Fresh after announcing a new gallery in the Swiss ski resort of St Moritz and their new quarterly magazine Ursula (both launching in December), Hauser and Wirth have now made public the establishment of a non-profit institute dedicated to the preservation and accessibility of artists’ archives and the development of art-historical research through a scholarship programme. Led by executive director Jennifer Gross (joining from the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts), the Hauser & Wirth Institute will be governed by a board of directors with guidance from an independent advisory board of artists, advisors to artist’s estates, scholars and archivists.
Primarily based in New York, the Institute will function as a centre of research, working with artists’ estates – from and outside the gallery roster – to preserve, catalogue and digitise primary research materials, which will be made accessible for free online. First on the list is the creation of an online portal hosting the extensive archive of the late Jason Rhoades, which will be catalogued in collaboration with his estate. In parallel, the institute will also produce online catalogues raisonnés and print publication, the first of which will be dedicated to Franz Kline’s paintings from 1950 to 1962, in cooperation with his estate.
The fellowship programme, developed in partnership with artists’ estates, universities and foundations, will support predoctoral, postdoctoral and senior scholars in archive-based research. Postdoctoral and senior fellowships are accompanied by a stipend of up to $50,000 for nine to twelve months of archival research on modern or contemporary art, while predoctoral scholarships awards up to $10,000 for a duration of two months.
The Institute will also build a public programme supporting its various strands of research, launching on 22 March 2010 with a one-day symposium discussing the challenges and practices in the management of artists’ archives.
27 November 2018
