SPACES—Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments—is a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) public benefit organization that was formally incorporated in 1978 for the purposes of identifying, documenting, and advocating for the preservation of large-scale art environments and other self-taught artistic activity. Founding Director Seymour Rosen conceived of SPACES as a national (and, later, an international) organization; currently operating out of offices in northern California, it boasts an archives of approximately 25,000 photographs as well as numerous books, articles, audio and video tapes/DVDs, and primary artists’ documents. The archives also include a clipping file, personal letters and correspondence from artists, scholars, researchers, museum and gallery personnel, arts and history/humanities councils, and governmental agencies.

SPACES has become recognized internationally as the largest and most complete archive on this subject. The databases are generally organized into four components:

--the site database, which contains historically-significant and varied information on over 1,200 sites in the United States alone, as well as on numerous sites overseas;

--the bibliographic database, which includes almost 5,000 multi-lingual entries citing documents relating to art environments;

--the exhibitions and events database, a comprehensive chronological record of thousands of museum/gallery displays, conferences, lectures, panels, and other events which featured these artists and their sites, including documented audience figures for each; and, most importantly,

--the archival collection, including some 25,000 photographs, site plans, and primary documents produced by the artists, maps, artifacts, video and audio cassettes and DVDs of artist interviews, and other materials related to self-taught artistic activities. This also includes a clipping file, personal letters and correspondence from artists, scholars, researchers, museum and gallery personnel, arts and history/humanities councils, and governmental agencies.

SPACES also includes fifty state files that detail information on the political organizations of each state, so as to facilitate the nomination of sites to historical landmark status, or to cut through the bureaucratic red tape when trying to save those that are imperiled.

What else is included in SPACES Archives?

Founding Director Rosen viewed art creation in a holistic way, realizing that extemporaneous individual acts of aesthetic and cultural manifestation were not only universal, but also almost universally unrecorded in a consistent manner. To that end, SPACES Archives include documentation on such themes as decorated motor vehicles, demonstrations, gardens, graffiti, murals, neon, parades, signage, tattoos, yard art, and others.

Collections Updates

SPACES continues to actively collect all kinds of materials pertaining to art environments and self-taught art in order to keep the archives updated. If you have books, magazines, clippings, audio-visual materials, ephemera, or other materials that you would like to donate, please contact Director Jo Farb Hernandez at info@spacesarchives.org.

DATABASES

In addition to traditional archival collections, SPACES has the following electronic databases:

The site database, which contains historically-significant and varied information on over 1,200 sites in the United States alone, as well as on numerous sites overseas;

The bibliographic database, which includes almost 5,000 multi-lingual entries citing documents relating to art environments;

The exhibitions and events database, a comprehensive chronological record of thousands of museum/gallery displays, conferences, lectures, panels, and other events which featured these artists and their sites, including documented audience figures for each.