Seth Siegelaub

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Born September 26, 1941(1941-09-26)
Bronx, New York, United States
Died June 15, 2013(2013-06-15) (aged 71)
Basel, Switzerland
Web Wikipedia

Seth Siegelaub (1941, Bronx, New York - 2013, Basel) was an American-born art dealer, curator, author and researcher.

Siegelaub ran his own gallery, Seth Siegelaub Contemporary Art in Manhattan from 1964 to 1966. As an independent curator, he played a vital role in the emergence of Conceptual art between 1966 and 1972, working with artists such as Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth, and Lawrence Weiner. Among his groundbreaking projects were The Xerox Book (1968) and July/August Exhibition (1970), which explored the phenomenon of the “group exhibition” in its most radical form: a book or a journal. In 1972, he turned away from the New York art scene and moved to Paris, where he worked as a publisher. Siegelaub began collecting and researching textiles and books about textiles in the early 1980s. He moved to Amsterdam and founded the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles, which conducts research into the social history of textiles. At the turn of the 21st century he started the Stichting Egress Foundation in Amsterdam to bring together his varied range of projects: contemporary art, textile history, and time and causality research.

Chronology

This chronology was compiled by Sara Martinetti and published online by Raven Row gallery. Translated from the French by Boris Kremer.

1941
  • Seth Siegelaub is born in the Bronx, New York, the first of four children. Raised in an intellectually curious lower middle class family.
1947–1959
  • Attends public grade school P.S 102, the Henry Hudson Junior High School in the Bronx, and then the Stuyvesant High School. Discovers art and the world of ideas through his frequentation of local public libraries, and later, the Donnell Library on 53rd Street in Manhattan.
1959–1960
  • Completes his military service obligation in the New York State Air National Guard.
1960–1964
  • Leaves home and moves into an apartment at 59 West 90 Street in Manhattan.
  • Briefly attends Hunter College in New York but soon loses interest in his studies. Works as a plumber, and also as a part-time gallery assistant at the SculptureCenter in New York.
  • Develops an interest in Oriental rugs. Begins buying specialist books on carpets from second-hand bookshops.
1964
  • Opens his gallery, Seth Siegelaub Contemporary Art, at 56th Street, New York, where he shows the work of Pierre Clerk, Michael Eastman, Arne Hendin, Alfred Michael Iarusso, Herbert Livesey, Dennis MacCarthy, Lawrence Weiner and Edward Whiteman. Exhibits the work of Weiner twice, showing the paintings he was making at the time. For several months the gallery also deals in Oriental rugs in partnership with Robert Gaile.
1965–1966
  • Frequents openings and bars such as Max's Kansas City near Union Square. Makes the acquaintance of many people including gallerist Richard Bellamy and art historian and curator Eugene C. Goossen, whose critical and active support of artists impresses him. Meets artists Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth and Sol LeWitt, with whom he develops close working and personal relationships.
1966
  • Organises 25, an exhibition with paintings and sculptures by John Chamberlain, Joseph Cornell, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Al Heid, Hans Hofmann, Ellsworth Kelly, Franz Kline, Martin Maloney, Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, George Ortman, Jackson Pollock, Kenneth Price, Ad Reinhardt, David Smith, Jack Tworkov, Lawrence Weiner, Adja Yunkers and Larry Zox. Buys a work by Ad Reinhardt from the exhibition entitled Timeless Painting (1960–61).
  • Closes the gallery after eighteen months for financial reasons and doubts about its artistic direction. Moves into a three-room flat in a high-rise at 1100 Madison Avenue, where he tries to work as a private art dealer, while organising exhibitions, events and debates at which artists, friends and collectors meet.
  • Familiarises himself with the theories of Marshall McLuhan and Vance Packard on communication, culture and mass media.
1967–1968
  • With friend and collector Jack Wendler, founds Image. Art Programs for Industry Inc., a public relations company aiming to bring together artists and industry via the use of new industrial materials.
1968
  • His son Yves is born on 29 February.
  • Critics John Chandler and Lucy Lippard publish their seminal essay on the burgeoning Conceptual Art scene, "The Dematerialisation of the Art Object", in Art International.
  • 4 February–2 March. Organises Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner at Bradford Junior College, Bradford, Massachusetts, an exhibition and a symposium advertised by a four-part printed announcement in an envelope.
  • 30 April–31 May. Organises Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Lawrence Weiner with Chuck Ginnever at Windham College, Putney, Vermont, an exhibition and a symposium moderated by Dan Graham and advertised by a poster mailing. As Windham College does not have a dedicated art space, the artists create site-specific outdoor works.
  • 4–7 October. Organises a week-long Benefit Exhibition for the Congressional Election Campaign for Edward Koch with works by artists including Andre, Barry, Huebler and Weiner at Richard L. Feigen & Co. in Lower New York.
  • November. Publishes Douglas Huebler, a catalogue-exhibition with works from the artist's series of Variable Pieces and Duration Pieces. For the first time, the catalogue is the exhibition.
  • December. With the support of the Louis Kellner Foundation, New York, publishes Lawrence Weiner's Statements, a catalogue-exhibition with 25 text-based works.
1969
  • Gives a long-term loan of his hundreds of rare books on rugs to the library of Asia House Gallery in New York, under the responsibility of Gordon Bailey Washburn.
  • Participates in the discussions of the Art Workers" Coalition (AWC), which was founded after a dispute between artists and curators at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. Intervenes during the Open Hearing, a public debate on the relationship between art and the wider institutional and political context.
  • Travels for the first time to Europe in preparation for Prospekt '69, an exhibition organised by Konrad Fischer and Hans Strelow at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Visits Harald Szeemann's exhibition When Attitudes Become Form at the Kunsthalle Bern. From this time onwards, through travelling and ongoing correspondence, stays in contact with European artists, collectors, gallerists and critics such as Daniel Buren, Michel Claura, Herman Daled, Konrad Fischer, Yvon Lambert, Marisa Merz and Mario Merz, Giuseppe Panza, Gian Enzo Sperone and Hans Strelow.
  • Works alongside Lippard in the preparation of the catalogues for 557,087 and 955,000, the two exhibitions she organised at the Seattle Art Museum and the Vancouver Art Gallery respectively, with works by 72 artists at the forefront of 1960s contemporary art.
  • Charles Harrison, the assistant editor of the London-based magazine Studio International, publishes a manifesto interview "On Exhibitions and the World at Large".
  • Discusses his role in art with artist Patricia Norvell as part of a series of ten interviews with artists.
  • 5–31 January. Organises January 5–31, 1969, an exhibition and a catalogue with work by Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner. The exhibition, which takes place in a temporary space in the McLendon Building on 52nd Street, New York, is the guide to the catalogue. Each artist presents two works in the exhibition and designs four pages in the publication.
  • March. Publishes March 1969, also known as One Month, a catalogue-exhibition in the shape of a calendar with a text-based work by a different artist for each day of the month. Invited artists are Carl Andre, Michael Asher, Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, Robert Barry, Frederick Barthelme, Iain Baxter, James Lee Byars, John Chamberlain, Ron Cooper, Barry Flanagan, Dan Flavin, Alex Hay, Douglas Huebler, Robert Huot, Stephen Kaltenbach, On Kawara, Joseph Kosuth, Christine Kozlov, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Dennis Oppenheim, Allen Ruppersberg, Ed Ruscha, Robert Smithson, De Wain Valentine, Lawrence Weiner and Ian Wilson.
  • March. Organises Joseph Kosuth and Robert Morris, a catalogue, exhibition and symposium at Laura Knott Gallery, Bradford Junior College, Bradford, Massachusetts.
  • April. Organises Robert Barry's Inert Gas Series, a project staged in the Mohave Desert and advertised by a poster mailing detailing the address of a post box in Los Angeles and a telephone number that, when dialled, leads to an answer-phone message describing the work.
  • 19 May–19 June. Organises Catalogue for the Exhibition, an exhibition at the Centre for Communication and the Arts at the Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, and a symposium linking participants in Burnaby, New York and Ottawa by telephone. Artists Terry Atkinson, Michael Baldwin, Robert Barry, Jan Dibbets, Douglas Huebler, Stephen Kaltenbach, Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, N.E. Thing Co. Ltd. and Lawrence Weiner exhibit in different parts of the campus. The artworks are not identified during the exhibition, and the catalogue is only made available once the exhibition has ended.
  • 9, 12 and 30 May. Organises Jan Dibbets, a performance occurring at the same time over three days that sees the artist making a gesture from the window of a building in Amsterdam. The photograph indicating the site of the performance serves as the announcement, and is sent from New York in the form of a printed postcard in four languages.
  • September. Conceives and organises the participation of Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner in the exhibition Prospekt "69 in the form of interviews published in the catalogue.
  • October. In collaboration with Dwan Gallery, New York, publishes Carl Andre's Seven Books of Poetry, with the artist's early poetry and journals.
  • 2 November. Organises "Art Without Space", a debate with Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner broadcast on the progressive radio station WBAI FM.
  • 17 November. Organises and moderates "Time: A Panel Discussion" with Carl Andre, Michael Cain (Pulsa), Douglas Huebler and Ian Wilson at the New York Shakespeare Theater in support of the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam.
1970
  • Founds International General, which publishes and distributes his past and future publications as well as, until 1971, artists' books by N.E. Thing Co. Ltd., Allen Ruppersberg and Ed Ruscha.
  • Lives in Amsterdam for six months, a city he regards as an ideal base for travelling within Europe. Works on various exhibition and publishing projects and spends time with Jan Dibbets.
  • January. Publishes Jan Dibbets's Roodborst territorium/Sculptuur 1969. Robin Redbreast's Territory/Sculpture 1969. Domaine d'un rouge-gorge/Sculpture 1969. Rotkehlchenterritorium/Skulptur 1969, a book in four languages documenting the artist's attempt to change the ecological environment of a bird living in Amsterdam's Vondel Park.
  • April. Publishes 18 PARIS IV.70, a catalogue in three languages of an exhibition organised by Michel Claura in Paris. Artists Robert Barry, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Daniel Buren, Jan Dibbets, Jean-Pierre Dijan, Gilbert and George, François Guinochet, Douglas Huebler, On Kawara, David Lamelas, Richard Long, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt, Niele Toroni, Ian Wilson and Lawrence Weiner are invited to propose two projects before making a work for the exhibition.
  • 5–6 October. Organises "The Halifax Conference", a two-day programme of discussions held at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Invited participants produced exercises and propositions for students to experiment with. Participants include Carl Andre, Joseph Beuys, Ronald Bladen, Daniel Buren, John Chamberlain, Gene Davis, Jan Dibbets, Al Held, Robert Irwin, Roy Lichtenstein, Mario Merz, Robert Morris, Robert Murray, N.E. Thing Co. Ltd., Claes Oldenburg, Larry Poons, Robert Rauschenberg, Richard Serra, Richard Smith, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Jean Tinguely and Lawrence Weiner.
1971
  • After sending a questionnaire to over 500 people from the art world, drafts and publishes "The Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement" with lawyer Robert Projansky. Also called "The Artist Contract", it is distributed as a free fold-out poster in various languages and aims to improve, amongst other things, the protection of artists' rights, by demanding that the owner of a work ask for the artist's permission when it is publicly exhibited and that artists receive a 15% share of the profits when their work is resold.
1972
  • Withdraws from the art world. The Leo Castelli Gallery agrees to take on artists Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner.
  • Following his growing interest in politics, does research into press organisations. Considers publishing a left-wing newspaper in New York and opening a radical news agency in France, neither of which are realised.
  • Moves to Bagnolet in the Paris suburbs to live with Rosalind Boehlinger, an art book distributor.
  • In the post-May "68 context in Paris, meets political activists and journalists with the intention of researching communication and culture.
  • Compiles and publishes the first issue of the bibliography entitled Marxism and the Mass Media. Towards a Basic Bibliography.
1973
  • Founds the International Mass Media Research Center (IMMRC) in Bagnolet, which publishes and collects books, magazines, manuscripts and documentation on left and progressive communication and ideology in over 50 countries. Situated in the office-warehouse owned by his partner Rosalind Boehlinger, the library is open to researchers and occasionally serves as a meeting place. IMMRC communicates and exchanges documents with international left organisations specialised in mass communication. Several of its publishing projects involve sociologist Armand Mattelart.
  • Receives the first item of his textiles collection – an arpillera sewn by the families of political prisoners in Chile – from art historian and friend David Kunzle. The collection now comprises 650 items including 15th- to 19th-century European silks, Peruvian and Coptic tapestries, Chinese and Japanese textiles, barkcloth from Africa and Oceania, embroidery from around the world, headdresses and costume.
  • A dialogue with Michel Claura is published in the French magazine Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire under the title "L'art conceptuel".
  • Compiles and publishes the second issue of Marxism and the Mass Media.
1974
  • Compiles and publishes the third issue of Marxism and the Mass Media.
  • Publishes Karl Marx & Frederick Engels on Literature and Art, a compilation of 57 texts edited by Lee Baxandall and Stefan Morawski.
1975
  • Takes part as member of the French branch in the 11th Congress of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IACRM) in Warsaw, an organisation advocating the protection of journalists, the right to free information, and the development of research and systematic study of communication and media.
  • Travels to Portugal one year after the Carnation Revolution, where he talks to soldiers active in the revolution and tries to collect documentation for the library.
  • Publishes the first English translation of the essay How to Read Donald Duck. Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic by Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart.
1976
  • Prepares the publication of two special issues of Marxism and the Mass Media, the first focussing on Africa and the Middle East and the second Portugal, which are not realised.
  • Deposits his stock of Conceptual Art catalogues at Printed Matter, an independent bookshop, publisher, library and art space in New York.
  • Compiles and publishes the second volume of Marxism and the Mass Media 4-5.
1978
  • Publishes the first volume of Marxism and the Mass Media 1-2-3.
1979
1980
  • Publishes Marx & Engels on the Means of Communication (The Movement of Commodities, People, Information & Capital), a selection of 26 excerpts of texts edited by Yves de la Haye.
1982
  • Starts collecting books for a library and drafting entries for a historic bibliography of textile literature, focussing on the economic, social and political role of textiles as well as their aesthetic aspects. Researches this area independently for twenty years, with occasional advice from Dorothy Shepherd, Curator of Textiles at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and his friend Alan Kennedy, an antiquarian and expert in Asian textiles.
  • Starts buying textiles from antique dealers and at flea markets on a regular basis. Acquires a series of European silks, velvets, brocades and damasks dating from the 15th to the 19th century.
  • To finance the aforementioned collections sells rare books on the history of textiles and Islamic art to museums and private customers through International General. Holds a stock of nearly 1,500 titles, grouped in 24 categories.
1983
1984
  • Is asked by UNESCO to take part in a cooperative research programme on the social, economic and cultural aspects of new communication technologies.
  • Publishes Rethinking Marx. Toward a Dialectic Understanding, an anthology of 51 texts edited by Sakari Hänninen and Leena Paldan.
1986
  • The IMMRC ceases its activities.
  • Founds the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles (CSROT), which groups together the library, bibliographic project and textile collection.
  • Publishes Communicating in Popular Nicaragua, an anthology of 13 texts compiled by Armand Mattelard.
1987
  • Publishes Commodity Aesthetics, Ideology and Culture, a compilation of 10 essays by Wolfgang Fritz Haug.
1989
  • Plans the publication of several books including Catalogue of the IMMRC Communication Research Library. Volume 1; Jean-Guy Lacroix and Benoît Lévesque, Communicating in Quebec. The State of the Art; Armand Mattelard, Communication and Class Struggle. 3. New Historical Subjects; Kazen Motamed-Nejad, Communication in/on the "Third World". I. National Development: A Critical International Bibliography; André Pâquet, Film and Politics. Toward an International Left Bibliography. Special Issue of Marxism and the Mass Media 8-9-10; Fernando Perrone, Portugal. Political Struggle and the Mass Media. None are realised.
  • Compiles and publishes the third and last volume of Marxism and the Media 6-7. The complete series comprises 825 annotated entries listed by inventory number, subject, author and country.
  • Publishes The Capitalization of Cultural Production, an essay by Bernard Miege.
1990
  • Moves to Amsterdam to live with Marja Bloem, Curator of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.
  • Donates the IMMRC library to the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam with the aim of making it accessible to researchers. It comprises 1,760 books and documents as well as working notes for Marxism and the Mass Media.
  • Lends artworks from his collection to the exhibition L'Art conceptuel, une perspective, organised by Claude Gintz at the Musée d"Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Gives an interview for the catalogue of the exhibition, which is generally considered to be the first major retrospective of Conceptual Art.
  • In collaboration with Marion and Roswitha Fricke, two art dealers in Düsseldorf, conducts the project The Context of Art/The Art of Context, in which 115 artists involved in one of the five most important exhibitions in 1969 are asked to reflect on changes in art, their lives and the art world since the 1960s. The results are published in various magazines in four different languages.
  • Starts using a computer.
1996
  • Alexander Alberro, Doctor of Art History at the Northwestern University in Chicago, defends a thesis on Deprivileging Art. Seth Siegelaub and the Politics of Conceptual Art (published in 2003 under the title Conceptual Art and the Politics of Publicity). As part of his PhD, he undertakes the crucial task of classifying Sieglaub's archives from the Conceptual Art period (1964–1972).
1997
  • Compiles and publishes Bibliographica Textilia Historiæ. Towards a General Bibliography on the History of Textiles Based on the Library and Archives of the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles, which comprises over 5,000 entries listed in the alphabetical order of the authors" names, with a general thematic index. It is an attempt at a world history of hand woven textiles.
2000
  • Founds the Stichting Egress Foundation in Amsterdam, which brings together all his projects and collections.
  • Starts charting the bibliographical field and collecting books on theories of time and causality in physics, two topics which have fascinated him since his adolescence.
  • From 2000 onwards, is regularly invited by museums or magazines to discuss his role in the emergence of Conceptual Art.
2001
  • Publishes a facsimile of Recherches sur le commerce, la fabrication et l’usage des étoffes de soie, d'or et d'argent et autres tissus précieux en Occident, principalement en France, pendant le Moyen Âge, a book on the history and use of textiles written by Francisque-Michel and published in 1852/54.
2003
  • Between April 2003 and January 2004 travels to New Zealand and Australia, following the successive instalments of the exhibition Colin McCahon A Question of Faith, organised by Marja Bloem for the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2002. Begins collecting tapa (barkcloth), during this prolonged trip.
2005
  • Prepares a CD-ROM version of the Bibliographica Textilia Historiæ allowing searches by keyword, which is not realised.
  • Starts collecting headdresses together with Marja Bloem, from the Americas, Africa, the Middle East. Oceania and Asia.
2006
  • Stichting Egress Foundation gives support to various projects, including Primary Information, a publishing house for artists' books in New York; Kunstverein, an independent art centre in Amsterdam; and the contemporary culture index (ccindex), an online, open-access bibliographical database of international journals and periodicals.
  • Accepts a residency at the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA) in Oslo.
2007
  • Participates in the roundtable discussion "From the Specific to the General. The Publications of Seth Siegelaub", with Alexander Alberro, Robert Barry and Lawrence Weiner, organised at the Museum of Modern Art (moma), New York, by Christophe Cherix, Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books.
2008
2009
  • Sets up the Egress Art Law Resource Center, with lawyer and curator Daniel McClean, which focuses on critical legal issues around contemporary art and provides a forum for discussion.
  • Lends 22 rare books on textiles and one poster to the exhibition Art and Social Fabric at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (muhka). Gives a talk about his interest in textiles as part of the exhibition.
  • Artist Maria Eichhorn publishes The Artist's Contract. Interviews with Carl Andre, Daniel Buren, Paula Cooper, Hans Haacke, Jenny Holzer, Adrian Piper, Robert Projansky, Robert Ryman, Seth Siegelaub, John Weber, Lawrence Weiner, Jackie Winsor, discussing the impact of "The Artist's Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement".
2010
  • Launches the Bibliographica Textilia Historiæ Database on the website of the Stichting Egress Foundation, comprising 9,225 entries which are continually updated.
  • Begins work to create a visual open-access database of the textile collection to be hosted by the Stichting Egress Foundation website.
  • Accepts an invitation from Raven Row, London, to exhibit a selection of textiles from the CSROT collection at their exhibition space in 2012.
2011
  • Presents "How Is Art History Made?", the first project of the Egress Forum for Critical Art Studies, a research project on the socio-economic aspects of the art world, organised in association with the Kunsthalle Basel during the Basel Art Fair.
  • The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, acquires 21 works from his collection of conceptual artworks and receives a donation of four works along with his archives of the period.
  • Supervises the cataloguing of the CSROT historic textile collection by conservator Emmy de Groot in Amsterdam ahead of the exhibition at Raven Row.

Publications

Interviews

Literature

Links

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