The Avant-Garde Reference Files of Barbara Moore

Floor 6, Sondra Gilman Study Center

Part of the Whitney’s Frances Mulhall Achilles Library and Archives, the Avant-Garde Reference Files of Barbara Moore is an archive of printed matter, ephemera, announcements, brochures, artists' books, and editions collected and maintained by Barbara Moore, an art historian, writer, and former rare book dealer, who served as director of the Peter Moore Photography Archive for sixty years. This unique workshop offers participants the opportunity to study selections from the archive and to hear directly from Moore about her collecting practice as a witness and participant in the art and performance of downtown New York. 

The Avant-Garde Reference Files of Barbara Moore contains significant materials related to downtown New York and the activities of artists, publishers, and alternative spaces working across performance art, conceptual art, mail art; video and multimedia; and artists' groups from the 1960s. Materials also include original drawings and handmade objects, as well as media in multiple formats. Collectively, the materials provide information on numerous artists, collectives, galleries, publishers, and arts organizations, providing unique documentation of the development of the avant-garde movements that evolved in New York City and internationally from the 1960s to the 1980. The collection also documents Moore's activities as a rare book dealer, gallerist, and participant in many art events.

The program is part of the symposium Locating Downtown, presented in partnership with New York University Special Collections.  

Speakers 

Barabara Moore is an art historian, writer, and former rare book dealer, who served as director of the Peter Moore Photography Archive for sixty years. She was a witness to and often a participant in avant-garde art from the 1960s through the 1980s. Beginning as the editor at Dick Higgins’s Something Else Press, she has written and lectured about artist's books, multiples, and alternative media, as well as curated exhibitions for venues including MoMA Library; Franklin Furnace; P.S. 1 and The Clocktower/The Institute for Art and Urban Resources; and Swiss Institute, New York. 

Moore has been closely associated with Fluxus, both as a scholar and as a participant in numerous Fluxus events, often with her late husband Peter Moore, who was the Fluxus photographer of record. From 1976-1983 she co-owned Backworks, which was one of the first shops that dealt with avant garde material internationally. From 1989-2004, she owned and operated Bound & Unbound, a shop dedicated to alternative and avant-garde artists' publications, through which she also curated exhibitions and published exhibition catalogs. 

Farris Wahbeh is the Benjamin and Irma Weiss Director of Research Resources and Collection Management at the Whitney Museum of American Art. He works within the field of cultural informatics to enhance access to art and archival collections. At the Whitney, he oversees the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library and Archives, the Permanent Collection Documentation Office, which maintains the cataloguing and content standards relating to works of art in the Whitney’s permanent collection, as well as Collection Management, Digital Asset Management, and Licensing.