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Kitchen videos and records, The
2014.M.6
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution: Special Collections
Title: The Kitchen videos and records
Creator: Kitchen Center for Video, Music, Dance, Performance, Film, and Literature (New York, N.Y.)
Identifier/Call Number: 2014.M.6
Physical Description: 426 Linear Feet(446 boxes, 7 flat file folders, 1 boxed roll)
Date (inclusive): 1967-2011 (bulk 1971-1999)
Abstract: The Kitchen has been a center for innovative artistic activity since its founding in 1971. Operating as a meeting place between
disciplines in New York, the space has fostered the development of experimental artwork across music, video, dance, performance,
and installation art. The archive predominantly contains extensive video and audio recordings documenting performances at
the space; artist files; posters; and printed ephemera. Audio and video recordings are unavailable until reformatted. Contact
the repository for information regarding access. Some audiovisual material is currently available for on-site use only.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material: English
Biographical / Historical Note
The Kitchen was founded in 1971 as an artist collective by video artists Steina and Woody Vasulka. Located in the unused kitchen
of the former Mercer Arts Center in Greenwich Village, the space functioned as an arena where artists could share their ideas
with like-minded colleagues. Dedicated to music and video, and emphasizing experimentation with emergent forms of technology,
programming soon evolved to encompass dance, performance, readings, and seminars on art and technology.
By the fall of 1973, The Kitchen had incorporated as a non-profit and, just before the physical collapse of its building
on Mercer Street, moved to 59 Wooster Street (with a second entrance on 484 Broome), a second-floor loft replete with a gallery,
a performance area, and a video viewing room. This new location placed The Kitchen in the heart of South of Houston Street
(SoHo), then a burgeoning arts district attracting a close-knit community of artists from an array of fields. Near-daily programming
at the space cohered into five main areas: visual art, film/video, dance, music, and performance art. The Kitchen solidified
into a professional, partially-funded institution staffed with curators and technicians, closely affiliated with key artists
of the period, presenting important works in Minimalism, installation art, photography, electronic, punk and New Wave music,
and No Wave cinema. In addition to its on-site activity, The Kitchen acted as a distributor of artists' film and video, and
arranged programs that toured across the US.
In the spring of 1986, The Kitchen moved to the space it currently occupies at 512 West 19th Street in Chelsea. Throughout
the 1980s and 1990s The Kitchen continued supporting the generations of artists that had come of age during its early years,
while also exploring new themes around multiculturalism, AIDS activism, digital technology, and the nascent internet. Today,
The Kitchen is still known and respected for its experimental exhibitions and programs, and for its support of artists at
various stages in their careers.
Sources consulted:
"The Kitchen: About."
The Kitchen. Accessed June 1, 2016. http://thekitchen.org/about.
Sally Banes. "Choreographing Community: Dancing in the Kitchen." Dance Chronicle 25, no. 1 (2002): 143-61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1568183.
Tania Ørum and Jesper Olsson.
A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries 1950-1975. BRILL, 2016.
Glenn Phillips, Acquisition Approval Form for The Kitchen videos and records, 2014.M.6, 2013.
Ben Portis. "The Vasulkas and The Kitchen." EAI.org. Accessed June 1, 2016. http://web.archive.org/web/20100920225951/http://eai.org/kinetic/ch2/kitchen/Kitchen_Essay.html.
Posters were processed by Mark Simon Haydn between October and November 2015. The audiovisual series was encoded from an inventory
from The Kitchen between 2015 and 2016 by Laura Schroffel. Papers were processed by Judy Chou and Emmabeth Nanol between October
2016 and February 2017.
Acquired in 2014.
The Kitchen videos and records, 1971-2011 (bulk 1971-1999), The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 2014.M.6
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2014m6
Open for use by qualified researchers. Audio visual and born digital materials are unavailable until reformatted. Offsite
material may require additional retrieval time; contact reference for information.
Collection is arranged in 3 series: Series I. Audiovisual materials, 1967-2005, undated; Series II. Papers, 1971-2011, bulk
1971-1999; Series III. Posters, 1972-1977.
The collection covers The Kitchen's activities from its founding in 1971 through 2011. Consisting of over 5000 separate video
and audio recordings, artist and marketing files, and nearly 300 original posters designed by artists such as Sol LeWitt,
Robert Longo, Barbara Kruger, Kiki Smith, and Gran Fury, it documents the rich history of experimental performance and video
art produced in New York City during the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, including major works by Merce Cunningham, Nam June Paik,
Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Mike Kelley, David Tudor, and Yvonne Rainer.
Selected content from the collection was digitized from 2014 to 2019 and is ongoing. Digital content is available online:
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/2014m6