Maciej Cholewiński in Conversation with Michelle Elligott
Michelle Elligott, Chief of Archives, Library, and Research Collections at MoMA, speaks with Maciej Cholewiński, Archivist at Muzeum Sztuki in Łodz (MSŁ).
Michelle Elligott
Chief of Archives, Library, and Research Collections, The Museum of Modern Art
Michelle Elligott is Chief of Archives, Library, and Research Collections at The Museum of Modern Art. Ms. Elligott joined MoMA as a Mellon Fellow in 1995; she became Rona Roob Senior Museum Archivist in 1999. She co-directed the Museum’s widely acclaimed Exhibition History web archive project, co-edited the institution’s first self-published history, Art in Our Time: A Chronicle of The Museum of Modern Art (2004); co-curated the MoMA exhibition 1969 at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (now MoMA PS1); and was part of the curatorial team for Abstract Expressionist New York: The Big Picture in 2010. She routinely organizes archival exhibitions. Past exhibitions include those devoted to James Lee Byars, Dada, and the history of dance and theater at MoMA. With her “Modern Artifacts” column, she is a regular contributor to the art magazine Esopus, and her book René d’Harnoncourt: The Art of Installation will be forthcoming in 2017. She has published widely, including the articles “Modern Women: A Brief History” and “Dada: A Chronology,” for MoMA; and “Schémas des origins et de l’évolution de l’art modern” for the Centre Pompidou. She has taught seminars on art archives in Havana, Caracas, and Buenos Aires, and has lectured extensively, including at the 2013 Venice Biennale, the Centre Pompidou, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, Contemporary Greek Art Institute, Athens, Greece, and the Frick Collection. In 2005, she was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in residence at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece. She has been Adjunct Assistant Professor of Museum Studies at New York University. Ms. Elligott holds degrees in art history from Smith College and Hunter College, City University of New York, with additional coursework at the Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne, and the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece.
Memories of MoMA in Moscow
Over a dozen members of the C-MAP Central and Eastern European group traveled for research to Moscow in March 2017. As Roxana Marcoci, Senior Curator of Photography, notes, Russia spans eleven time zones and includes two-hundred nationalities. From this vast and deeply complex nation, the participants report on their impressions below. Reflection by Ksenia Nouril, C-MAP Central…
Travelers’ Tales: C-MAP Research in Warsaw, Łódź, and Berlin
Members of MoMA’s C-MAP Central and Eastern European group reflect on their research trip to Warsaw and Łódź, Poland and Berlin, Germany, which took place in late May / early June, 2016. Over the course of a week, the 14 travelers met with over 70 individuals, including artists, curators, dealers, and art historians; conducted two…
From the Red Square to the Black Square: Memos from Moscow
Just a few days into his trip to Moscow in the winter of 1927–28, Alfred Barr wrote in his diary, “Apparently there is no place where talent of an artistic or literary sort is so carefully nurtured as in Moscow. . . . We’d rather be here than any place on earth.”* He went on…
All the Cities that Start with “B.” Notes from a Trip to Central Europe
In an influential account written in 1986, a prominent British historian Timothy Garton Ash described Central Europe as “territory where peoples, cultures, languages are fantastically intertwined, where every place has several names and men change their citizenship as often as their shoes, an enchanted wood full of wizards and witches”. This evocative characterization challenged the…
Research Trip Memos from Japan: From Archives to Super Rats
From museum storage rooms and Butoh dance performances to gallery visits and Shinjuku by night, a group of MoMA curators in the C-MAP research group led by Associate Curator Doryun Chong went to Japan in the fall of 2011. The goal: to visit the people and places that have been crucial in the curators’ research…
C-MAP Research Trip to Romania, Lithuania, and Serbia: Travel Journal
A group of ten curators and researchers from MoMA’s C-MAP Fluxus group set off on a ten-day trip to Romania, Lithuania, and Serbia in May 2012 to experience firsthand the material that they had until then been studying mainly from afar. The Fluxus group focuses on Fluxus-related and other experimental artistic practices that emerged in…
Interview with artist Mieko Shiomi
Shiomi Mieko, artist, composer, and Fluxus member, graciously welcomed C-MAP members into her home in a quiet residential neighborhood in Minoo, Osaka.