The papers of performance artist, experimental poet, curator, and critic David Antin include extensive correspondence, forty years of diaries, published and unpublished manuscripts, working notes, teaching files, and over 300 audiotapes and videos of lectures and performances. In particular, the archive documents Antin's "talk pieces" which were his unique means of fusing spoken poetry with academic lectures.

Equal parts poet, critic, philosopher, and performance artist, David Antin (b. 1932) does not fit easily within any standard category of artistic or academic production. Originally trained in languages, mathematics, and science, the first ten years of Antin's career (1955-1964) were spent as a translator of both scientific texts and fiction. By the late 1950s, Antin had begun to experiment with writing fiction and poetry, with his first published work appearing in Kenyon Review in 1959. By the early 1960s, Antin had developed significantly both as a poet and as an art critic, and his 1965 articles about Andy Warhol and Robert Morris could be said to be among the first truly analytical writings about either artist.

44 Linear Feet (103 boxes)

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Open for use by qualified researchers, with the exception of unreformatted audio tapes, video tapes and computer files.