Louie Palu: Archive 192

Free

Location: Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel, 163 East Walton Place

Archive 192 is a not for profit research archive founded in 2015 that is focused on abstractionist photography by women.  Founder Louie Palu will provide an inside view behind the collecting, researching, building of an archive including the administration and strategies involved in such a project. The name Archive 192 comes from reversing the name of Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291, which is considered a seminal part of the evolution and history of photography. The first public exhibition of work held in Archive 192 will take place in 2020 at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

The goal of Archive 192 is to eventually place all the materials in an appropriate institution, which can care for and make available the materials for research and education. The archive is composed mostly of original prints, artist books, audio recordings, and ephemera. The archive now holds over 100 prints ranging from work by Florence Henri, Dorothy Norman and Lucia Moholy to contemporary photographers such as Clare A. Warden.

Archive 192 founder, Louie Palu, has been working on archives and researching photographers as a part of his practice since 1991 when he worked as an intern to Mary Ellen Mark.“My philosophy is that as a community we should always be in a process of re-evaluating our art practices and the institutions that exhibit and collect photographic work. Since my first internship in 1988 at Gallery 44 and through two fellowships at the Center of Creative Photography and the Harry Ransom Center I have researched and worked in archives large and small and collected photographs from the position of a practitioner. From very early on in my career I have been disturbed by the inequality of women in our field. I started Archive 192 using my own resources and minimal funding as an independent archive, which is operated free of some of the institutional gatekeeping that traditionally has shaped how we view the history of photography.”

Louie Palu has been a working documentary photographer and filmmaker for 28-years. He is a 2016 Guggenheim and Harry Ransom Fellow. He is best known for his work that explores social-political issues such as human rights, war, and poverty. His photographs have been featured internationally including in National Geographic, The New York Times, Museum of Fine Arts Boston and National Gallery of Art.

Image: © Claire A. Warden/Archive 192