This Is The Way Your Leverage Lies: The Seth Siegelaub Papers as Institutional Critique
“This interactive exhibition examines Siegelaub’s brief but deeply influential career as gallery owner, independent curator, publisher, event facilitator, and seminal figure in the experimental and anti-establishment Conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. His curatorial work took place both in physical spaces and, most significantly, in the form of books. Like Conceptual artists, Siegelaub explored subversive communication methods and mediums in his work and raised important questions about the making, display, ownership, distribution, and sale of art. This exhibition highlights items in The Seth Siegelaub Papers, now in The Museum of Modern Art Archives, that illustrate Siegelaub’s role in empowering artists within the hierarchy of the art world.”
(above: mockup draft of title page of Xerox Book (1968))
(above: handwritten draft of open appeal written to artists, 1970)
(above: mockup draft for cover of The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer And Sale Agreement (1971))