Archival
Dilexi Gallery and Foundation
1958-1972
The Dilexi gallery was one of California's most notable galleries, however, its published history has thus far included a wide expanse of errata. The Dilexi research project established a corrected timeline of its gallery shows, organized a database of all its artists, documented little-known and unpublished projects, created a photographic database and contextualized the gallery's role as a bridge for California art to seek new horizons. The research which was begun in 2014 saw Narin Dickerson join as a fellow researcher in 2018. Dickerson became the research director with Laura Whitcomb, and the project became a well-reviewed multi-venue exhibition and a 2021 publication.
California Artist Archive
Curated by Laura Whitcomb
The curatorial’s endeavors have resulted in new narratives through unpublished historical facts that are rewriting California history. The curatorial’s research center has a database that specializes in 20th Century California artists. An extensive newspaper clipping archive has been assembled from the archives of international institutions and private collections and databases that is otherwise unavailable to the public. The research team for Label Curatorial is able to locate lost works through advanced resources that span public auction records to a close network of art advisors. The curatorial’s discoveries have been the basis of seven museum and gallery shows in the last five years that have presented significant shifts in Bay Area art history.
Gordon Onslow Ford
Lucid Art Foundation
As part of a curatorial residency at the Lucid Art Foundation in Inverness, California Laura Whitcomb oversaw the second phase of the Gordon Onslow Ford archive. The archive was given structure to prepare the work for a future donation to a public collection. The project saw as a key endeavor to find key scholarship material for his 2019 publication Gordon Onslow Ford A Man on a Green Island edited by Fariba Bogzaran, the Lucid Art Foundation director. After a curatorial residency with the Lucid Art Foundation in Inverness, California in 2016, Laura Whitcomb was asked to organize the second phase of the archive of artist Gordon Onslow Ford (1912-2003) and is currently creating a database of Gordon Onslow Ford's collection of early Surrealist periodicals, letters, photographs, postcards, books, art work and ephemera before 1950 that will comprise one of the most expansive collections of early Surrealist material in California.
Jean Clemmer
LA Photo Fair
The space age erotic photographer Jean Clemmer had a vast archive which the curatorial examined advising on images that would be notable for exhibition. Many of the selected images in the Clemmer archive became the substance of the Clemmer/ Rabanne/Dalí show in Los Angeles for Photography Week at the Berman Gallery in Santa Monica. The curatorial identified film stills at the Paris Estate of Jean Clemmer belonging to an unknown film of Salvador Dalí which was destroyed in a fire. The photos were taken using film maker Chris Marker's 24mm Pentax camera which he notably used to capture the image stills for his film La Jetée. The photos of Dalí's lost film were later published for the first time through the efforts of the curatorial in Carine Roitfeld's CR Magazine Issue 2, February 28. 2013 accompanied by an article by Laura Whitcomb.. Their discovery formed the basis of an exhibition at Galleria Carla Sozzani in Milan in 2018 where Whitcomb lectured on Dalí's work in fashion.
Leo Krikorian
& The Place
The Beat era artist and Black Mountain College alumnus Leo Krikorian (1922-2005) was a San Francisco based artist and film maker at mid century. After graduating Black Mountain College he arrived in the San Francisco to study at the California School of Fine Art and founded the notable North Beach, bar The Place in San Francisco's North Beach in 1953 with his friend and fellow Black Mountain alumna the artist Knute Stiles. Krikorian gave Jay DeFeo her first show as well as exhibiting Wally Hedrick, the artist known as Jess and many other Beat era artists. The Place saw Jack Spicer, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac as regulars and it was a key epicenter of the lively years that altered the course of American culture. The Place held regular art shows notably showing Wally Hedrick who built movable works of assemblage throughout the space. Allen Ginsberg rehearsed Howl there and the place hosted a Blabbermouth night where Bob Kaufman and many other Beat era artists and poets held spontaneous orations and Jack Spicer held court. These Blabbermouth tapes were recorded by Krikorian and have been transferred by the curatorial for research and exhibition. Krikorian had a vast archive preserved in Utah which was largely unopened. Laura Whitcomb organized books, ephemera, catalogues, photos, personal papers, art sound recordings, films and ephemera highlighting key works for an exhibition. Art work and artists were identified to distinguish the collection. Curators were able to organize a show based on the selection of critical works and scholarly material to enrich his oeuvre. Many materials contextualized and discovered by Whitcomb were included in his retrospective at Dixie State University's Sears Art Museum in 2018. The research formed the basis of the approaching publication Bay Area Artist and Poet Run Galleries 1949-1965.