The Museum of Modern Art’s Film Still Archive (FSA) had been the largest and most active of its kind, with four million catalogued images, another million images in the process of being cataloged, and approximately one thousand paying scholars, publishers, exhibitors and curator clients visiting annually. The FSA’s Associate Curator managed the Archive for 34 years, and together with her assistant and a bookstore manager, was laid off in the wake of their leadership roles in the MoMA strike of 2000. Rather than relocating the archive to MoMA QNS, or making room for the archive in the large new building then being planned, the FSA was closed. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) heard a complaint against MoMA concerning the handling of the lay-offs and in the process created the public record of the precipitating events. Festschrift for an Archive reproduces the NLRB judgments as a book, with a follow-up interview with FSA curator Mary Corliss. Published in a small edition, each book presents a different publicity still from a history of cinema imaging labor.
2012
Spiral bound book in embossed sleeve with photograph
10 1/2 x 12 1/2 x 1/2 inches (closed dimensions)
Edition of 200