Please Come to the Show

Invitation cards and event flyers from the MoMA Library ephemera files. Developed in the context of a two-part library exhibition, which ran from May 8-Sept. 23, 2013. After the show closes, new materials will continue to be posted regularly. Organized by David Senior. (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-40957027-1', 'tumblr.com'); ga('send', 'pageview');

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Registration form for International Dialogue of Experimental Architecture, June 1966. “All Europe’s Creative Nuts Will be There.”

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Before he was spiraling jetties and pouring asphalt down hills, Robert Smithson made paintings and collages. Here is a flyer from his first show in New York City in 1959. -ds

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James Lee Byars, 1976, from the Steven Leiber Extra Art Archive. - ar

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Ant Farm flyer from the recently acquired Steven Leiber Extra Art Archive, a collection of artists’ ephemera ranging from 1960 - 1999.  As we catalog the material, we will be posting some highlights from the collection. The archive was originally shown in the 2001 exhibition, Extra Art: A Survey of Artists’ Ephemera, at the California College of Arts and Crafts.  The collection includes exhibition invitations, posters, ads, stickers, buttons, and other miscellany from over 190 artists, across a range of art movements, including conceptual art, Fluxus, pop art, minimalism, visual poetry and Arte Povera. 

-Annelise Ream, Project Intern 

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Announcement card for For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there, curated by Anthony Huberman. Amsterdam: De Appel, 2010. Design by Will Holder. 

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Kaprow “activity” in 1970 at Kent State. 

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For our Canadian viewers! Where/when is this invitation from, eh? 

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Flyers from the Art Workers' Coalition ephemera file in the PAD/D collection 

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From a note in the MoMA artist file of James Lee Byars, “This biographical statement was distributed for the Byars performance which took place in Nov. of 1967 for the opening of the “Made with Paper” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts. The performance consisted of large stripes of water soluble paper being laid down on West 53rd St. (between 5th and 6th Ave; requiring the block to be closed off) in the form of a man. To conclude the performance two NYC sanitation trucks drove over the paper man turning it into foamy suds.”  

some images of the event here: http://www.rolublog.com/2014/02/3418/ -ds

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Hairy Who goes West. A show poster (1969) for a group show (“The show for people who can’t read!”), including Hairy Who’s Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt and fellow Chicagoan Joseph Yoakum, a self-taught artist that the Hairy Who circle promoted. From the Candy Store gallery (Funk art!) in Folsom, CA. -ds

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The publication Please Come to the Show is featured on the Walker Art Center Design Blog . It is a exhibition catalog for a MoMA Library show that recently traveled to the Exhibition Research Centre in Liverpool. Read an essay on the blog by former MoMA Library director Clive Phillpot. You can get a copy for yourself at the publisher Occasional Papers website. -ds