Smithsonian Press Release

Art and Space
Park Place and the beginning of the Paula Cooper Gallery
Archives of American Art New York Regional Center Gallery
UBS Building, 1285 Avenue of the Americas between 51st and 52nd streets
Oct. 17 through Feb. 23, 2007

The Archives of American Art is dedicated to the collection, preservation and study of papers and other primary records of the history of the visual arts in America. Its collections, comprising 16 million items, are the world's largest single source for such information.

The Archives of American Art will present "Art and Space: Park Place and the beginning of the Paula Cooper Gallery," an exhibition that features selected documents from the recently acquired records of the Park Place Gallery Art Research Inc. records, 1965- 1967; and Paula Cooper Gallery records, 1968-1973. It will be on view to the public from Oct. 17 through Feb. 23, 2007, at the Archives of American Art New York Regional Center Gallery, located on the lobby level of the UBS Building, 1285 Avenue of the Americas between 51st and 52nd streets.

Park Place Gallery was one of the first artist-run cooperatives and highlighted such artists as Mark di Suvero, Robert Grosvenor and Forrest (Frosty) Myers, among others. In 1965, the opening of its huge 8,000-square-foot space at 542 West Broadway was hailed by David Bourdon in the Village Voice as "probably the major Village art event of the 1960s." Under Cooper's direction the gallery had expansive group shows that were supplemented with performance art and musical events.

In 1968, Cooper opened the Paula Cooper Gallery at 96 Prince St., representing many of the Park Place artists. The Paula Cooper Gallery was the first art gallery to open in New York's SoHo district, with an exhibition to benefit the Student Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. It included works by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Robert Mangold and Robert Ryman, among others, as well as Sol LeWitt's first wall drawing. For more than 30 years since then, the gallery has been a defining force for conceptual and minimal art.

Exhibition highlights include a logbook of artists and works of arts circa 1968-1970; a certificate of incorporation for Park Place Gallery; various financial records, including a rent bill for Cooper's SoHo gallery; transcripts of interviews conducted with the artists in the mid-1960s and biographies, photographs and letters from artists Forrest Myers, Edwin Ruda and Leo Valledor, among others.