‘“This Is the Way Your Leverage Lies”: The Seth Siegelaub Papers as Institutional Critique’ at the Museum of Modern Art
“There is no art without you,” Seth Siegelaub wrote in a draft of a letter to artists in 1970. “There is no art world without you. You have given up rights you probably do not know exist.” The Bronx-born Mr. Siegelaub was not yet 30 at the time, but over the previous decade he had already established himself as a trailblazing dealer and curator of conceptual art, offering for sale as artworks things that sometimes barely qualified as objects, such as the transmission of a radio wave (by Robert Barry) and text on a page (Lawrence Weiner). He had also become a committed activist. In 1969, he joined the Art Workers’ Coalition (AWC), a group of New York artists that lobbied to improve conditions and rights for artists working with museums and dealers. In a letter to the Museum of Modern Art, they made 13 demands, including that a section of the museum be placed “under the direction of black artists” and that artists receive rental fees for artworks loaned to MoMA for exhibitions. That letter is now on view at MoMA, which acquired Mr. Siegelaub’s papers in 2011 with his cooperation and has put a number of them on display. (The museum has also launched an excellent website with images of many of the works in the show. It has also released a guide to its contents.) Read More
