A digital archive of Asian/Asian American contemporary art history
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Finding Aid: AAAC Artist Archive

Identity Statement

NAME AND LOCATION OF REPOSITORY

The Asian American Arts Centre
111 Norfolk Street, ground floor
New York, New York, 10002
Phone: 212.233.2154
Fax: 360.283.2154
Web address: http://www.artspiral.org/

TITLE

AAAC Artist Archive

DATE

Inclusive Dates: 1945 to present
Bulk Dates: 1982 - 2000

EXTENT

The records include approximately 20 linear feet of documents in 43 archival boxes.

DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY

AAAC Artist Archive houses materials of Asian American contemporary artists who have exhibited at Asian American Arts Centre, as well as at outside museums and galleries. The artists include Asian Americans producing art, Asian artists who are active in the United States, and other Americans who are significantly influenced by Asia. The materials contain artists' resumes, artists' statements, interview transcripts, exhibition fliers, press releases, catalogs, correspondences, publications, newspaper clippings, journal articles, images on paper/CDs, photographs, videos, and slides.

SUBJECT HEADINGS (LCSH)

Asian American Arts Centre
Asian American art -- 20th century
Asian American art -- 21st century
Asian American artists

Content

NAME OF CREATORS

Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC) serves as the main creator of the files as well as the government body of these materials, and is responsible for assembling them into a series of records.

Materials such as application forms for the archive were originally created by artists who submitted their materials to AAAC. Other items that were created by artists include: resumes, artists' statements, letters and greeting cards to AAAC, photographs, and slides. The secondary materials, such as photocopies of newspaper and journal articles, were created by AAAC, artists who have sent in the materials, or researchers who worked for the projects at AAAC. Exhibition fliers and press releases were created and sent by galleries, museums, and the press. Correspondences include items from artist's families. All materials were received, arranged, and filed by AAAC.

ADMINISTRATIVE/BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY

Asian American Arts Centre was founded in 1974 in New York City as Asian American Dance Theatre (AADT), a not-for-profit community arts organization. It was one of the older community arts organizations in the New York City Chinatown. A visual arts program was initiated in 1984 called Asian Arts Institute. The current name, Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC), was adopted in 1987 to encompass both the dance company (AADT) and visual arts programs.

The Arts Centre began the Asian American Artists' Slide Archive in 1982. The exhibition catalog production began in 1984, and the Traditional Arts Presentation and Documentation program began in 1985. Artist vertical files have been 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. It presently 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 Arts Centre created a research project with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation called the "Milieu" series to focus on Asian American artists from the post World War era 1945 to1965 to contextualize them and their artwork within this historical setting, and to provide a historical precedent for the cultural presence of young Asian American artists. About ninety artists who began their career from 1945 to 1965 were selected, and extensive research was conducted for many of them. Some were interviewed in their native language and so have been transferred to the archive; therefore, they may have extensive documents and materials in their files.

In 2007, the Arts Centre created a new archive, AAAC Artist Archive, from a part of the original slide archive in the line of its digitization project. 150 artists were selected, and processed into the archival environment for long-term preservation. Selected materials from these 150 artists are digitized and available on the website http://artasiamerica.org.

SCOPE AND CONTENT

AAAC Artist Archive documents, preserves, and promotes the presence of Asian American culture in the United States since 1945. This includes the East Coast, especially the greater New York area, some of the West Coast and some artists in Canada, Hawaii, and overseas. The artists include Asian Americans producing art, Asian artists who are active in the United States, and other Americans who are significantly influenced by Asia.

The materials include: 1) AAAC artist information form if the artist has submitted one; 2) resumes; 3) artist's statements; 4) interview transcripts if any; 5) obituaries if any; 6) materials from exhibitions held at AAAC (including proposals, fliers, and press releases); 7) materials from exhibitions outside AAAC (including fliers, press releases, brochures, and exhibition catalogs); 8) miscellaneous materials such as correspondences, newspaper and journal articles; 9) images (including CDs/DVDs, photographs, drawings, negatives and positives); 10) slides and slide lists if available; and 11) videos on VHS or CD/DVD.

SYSTEM OF ARRANGEMENT

The files are arranged by artists' last name in alphabetical order. In each folder, the person's name and date of birth/death are written as: [Last name, First name Month, Date, Year of birth - Month, Date, Year of death]. The documents in each folder are arranged in ascending chronological order, except for the first folder in which artist's resumes are arranged in reverse chronological order (a recent resume appears in the front of the folder). AAAC information forms are filed in the very top of the first folder. In miscellaneous folders, correspondences and articles are grouped together respectively.

Conditions of Access and Use

CONDITIONS GOVERNING ACCESS

Once fully processed, the archive's records are generally open to research use. Records that contain personally identifiable information will be closed to protect individual privacy.

Publication Rights: For permission to publish reproduction of materials, contact AAAC.

Preferred Citation: Last Name, First Name File, AAAC Artist Archive. Asian American Arts Centre. Copyright for documents is retained by Asian American Arts Centre.

PHYSICAL ACCESS

AAAC Artist Archive's files are available to the public by appointment. Visitors must comply with all archive rules, written or otherwise. Materials do not circulate; researchers are supervised at all times; unprocessed materials and Artist vertical files are available for research by request.

Some papers are brittle, such as newspapers, and need to be handled with care. Removal of photographs from plastic sleeves is not permitted in order to prevent damage from hand oil or environmental damage. Slides should be handled with gloves. A light box and loupe provided at the archive.

With the purpose of respecting original order and creator's intention, some materials such as portfolios are filed without any change as it was received. Visitors are not allowed to modify or rearrange the order, or remove any materials or supplies such as plastic clips.

CONDITIONS GOVERNING REPRODUCTION AND USE

Copyright for documents is retained by Asian American Arts Centre. Copyright for reproduction of images is retained by the artists or other parties. Use of those materials is only permitted under the "fair use". Scanning, digital photography, and/or photocopying is permitted at archivist's discretion and performed by the archivist or other staff for the current fee schedule posted and only as time permits.

LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS OF THE MATERIALS

The primary language of the documents is English; some records are written in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other languages. Numerals are nearly always Arabic, with some Roman.

CUSTODIAL HISTORY

Beginning 1982, artist vertical files have been created, arranged, and filed within Asian American Arts Centre (AAAC). Items such as AAAC information forms, resumes, artists' statements, letters, photographs, and slides were sent by the artists to AAAC. Other items such as fliers and press releases were originally created by third parties, and received by AAAC. Documents that were created by AAAC (such as photocopies of articles) have been added to the artist's file accordingly. As AAAC Artist Archive was created, some materials were transferred from Artist vertical files with all the rights retained.

The documents have never been donated or loaned to other institutions, and have been housed at AAAC without a change of ownership. Some items are relocated within AAAC.

APPRAISAL, DESTRUCTION, AND SCHEDULING INFORMATION

When materials are sent from an artist to AAAC, it is examined and if approved by the director, will be filed in the artist's file in Artist vertical files. Upon further decision for a future digitization plan, some artists' files will be moved to AAAC Artist Archive to be preserved in the archival environment permanently.

ACCRUALS

Further accruals are expected when potential digitization projects get launched.

EXISTENCE AND LOCATION OF COPIES

There are no copies of these archive materials as a collection in any other locations.

SEPARATE ARCHIVAL MATERIALS

Some institutions that are specialized in similar fields have materials or collections for some of the artists that are in AAAC Artist Archive. Examples include: Smithsonian Archives of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art Archive, and The Brooklyn Museum Archive.

Description Control

DATE OF DESCRIPTION

Identification, rehousement, arrangement were done from July 2007 to January 2008. Description completed in April 2009.

STANDARD

Description compliant to DACS (Describing Archives: A Content Standard).

Container Listing

43 archival boxes

  • Achjadi, Diyan

  • Ahn, Seongmin

  • Arai, Tomie

  • Araki, Yoshiki

  • Bahl, Shelly

  • Barnes, Toby

  • Bhavsar, Natvar

  • Bing, Bernice

  • Bose, Arun

  • Bose, Santiago

  • Brooks, Lotus Do

  • Chan, Amy

  • Chan, Irene

  • Chan, Phillip

  • Chang, Chien-Chi

  • Chang, Jackie

  • Chang, Rutherford

  • Chann, George

  • Chao, Chung-Hsiang

  • Chaudhuri, Bivas

  • Chen, Wei-In

  • Cheng, Emily

  • Chin, Alan

  • Chin, Mel

  • Cho, Yeou-jui

  • Chodos, Junko

  • Choi, Eun Young

  • Choi, Sung Ho

  • Chong, Albert V.

  • Chong, Theresa

  • Chu, Ken

  • Dang, Tai

  • Dave, Vinod

  • Diao, David

  • Fay, Ming

  • Fiero, Columbia

  • Fortes, John Yoyogi

  • Fu, Colette

  • Fukawa, Hirokazu

  • Fukushima, Ken

  • Fulbeck, Lawrence Kip

  • Fung, Ming Chip

  • Furusho, Kenta

  • Ganesh, Chitra

  • Goto, Byron

  • Goto, Joseph

  • Gu, Wenda

  • Gutierrez, Robert

  • Gwon, Steven

  • Hashmi, Zarina

  • Hei, Han Khiang

  • Hibi, Hisako

  • Ho, Christopher K.

  • Ho, Sin-ying

  • Hom, Mei-Ling

  • Hom, Nancy

  • Hsieh, Tehching

  • Hsu, Ti Shan

  • Hu, Bing

  • Huang, Arlan

  • Huie, Wing Young

  • Hung, Sui Ying

  • Hwang, Eunjung

  • Hwang, Insook

  • Igarta, Venancio C.

  • Imagire, Dorothy

  • Jack, James

  • Jain, Vandana

  • Ji, Yun-Fei

  • Jo, Sook Jin

  • Johnson, Indira Freitas

  • Jung, Earl

  • Kagoshima, E'wao (Rocky)

  • Kanemitsu, Matsumi

  • Kang, Ik-Joong

  • Kao, Amy

  • Khurana, Swati

  • Kijima, Eiko

  • Kim, Byron

  • Kim, Hae Yuon

  • Kim, Heejung

  • Kim, Jung Hyang

  • Kim, Mikyung

  • Kim, Shin il

  • Kim, Soon-im

  • Kim, Yeong Gill

  • Kotani, Akiko

  • Ku, Fay

  • Kuga, Toshinori

  • Kuo, Anna

  • Kuo, James K. Y.

  • Kuo, Nina

  • Kurahara, Ted

  • Kwan, Jerry

  • Kwok, Mang Ho

  • Kwon, Sowon

  • Le, Dinh Q.

  • Lee, Bing

  • Lee, Bovey

  • Lee, Chang-Jin

  • Lee, Colin Loy

  • Lee, Corky

  • Lee, Eva

  • Lee, Sang Nam

  • Li-Lan

  • Liao, Shiou-Ping

  • Lim, Choong Sup

  • Lin, Cynthia

  • Lin, Lin

  • Lin, Shu-Min

  • Liou, Jawshing Arthur

  • Loewan, Amy

  • Mafong, Richard

  • Marks, China

  • Melnick, Leah

  • Min, Yong Soon

  • Miyamoto, Kazuko

  • Moy, Seong

  • Nagasawa, Nobuho

  • Nakagawa, Osamu James

  • Ng, Chee Wang

  • Nguyen, Long

  • Nguyen, Quynh

  • Niizeki, Hiromi

  • Oh, Soon-Hwa

  • Okuhara, Tetsuaki

  • Ossorio, Alfonso A.

  • Pai, John

  • Paik, Younhee

  • Panday, Ram Kumar

  • Park, Eung Ho

  • Patel, Avani

  • Peet, Yin

  • Pham, Nathalie

  • Pien, Edward

  • Pindell, Howardena

  • Roser, Ce

  • Sabharwal, Tara

  • Samant, Mohan

  • Sasaki, Toshio

  • Shimada, Yoshiko

  • Shimomura, Roger

  • Shin, Hyungsub

  • Shin, Jean

  • Shinohara, Noriko

  • Shinohara, Ushio

  • Sugimoto, Henry

  • Sun, Carol

  • Takenaga, Barbara

  • Ting, Mary

  • Ting, Walasse

  • Torres-yap, Fay

  • Tran, T. Kim-Trang

  • Tran, Tam Van

  • Tse, Shirley

  • Tseng, Kwong Chi

  • Tsong, Jane

  • Tsuchitani, Scott

  • Tsuchiya, Toyo

  • Tsuda, Rumiko

  • Ukaji, Kaori

  • Unithan, Dolly

  • Wan, Jan-Ru

  • Wang, C. C.

  • Watanabe Spiller, Micki

  • Wong, Katarina

  • Wong, Martin

  • Wong, Paul

  • Wong, Steven

  • Wong, Tony W. H.

  • Xu, Bing

  • Yeh, Lily

  • Yi, Jason S.

  • Yoda, Junko

  • Yuen, Charles

  • Yung, Danny

  • Yung, Rene

  • Zhang, Jian-Jun

  • Zhao, Sui Kang

  • Zheng, Lianjie