Special Collections
Like many libraries, Contemporary Art Library has a handful of special collections that represent areas of exceptional depth in certain areas of our archive. The following collections represent initiatives to bring in documentation of certain kinds of artists, spaces and projects above and beyond the natural inflow of material to the library. There are several new special collections in development.
Contemporary Art Quarterly - Four times a year, we release comprehensive archives representing individual artists we think merit special study. The artists in this collection have directly helped us to gather rare and early documentation from parts of their career that have never been documented in public before. Our goal is to make it possible for anyone to become an expert in these artists by spending time with this collection.
New York Gallery History Project – We have a project in partnership with Independent focusing on preserving the history of New York City galleries that are no longer in operation. We’ve started the project with Jay Gorney Modern Art. Keep an eye on this collection as we will be including more NYC archives soon!
Closed/Paused Spaces - As part of our mission to preserve contemporary art history, we have put special focus on collecting material from art spaces that have closed. Galleries, artist-run spaces and other venues often close abruptly, and their websites soon follow suit. This collection includes the complete histories of many such spaces, both the recently closed and the historical.
Founding Partner Archives - Since the launch of the Library in 2021 we have reached out to galleries, museums and artist run spaces that have, we think, some of the best programming of the last 20-30 years. We’ve asked them to share their full exhibition history with the Library. For some spaces this undertaking has just begun and in others we have their complete chronology. If you want to look through archives with especially relevant and complete histories please browse this collection.