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Artists and their Afterlives

Perspectives on the Value of Archival Materials

For Archives Month 2024, DC Public Library will host a very special conversation about the role that archival materials and documentation can play in fostering future dialogue with an artist’s work.

Join us for a compelling conversation from three perspectives: a curator, a collector of archives, and an artist — about the importance of artists’ archives and how they inform exhibition-making and public understanding. The starting point for the conversation will be the new exhibition, Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return, co-organized by the National Portrait Gallery and Archives of American Art. 

The conversation will begin with a discussion of topics that emerged doing archival research for the Felix Gonzalez-Torres exhibition. It will continue with an overview of contemporary collecting at the Archives of American Art, and extend into a closer look at archive-based projects spearheaded by a Washington-D.C. and London based artist. Joining the discussion will be Charlotte Ickes, Curator of Time-Based Media and Special Projects, National Portrait Gallery; Josh T. Franco, Head of Collecting, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution; and interdisciplinary artist-curator and cultural producer Tsedaye Makonnen.

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