Asian American Arts Centre Records
Call Number
Date
Creator
Extent
Extent
Language of Materials
Historical Note
The Asian American Arts Centre, founded in 1974 as Asian American Dance Theatre, is one of the older community arts organizations in New York City Chinatown. The current name, Asian American Arts Centre, was adopted in 1987 to encompass both the dance company (Asian American Dance Theatre) and the visual arts program, Asian Arts Institute, initiated in 1984.
The Asian American Arts Centre began the Asian American Artists' Slide Archive in 1982. Artist vertical files were developed and accumulated as a permanent research archive documenting the history of Asian/Pacific American Artists in the United States since 1945 to the present. The archive contains not only slides but also a variety of materials that are both primary and secondary sources from approximately 1,500 artists.
In 1986, the Asian American Art Centre initiated a research project with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation called the "Milieu" series. The project focused on Asian American artists from the post World War era (1945 to1965), contextualized them and their artwork within this historical setting, and provided a historical precedent for the cultural presence of young Asian American artists. About ninety artists who began their career between 1945 to 1965 were selected and extensive research was conducted for many of them, resulting in extensive documents and materials in their files. Some were interviewed in their native language and documentation from these interviews has also been archived.
In 2007, the Asian American Art Centre created a new archive, the AAAC Artist Archive, from a part of the original slide archive as part of its digitization project. 150 artists who exemplified the major issues that compose the subject of Asian American art were selected and their materials processed for long-term archival preservation. Selected materials from these 150 artists were in turn digitized and made available on the website http://artasiamerica.org. The centre's creation of and commitment to preserve and make accessible its Artist Archive is part of the organization's greater mission to "promote the preservation and creative vitality of Asian American cultural growth through the arts, and its historical and aesthetic linkage to other communities."
Arrangement
This collection has not been arranged by an archivist.
Scope and Contents
The collection is primarily comprised of the organizational records of the Asian American Arts Centre. It is also contains the files of the Asian American Dance Theatre and the Asian Arts Institute, which merged to form Asian American Arts Center in 1987. Included in the collection are planning materials and publicity for Asian American Arts Centre exhibitions and other programming in the areas of Asian folk arts, international politics (such as the "China - June 4th, 1989" exhibition on the Tiananmen Square protests), and life and events in New York City (such as the exhibitions "Below the Canal After 9/11" and "New York Eviction Blues"). The collection also contains files related to Asian American Arts Centre and Asian American Dance Theatre/Asian Art Institute's grantsmanship, fundraising, and development, including grant proposals, foundation research, end-of-the-year fundraising form letters, etc. Many of the papers are the correspondence and notes of Robert Lee, one of the founders and the Executive Director of Asian American Arts Council, and Eleanor Yung, another Asian Amerian Arts Council founder and the artistic director of the former Asian American Dance Theatre.
To a lesser extent, the collection also includes materials generated by The Association of American Cultures and early Asian American movement organizations like Basement Workshop. The research files of Danny Yung, brother of Eleanor Yung, are also present, as are legal documents from the 26 Bowery case (Robert Lee and Eleanor Yung v. Tien Yick Co., Inc.). Some of the files pertain to Zuni Icosahedron, an experimental theater group from Hong Kong, of which Danny Yung is the artistic director.
Subjects
Organizations
Topics
Places
Conditions Governing Access
Materials are open without restrictions with the exception of boxes 4-6, 10, 12-15, 20, 22-23, 30, 44, 66, 87, 91, 95, 103, and 113. Access to these boxes is restricted.
Conditions Governing Use
Any rights (including copyright and related rights to publicity and privacy) held by the Asian American Arts Centre were transferred to New York University in 2012 by Robert Lee. Permission to publish or reproduce materials in this collection must be secured from the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive. Please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu.
Preferred Citation
Published citations should take the following form:
Identification of item, date; Asian American Arts Centre Records; TAM 613; Box number; Folder number; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
To cite the archived websites in this collection: Identification of item, date; Asian American Arts Centre Records; TAM 613; Wayback URL; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated by Robert Lee on behalf of the Asian American Arts Centre in 2012, 2018, and 2019. The accession numbers associated with this gift are 2012.022, 2012.038, and 2012.040, and 2019.018.
http://www.artasiamerica.org/, http://www.artspiral.org/, and http://artspiral.blogspot.com/ were initially selected by curators and captured through the use of The California Digital Library's Web Archiving Service in 2014 as part of the Arts and Cultural Left Web Archive. In November 2015, thes websites were migrated to Archive-It. 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. In October 2023, http://new.artasiamerica.org/ was added. The accession number associated with this website is 2023.090.
Audiovisual Access Policies and Procedures
Audiovisual materials have not been preserved and may not be available to researchers. Materials not yet digitized will need to have access copies made before they can be used. To request an access copy, or if you are unsure if an item has been digitized, please contact tamiment.wagner@nyu.edu with the collection name, collection number, and a description of the item(s) requested. A staff member will respond to you with further information.
Appraisal
No materials were separated from this 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
Forty-seven linear feet of art books, catalogues, and serials from the collection were given to the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. An additional four linear feet of books and serials were separated for cataloging by the Tamiment Library. Duplicates of flyers, programs, and other printed ephemera were removed. Some personal materials were separated and may be returned to the donors.
About this Guide
Processing Information
Some materials were rehoused into archival quality folders and containers. In such cases, any original folder titles were copied onto the new folders or containers. Materials were condensed between boxes to correct under- or overstuffing. Folder titles added by the archivist are indicated with square brackets.
In 2014, the archived website was added to the container list. Additional archived websites were added to the finding in 2023 and descriptive and administrative information was added related to the archived websites.
