Image Credit: Patricia Collins

Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College Receives Donation of the Papers of Influential Curator Tricia Collins

Annandale-on-Hudson, NY— The Library and Archives at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard) has received the personal papers of Tricia Collins, influential curator, gallerist, and critic. Tricia Collins is best known for her curatorial work in the 1980s and 90s as part of the independent curatorial team of Collins & Milazzo. Dubbed “action critics” by artist Lucio Pozzi, Tricia Collins and Richard Milazzo transformed the group show into a critical curatorial act. Her curatorial practice as part of Collins & Milazzo helped disrupt neo-expressionism, establish new conceptual art in the East Village, and establish a new generation of artists in the 1980s. Collins & Milazzo were not affiliated with any one gallery or organization, but collaborated with many including: Nature Morte, International with Monument, Cash/Newhouse, White Columns, Leo Castelli, American Fine Arts, Co., Massimo Audiello Gallery, Sidney Janis Gallery, John Gibson Gallery, and many others. Some of the exhibitions include: Civilization and the Landscape of Discontent (1984), Still Life with Transaction (1984), The New Capital (1985), Modern Sleep (1986), The New Poverty (1987), Theoretically Yours (1992), among others.

The collection, titled the Patricia Barnwell Collins Papers, contains exhibition catalogues and publications produced by Collins & Milazzo, installation views for several Collins & Milazzo exhibitions, invitations, press clippings, and personal memorabilia. The material covers the early 1980s through the 1990s and documents not only the curatorial activities of Collins & Milazzo, but also the Grand Salon and Tricia Collins Contemporary Art, the latter established by Tricia Collins after she and Richard Milazzo parted in the early1990s.

The donation of the Patricia Barnwell Collins Papers enriches existing resources at the Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art, and fundamentally supports the research needs of young curators enrolled in CCS Bard’s MA Program in Curatorial Studies. The donation builds upon CCS Bard’s commitment to acquire, preserve, and present the personal papers and archives of influential and innovative curators, art spaces, commercial galleries, and artists’ collectives and initiatives. 

The Library and Archives at the Center for Curatorial Studies serve as a vital and unique research center, an exhibition and discursive space, a classroom, and a social hub for a range of programs and activities focusing on and engaging with curatorial practices and the contemporary arts.  An integral component of the MA Program in Curatorial Studies and one of the few contemporary art libraries established specifically to support advanced research in curatorial studies, the Library and Archives function as a bridge contextualizing the curatorial and artistic practices shown within the exhibition programs and activities of the Hessel Museum and CCS Bard Galleries within the larger educational mandate of the Center for Curatorial Studies and Bard College.  With a focus on contemporary art and culture from 1960 to the present, the research collections at the Center for Curatorial Studies Library and Archives strive to be as comprehensive as possible.  Although collection materials are non-circulating, and appointments are necessary to consult the archives and special collections, the Library and Archives are open to the Bard community, and outside researchers and scholars conducting advanced research in the contemporary arts and culture.

About the Center for Curatorial Studies

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College (CCS Bard) was founded in 1990 as an exhibition and research center for the study of late twentieth-century and contemporary art and culture and to explore experimental approaches to the presentation of these topics and their impact on our world. Since 1994, the Center for Curatorial Studies and its graduate program have provided one of the world’s most forward thinking teaching and learning environments for the research and practice of contemporary art and curatorship. Broadly interdisciplinary, CCS Bard encourages students, faculty and researchers to question the critical and political dimension of art, its mediation and its social significance. CCS Bard cultivates innovative thinking, radical research and new ways to challenge our understanding of the social and civic values of the visual arts. CCS Bard provides an intensive educational program alongside its public events, exhibitions, and publications, which collectively explore the critical potential of the institutions and practices of exhibition-making. It is uniquely positioned within the larger Center’s tripartite resources, which include the internationally renowned CCS Bard Library and Archives and the Hessel Museum of Art, with its rich permanent collection.

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      BARD COLLEGE CONTACT:

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      Tel: +1 845.758.7412      

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     CCS BARD CONTACT:                  

     Ramona Rosenberg, External Affairs Manager                    

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This event was last updated on 03-04-2014

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