Collection Summary
John G. Hanhardt has a long and distinguished career devoted to representing film and the media arts in museum exhibition contexts, and building contemporary art collections and archival programs. He has held curatorial positions at the Walker Art Center (1972-1974), the Whitney Museum of American Art (1974-1996), Guggenheim Museum (1996-2006), and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (2006-2013) where in addition to being curator of the Nam June Paik Archive, Hanhardt also served as curator for the 2013 exhibition Nam June Paik: Global Visionary.
The John G. Hanhardt Archives is a vast collection of records documenting Hanhardt’s curatorial practice within five major art institutions in the United States (1970-2013). The collection reflects the broad range of artists and collectives Hanhardt has worked with including: Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, Peter Campus, Francesc Torres, Dan Graham, Juan Downey, Bill Viola, Chris Burden, Paul Sharits, Peter Campus, Hollis Frampton, Stan VanDerBeek, Max Neuhaus, William Anastasi, James Benning, Susan Pitt, Paper Tiger Television, Ed Emshwiller, Meredith Monk, Shigeko Kubota, Newsreel, Alphons Schilling, Warren Sonbert, Dieter Froese, Andy Warhol, AIDS Activist Videos, Marlon Riggs, Shu Lea Cheang, Tom Sachs, Beryl Korot, Buky Schwartz, Pepon Osorio, Robert Breer, Yvonne Rainer, Eleanor Antin, Adrian Piper, Joan Jonas, Bill Fontana, Roger Welch, St. Claire Bourne, Ken Jacobs, Gary Hill, Dara Birnbaum, Mary Lucier, Robert Watts, and many others.
The collection also includes an extensive personal library, limited edition multiples, and exhibition memorabilia. As a whole the collection extensively documents the history of film and the media arts, and the curatorial and exhibition making practices associated with those forms within major museum contexts over the past forty years.
Status
Finding aid forthcoming
Access
Access to unprocessed collections or unprocessed portions of partially processed collections is provided only at the discretion of Library & Archives staff.