Just Above Midtown Archives: The Archives

The first series of the JAM archive contains artist files. They were originally collected by JAM and separated into three categories: male, female, and submissions. The male and female artist files contain ephemera and correspondence from JAM-related artists, whereas the submissions, or non-exhibiting artists, primarily include work samples and CVs sent in by artists hoping for representation. Some notable artist files include Senga Nengudi, David Hammons, and Sandra Payne.

The second series in the JAM archive showcases the records for JAM exhibitions, programs, and publications. JAM’s exhibition programming covered a wide range of disciplines, from drawings and prints, painting, sculpture, installation, film, and performance. The exhibition records include planning and research records, exhibition ephemera, press clippings, financial records, and correspondence for both realized and unrealized exhibitions from 1974 to 1989. The program records contain the documents concerning JAM’s public programs, most notably the Business of Being an Artist (BBA) and the Corporation for Art and Television (CAT). This subseries also contains plans for another subsidiary for-profit program called Innovative Real Estate Ventures (IRV), and an unrealized coffee shop called Café Dada. The records in this subseries provide insight on the planning, structuring, financing, and operation of their programming.

Over the course of their 12-year tenure, JAM would also publish four exhibition catalogues and two magazines, Black Currant (1982-1983) and B Culture (1986-1987). The records in this subseries contain research and planning notes, correspondence, submission from artists, printing mechanicals, graphic design sketches, dummy issues, advertising records, essay drafts, and financial budgeting research.

JAM administrative, financial, development, and real estate records can be found in Series III. This is perhaps the largest series in the collection due to the constant hustle by Goode Bryant to keep JAM running. Over the course of twelve years, JAM would move five times and have numerous employees, volunteers, and interns come through the doors. Goode Bryant also kept detailed calendars and notebooks to manage meetings and appointments, both personal and professional, as well as four different rolodexes. Amid all this, JAM was also having their fair share of financial struggles. Goode Bryant would often say one of the greatest tools at her disposal was debt. Because of this, the financial and development records are expansive. The types of documents include checks, financial projections and budgeting, grant research and applications and research. A lot of their funding relied on grants and loans, which can be found in subseries III.C.

The final series in the JAM archive contains different types of media. This includes a large collection of slides, audio and moving image material, and oral histories. The slides depict artworks, installations, events, and spaces. Within this series are artwork submissions by artists, documentation of specific artworks by JAM artists, installation and performances at JAM (and at other venues such as The Knitting Factory), documentation of JAM spaces, and events like exhibition openings, meetings, and lab workshops. In advance of the 2022 MoMA exhibition, a selection of the audio and moving image recordings were digitized for research and possible inclusion in the exhibition. The remainder of the tapes are in the process of being digitized, and the entire collection of recordings should be accessible digitally in the archives by 2025. Finally, this series also contains the oral histories conducted in 2021 by Thomas T. Lax and Lilia Taboada prior to the opening of Just Above Midtown: Changing Spaces.