davidovich, Jaime, 1936-2016 (Role: Artist); Tuck, Norman (Role: Artist); Kearns, Jerry (Role: Artist); Vicuna, Cecilia (Role: Artist); Beckett, Samuel, 1906-1989 (Role: Artist); Durham, Jimmie (Role: Artist); Wodiczko, Krzysztof (Role: Artist); Sanchez, Juan (Role: Artist); Hammons, David (Role: Artist); Kariya, Hiroshi (Role: Artist); Hammond, Jane (Role: Artist); Huang, Arlan (Role: Artist); Beiser, Maya (Role: Artist); Fay, Ming, 1943- (Role: Artist); Piper, Adrian, 1948- (Role: Artist); Edgar, Hachivi (Role: Artist); Roch, Jacques (Role: Artist); Ennadre, Touhami (Role: Artist); Rosin, Paul (Role: Artist); Hsieh, Tehching, 1950- (Role: Artist); Zedd, Nick (Role: Artist); Fekner, John (Role: Artist); Meyer, Melissa (Role: Artist); Gitlin, Michael (Role: Artist); Lujan, Pedro (Role: Artist); Cheang, Shu Lea (Role: Artist); Birch, Willie (Role: Artist); O'Brien, Michael James (Role: Artist); Keeley, Shelagh (Role: Artist); Ahearn, Charlie (Role: Artist); Paternosto, Cesar (Role: Artist); Baranik, Rudolph (Role: Artist); Stevens, May (Role: Artist); Hammond, Red (Role: Artist); Chernishov, Michael (Role: Artist); Ruiz, Raul (Role: Artist); Neustein, Joshua (Role: Artist); Von Rydingsvard, Ursula, 1942- (Role: Artist); Miller, Nachume (Role: Artist); Palasanean Balassanian, Sonia (Role: Artist); Van Dalen, Anton (Role: Artist); Galindo, Regina Jose (Role: Artist); Sanchez, Rafael (Role: Artist); Alvarez, Candida (Role: Artist); Cohen, Elaine Lustig (Role: Artist); Mock, Richard (Role: Artist); Slonem, Hunt (Role: Artist)

Topics

Art criticism.; Art and society.; Art -- Exhibitions.; Alternative spaces (Arts facilities).; Women artists -- United States.; Women artists -- Exhibitions.; Video art -- United States.; Social problems in art.; Politics in art.; Performance art.; Artists' writings; Artists -- New York (State) -- New York -- Exhibitions; Artists -- Exhibitions

Donors

Exit Art (Gallery : New York, N.Y.)

Conditions Governing Access

Materials are open to researchers. Please contact the Fales Library and Special Collections, fales.library@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596.

Conditions Governing Use

This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Preferred Citation

Published citations should take the following form:

Identification of item, date (if known); Exit Art Archive; MSS 343; box number; folder number; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University Libraries.

To cite the archived website in this collection: Identification of item, date; Exit Art Archive; MSS 343; Wayback URL; Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University.

Provenance

The Exit Art Archives was donated to NYU's Fales Library and Special Collections by Exit Art in 2012. The accession numbers associated with this collection are 2012.343 and 2013.343. An accretion was donated in August 2022; the accession number associated with this gift is 2023.015.

http://www.exitart.org/ was initially selected by curators and captured through the use of Archive-It in 2014. Archive-It uses web crawling technology to capture websites at a scheduled time and displays only an archived copy, from the resulting WARC file, of the website. There is no additional accessioning information with this website.

Born-Digital Access Policies and Procedures

An access terminal for born-digital materials in the collection is available by appointment for reading room viewing and listening only. Researchers may view an item's original container and/or carrier, but the physical carriers themselves are not available for use because of preservation concerns.

Appraisal

Seven empty film containers described in Series XIII: Film were discarded (cuid6301-cuid6307). They once contained 16mm camera originals from a work titled "To See, Another Mountain," made for Alternative Histories: GAle GAtes et al (GAGA). The films themselves are not in the Exit Archive collection.

Take Down Policy

Archived websites are made accessible for purposes of education and research. NYU Libraries have given attribution to rights holders when possible; however, due to the nature of archival collections, we are not always able to identify this information.

If you hold the rights to materials in our archived websites that are unattributed, please let us know so that we may maintain accurate information about these materials.

If you are a rights holder and are concerned that you have found material on this website for which you have not granted permission (or is not covered by a copyright exception under US copyright laws), you may request the removal of the material from our site by submitting a notice, with the elements described below, to the special.collections@nyu.edu.

Please include the following in your notice: Identification of the material that you believe to be infringing and information sufficient to permit us to locate the material; your contact information, such as an address, telephone number, and email address; a statement that you are the owner, or authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed and that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and made under penalty of perjury; and your physical or electronic signature. Upon receiving a notice that includes the details listed above, we will remove the allegedly infringing material from public view while we assess the issues identified in your notice.

Separated Materials

Books have been removed for cataloging, and will be searchable under "Public Art Fund" in NYU's online catalog Bobcat.

Related Material at Fales Library and Special Collections

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Annina Nosei Gallery Papers (MSS.298)

Artists Space Archive (MSS.291)

Creative Time Archive (MSS.179)

David Wojnarowicz Papers (MSS.092)

Epoxy Art Group Archive (MSS.367)

Fashion Moda Archive (MSS.091)

Franklin Furnace Ephemera Collection, Compiled by Matthew Hogan (MSS.206)

Greenwall Foundation Archive (MSS.336)

Group Material Archive (MSS.215)

Guerrilla Girls Archive (MSS.274)

Jacki Apple Papers (MSS.173)

Martha Wilson Papers (MSS.175)

Martin Wong Papers (MSS.102)

New Museum Library Lucy Lippard Collection (MSS.169)

Public Art Fund Archive (MSS.270)

REPOhistory Archive (MSS.113)

Collection processed by

Rhyannon J. Rodriguez

About this Guide

This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2025-06-09 18:20:37 UTC.

Language: Description is in English.

Processing Information

Processing information was not recorded for this collection.

In 2023, the archived website was added to the finding aid as Series XV. An accretion of Hi8 cassettes was intellectually incorporated into Series XIV.

In 2024, the inventory listings for boxes 236 and 237 were updated to provide Public Services staff with easier access to locations for material.

New York University Libraries follow professional standards and best practices when imaging, ingesting, and processing born-digital material in order to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the content. In June 2025, an optical disc containing a video was imaged and added to Series XIV: Video.

Revisions to this Guide

January 2020: Updated by Kelly Haydon to state some audiovisual materials have been digitized and are accessible to patrons.

January 2023: Updated by Nicole Greenhouse to include additional descriptive information regarding the archived website

February 2023: Updated by Rachel Searcy to reflect 2023 accretion

November 2024: Updated by Stacey Flatt to update listings for boxes 236 and 237

June 2025: Updated by Aki Snyder to include a digital object in Series XIV: Video

Repository

Fales Library and Special Collections