Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Audio Visual Department reel to reel audio recordings
AUD.001.001
AUD.001.001
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Title: Audio Visual Department reel to reel audio recordings
Identifier/Call Number: AUD.001.001
Contributing Institution:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Balch Art Research Library
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
825.0 boxes
825 audio reels (ongoing)
Date (inclusive): 1963-1991
Material Specific Details note: Items in this collection are recorded to magnetic audio tape, primarily five or seven-inch 1/4-inch open reels, but also on
audio cassettes. These items require special equipment to be played. They are also subject to degredation over time and may
be damaged during playing.
creator:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art was originally the Art Division of the Los Angeles County Museum of Science, History,
and Art which opened at Exposition Park near downtown Los Angeles in 1913. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art or LACMA officially
became an independent entity in 1961, and opened its own campus on Wilshire Blvd., about 7 miles northeast of the original
museum, in 1965. The earliest recordings in this collection, dated in 1963 and 1964 were recorded at the museum's Exposition
Park campus. LACMA has for many years recorded or filmed performances, interviews and other programming, even producing original
educational films. The earliest recordings in this collection may have been created by an entity of the County of Los Angeles
with most recordings being created by earlier permutations of the museum's current (2017) Program Audiovisual Department.
Audio tours were produced by museum education staff, often with the support of LACMA docents and the museum's Docent Council.
The Audio Visual Department reel to reel audio recordings collection consist of at least 825 1/4-inch open real audio tapes
as well as audio cassettes dated as early as 1963 and as late as 1991. The processing of the collection is ongoing and total
item counts for all series are expected to increase and date ranges are expected to expand. The collection is primarily composed
of recorded lectures, presentations, panel discussions, interviews, question and answer sessions, exhibition audio tours,
musical performances, and recordings of music and sound effects to accompany exhibitions, dance performances or films. Lectures,
presentations, panels, and question and answer sessions are primarily on art historical topics directly related to the permanent
art collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art or to its current exhibitions at the time of the recording. Programing
on topics of general interest to the museum's constituency are also included such as panel discussions sponsored by ASIFA,
the International Animated Film Society, presentations relating to architecture from ancient to modern, including presentations
by architectural historians David Gebhard and Esther McCoy and a talk given by novelist and former California gubernatorial
candidate Upton Sinclair in 1964. Artists, critics, art historians, and LACMA curators are the most frequent participants.
Artists represented include Edward Kienholz, Robert Irwin, Newton Harrison, Lee Mullican, Joe Young, Robert Motherwell, Gifford
Phillips, Tony Berlant, Charles White, Loren Madsen, Mary Corse, Ed Moses, Chris Burden, Alexis Smith, Larry Bell, and Max
Bill. Contemporary artists are often in conversation with LACMA modern art curator Maurice Tuchman or prominent critics such
as Max Kozloff, David Antin, and Melinda Wortz. The collection also includes press conferences, public service announcements
and radio interviews with museum curators, art collectors, donors, and administrators on issues important to the museum, including
several recordings of the KPFK program The Sour Apple Tree hosted by Clare Spark Loeb. The most notable recorded musical performances
in the collection are of the Monday Evening Concerts series that debuted many contemporary classical compositions. Other musical
performances included international music related to current exhibitions of, for example, Indonesian or African art. Recorded
tours are primarily Acoustigiuide tours of LACMA exhibitions narrated by docents or actors such as Vincent Price who appears
on the tour for
The Masterworks of Mexican Art in 1963 and Stirling Holloway who speaks on the tour of
Billy Al Bengston in 1968 along with the artist himself and architect Frank Gehry who designed the exhibition.
This collection is arranged into five series, as they were categorized by the creating department: Recorded Lectures (with
item numbers beginning with "RL"), Recorded Interviews (with item numbers beginning with "RI"), Recorded Performances (with
item numbers beginning with "RP"), Recorded Tours (with item numbers beginning with "RT"), and Recorded Music (with item numbers
beginning with "RM"). The order of the series within the collection was determined by the archivist. The types of recordings
placed into each series are not always consistent. For example, the Recorded Lectures series includes panel discussions involving
several individuals as well as formal lectures and what would strictly be considered an interview (in which one individual
asks another questions). Similarly, the Recorded Interviews series also includes public service announcements and group discussions,
with the most consistent similarity being that the content was intended for radio broadcast.
Within each series, the recordings are arranged by item number. Item numbers usually include a concluding numeral of "5" or
"7" denoting a five or seven-inch audio reel. The preceding digits of the number may be repeated and only differentiated by
this concluding numeral. Reels were numbered roughly in the order they were created in. The item numbers correspond to physical
audio reels and not to specific works, performances, or programs. Several unrelated programs may be recorded onto the same
reel.
Conditions Governing Access note
This collection consists primarily of magnetic audio tape that may be damaged or destroyed when played. Only recordings that
have already been digitized are available for immediate access and are indicated in the finding aid. Please contact the Los
Angeles County Museum of Art Balch Art Research Library by telephone at 323-857-6118 or email library@lacma.org for questions
regarding access to recordings that have not been digitized.
Contact the Balch Research Library at 323-856-6118 or library@lacma.org for information on publishing or reproducing materials
included in these records. Permission will be granted by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as the owner of the physical
materials, and does not imply permission from the copyright holder. It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain all
necessary permissions from the copyright holder.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Binney, Edwin, 1925
Casey, Bernie
Feinblatt, Ebria
Gebhard, David
Harrison, Newton A., 1932-
Irwin, Robert, 1928-
Johnson, Ben B.
Lewis, Samella S.
Livingston, Jane
McCoy, Esther
Pal, Pratapaditya
Price, Vincent, 1911-1993
Soltes, Ori Z.
Spark, Clare
Stafford, Proctor
Tuchman, Maurice
Upton Sinclair, 1878-1968
Wayne, June, 1918-2011
White, Charles, 1918-1979
Wortz, Melinda
Art Museums -- California -- Los Angeles -- Exhibitions
Art museums--California--Los Angeles
Art patrons
Museums--California--Los Angeles--History--20th century.
Sound Recordings