Artists' Archives: an Exploration of How Six New Zealand Artists Organise and View Their Archives

Abstract

Artists' archives have been the topic of two professional conferences held by the Art Librarians Society of the United Kingdom and Ireland (ARLIS UK) to discuss the special issues particular to artists' archives. This research explores a variety of issues of concern to information professionals from the artists' perspective as important stake-holders. The intention of this research is to discover how artists feel about their own archives, how they arrange and use their archives and potential problems for artists if they bequest these archives to institutions. It is widely understood that artists' archives by their varied nature pose problems for archivists and institutions. Identification and curatorial aspects of artists' archives require specialist knowledge and similarly, preservation of such items requires a specialist conservation approach. This research questions artists on the arrangement and finding aids used within their own archives, and the variety of materials they keep. Artists have also been asked to contribute what they believe are special concerns, that are specific to keeping these archives that archivists should look to address. The research concluded that artists' archives had unique features which made them different to standard text based archives. As a consequence of this many archivists experienced difficulties in archiving artists' archives. Many artists felt their archives had a low value within New Zealand collecting institutions. Furthermore that many who held them did not have the funding to promote, or provide access to them. Artists also differed markedly in how they used their own archive and their attitudes and concepts of their own archives.