LibGuides: Art &amp; Performance in the Time of AIDS: Primary Sources

Tips and Tools for Finding Archives

Locally (Barnard Archives and Special Collections):

The Barnard Archives and Special Collections has materials related to the history of Barnard College and materials that focus on Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, and Dance. You can see a full list of all of collections held at the Barnard Archives and Special Collections’ on our finding aids website.
Within CLIO, you can construct a search for a term and “barnard archives” to find relevant collections. For example: feminism “barnard archives”

Locally (Columbia University Archives and Special Collections):

In order to find archival collections on Columbia’s campus, within CLIO, you can click on the Archives facet on the side navigation. Search here using keyword to find archival materials related to your research.
CLIO searches seven repositories within the Columbia Libraries: Avery Library, Department of Drawings and Archives; Barnard Archives; Burke Library Archives; Columbia University Archives; Health Sciences Archives & Special Collections; Rare Book & Manuscript Library; Starr East Asian Library Rare Books and Special Collections.

Finding Other Archives' Collections:

There are a few decent databases to help you find other archival repositories and collections that might match your research question. To start, try ArchiveGrid, but you can also try WorldCat and Google.
Trace back from secondary sources: what sources are other scholars using to analyze and provide evidence for their arguments? Are these the types of materials that you are interested in utilizing?
Talk with an archivist! Archivists have knowledge about the landscape of institutional collecting and can point you in a good direction.

Online Collections Relating to HIV/AIDS

ACT UP Oral History Project
The ACT UP Oral History Project is a collection of interviews with surviving members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, New York. The project is coordinated by Jim Hubbard and Sarah Schulman, with principal camera work by James Wentzy and additional camerawork on the West Coast by S. Leo Chiang and Tracy Wares.

Archives of sexuality and gender
The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program provides a robust and significant collection of primary sources for the historical study of sex, sexuality, and gender. With material dating back to the sixteenth century, researchers and scholars can examine how sexual norms have changed over time, health and hygiene, the development of sex education, the rise of sexology, changing gender roles, social movements and activism, erotica, and many other interesting topical areas. This growing archival program offers rich research opportunities across a wide span of human history. The Archives of Sexuality and Gender program consists of four archives: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part I; LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940, Part II; Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century; and International Perspectives on LGBTQ Activism and Culture.

New York Public Library. Dance Collection. AIDS Oral History Project
Supervised use at the New York Public Library Performing Arts Division. By appointment only.
Online Archive of California
Includes archival collections (some available online) from collections across California, including those pertaining to ACT UP/LA and other LGBTQ advocacy movements in the state.
USC Digital Collections - AIDS
Digital Collections from USC Libraries using the keyword AIDS.
Visual AIDS: Artists+ Registry
The Artist+ Registry is the largest database of works by artists with HIV/AIDS. It offers a unique resource to inspire and educate the public. Visual AIDS assists artists with HIV/AIDS, while preserving a visual record of their work and helping them reach new audiences. The Artist+ Registry is open to all HIV+ artists.

Archival Collections related to HIV/AIDS and Activism

Gay and Lesbian Collections & AIDS/HIV Collections at NYPL
The Manuscripts and Archives Division of the New York Public Library holds over 100 collections pertaining to the history and culture of gay men and lesbians, and to the history of the AIDS/HIV epidemic. Gay and lesbian history and AIDS history are not a single subject; however, because of their interrelationships, both types of collections are included in this guide.
Interference Archive
The mission of Interference Archive is to explore the relationship between cultural production and social movements. This work manifests in an open stacks archival collection, publications, a study center, and public programs including exhibitions, workshops, talks, and screenings, all of which encourage critical and creative engagement with the rich history of social movements. The archive contains many kinds of objects that are created as part of social movements by the participants themselves: posters, flyers, publications, photographs, books, T-shirts and buttons, moving images, audio recordings, and other materials.
Lesbian Herstory Archive
The Lesbian Herstory Archives is home to the world's largest collection of materials by and about lesbians and their communities. The collection includes digital images of ACT UP demonstrations and related ephemera.
New Museum: Archive
Searches the exhibition history of the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.
New York Public Library. Dance Collection. AIDS Oral History Project
Supervised use at the New York Public Library Performing Arts Division. By appointment only.
NYU Archival Collections + Brooklyn Historical Society + New-York Historical Society
Search across the finding aids of the various archival repositories at NYU (including the Fales Library and its Downtown Collection and the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives) as well as archival holdings at Brooklyn Historical and New-York Historical.
ONE Archives at USC Library
The collections at ONE Archives at the USC Libraries are primarily national in scope, with special focus on LGBTQ histories in the Los Angeles region. The archives also include a number of international materials, such as books, periodicals, and posters.
Political Art Documentation/Distribution (PAD/D) Archive at MoMA
Political Art Documentation/Distribution, an artists’ collective conceived by critic Lucy Lippard in 1979, was active through 1988. Its archive was organized by colleagues Barbara Moore and Mimi Smith and was donated to the Library in 1989. PAD/D’s stated goal was: to provide artists with an organized relationship to society, to demonstrate the political effectiveness of image making, and to provide a framework within which progressive artists can discuss and develop alternatives to the mainstream art system. Search the collection through MoMA's catalog DADABase (http://arcade.nyarc.org/search~S8)

Selected Image Databases in Art History

Large repositories of art images

ARTstor
Artstor is a searchable database of digital images and associated catalog data from museum, archives, galleries and libraries from around the globe. ARTstor documents the fields of architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, design, anthropology, ethnographic and women's studies, as well as many other forms of visual culture. Users can search, view, download and organize images.

Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video clips) to everyone, in their own language. It acts as a common repository for the various projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, but you do not need to belong to one of those projects to use media hosted here.

Select museum collections

Digital museum collections are a great place to find high-quality reproductions of works of art, as well as all the information you need to properly caption your images. Below you will find a selection of New York City museums (and a couple of others too), which have strong digital collections online.

Getty Open Content Images
Find selected digitized materials from the Research Institute's collection that are free to view and download. Materials include over 2.5 million digital images of rare and public domain books, photographs, prints, manuscripts, sketchbooks, and archives.
LACMA
Collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Collection
The Met's collections - including over 5,000 years of art from around the globe - are accessible through this online database. You can search by artist or culture, object type or material, geographic location, date or era, and by department. Select "Public Domain Artworks" to limit your search to only those images that are free to use without permission.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
An evolving collection contains almost 200,000 works of modern and
contemporary art. More than 77,000 works are currently available online.
National Gallery of Art
Search the entire National Gallery of Art collection by artist's last name, key words in the title, key words in object information, credit line, provenance name, accession number, exhibition history, and/or catalogue raisonné. You will be able to filter your search results by medium, nationality, time span, styles, images, and whether an object is on view.
SFMoMA
The online collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Studio Museum in Harlem
The Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent collection represents more than 400 artists, spans 200 years of history and includes over 2,200 works of art, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, watercolors, photographs, videos and mixed-media installations.
Whitney Museum of American Art
Explore the Whitney's collection of over 23,000 works, created by more than 3,000 American artists during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. See work on view in our galleries below, or browse the full collection.

Art & Performance in the Time of AIDS

Finding Archival Collections

Research Librarian