The Iowa Archives of the Avant-garde is an umbrella grouping of several major collections of documents of 20th- (and to some extent 21st-) century art and literature at the University of Iowa Libraries. How did these collections (the International Dada Archive, Alternative Traditions in Contemporary Art, and the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry) come to be housed in the heart of the American Midwest?

It all started with Dada. Specifically, it started in 1978 with an international, interdisciplinary conference at the University of Iowa organized by Stephen Foster of the School of Art and Art History and Rudolf Kuenzli of the then Program in Comparative Literature, and an associated exhibition at the Museum of Art. This was the first major conference on Dada to be held in the United States, and it led directly to the founding of the Dada Archive. By the end of the conference, there was clear consensus that some sort of archive was needed to preserve the record of the Dada movement. Michel Benamou of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee agreed to establish the archive as part of his Center for Twentieth Century Studies. Unfortunately, he died suddenly very shortly thereafter. At that point, Kuenzli and Foster agreed to take on the project, which became a collaboration between the UI School of Art and Art History, the Program in Comparative Literature, and the Libraries. The Libraries already had very strong holdings in Dada and related avant-garde movements, due to the interest of Franklin Hanlin, the Libraries’ chief bibliographer, and Harlan Sifford, the long-time art librarian.

The Dada Archive and Research Center, as it was then called, was formally established in 1979. It consisted of two units, both of which had misleading names. The Literary Archive, under Kuenzli, was devoted to the textual and printed documentation of Dada (not only material related to literature, but also fine arts material). Its mission was to inventory everything in the Libraries’ system related to Dada, compile bibliographical information about the Dada movement, and begin filling the gaps in the collection. The main product was to be a card catalog, which started in six drawers on a desk in the Libraries’ administrative offices, that grew 120 drawers before it was turned it into an online catalog. Before moving the catalog online, the plan was to publish a book catalog reproducing the cards—the sort of thing that G.K. Hall used to publish. The archive received a series of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Jerome Foundation. The Literary Archive used its half of the grant to hire a bibliographer and a research assistant. The grant money also funded a series of microfilming trips to Europe—and Kuenzli took a portable microfilm camera to various public and private collections in Europe, preserving thousands of documents using what was then cutting-edge technology. If this had been done 10 years later, of course, it would have been a digital preservation project. When the grant period ended, the bibliographer role was taken on by the Libraries as a portion of a full-time professional librarian position. Sometime around 1990, the Dada Literary Archive was renamed the International Dada Archive, and the former bibliographer, Timothy Shipe, was named the curator.

Two other projects that the archive took on were, first, the digitization of many of the rare primary sources housed in Special Collections—what is now known as the Digital Dada Library. Second, Kuenzli took on the editorship of the journal Dada/Surrealism, and then, around 2011, Shipe took on that role, and Dada/Surrealism was transformed into a free, peer-reviewed online journal.

Meanwhile, the Photodocumentary Archive started out as a project to make archival photographic negatives of major Dada art works and documents, with a view toward becoming the main source for obtaining illustrations for books and articles, slides, and so forth. Later, its name was changed to the Fine Arts Dada Archive, and its focus shifted to the production of a major 10-volume compilation of monographs and essays, “Crisis and the Arts: The History of Dada.” When Foster left the university, the Fine Arts Dada Archive ceased to exist as a distinct entity, and its image collection was incorporated into the International Dada Archive.

The world of art scholarship very soon became aware of the Dada Archive and its projects, and the other two chief components of the IAAG came to Special Collections as a direct result of this growing renown.

Numerous artists working in a tradition that was strongly influenced by Dada, some of them considering themselves “neo-Dadaists,” became very interested in the work of the Dada Archive. Many of them were associated with the Fluxus movement, and they started sending their papers to Foster and his art history colleague Estera Milman. These didn’t really belong in the Dada Archive but were clearly an important primary source for the documentation of contemporary art movements. So, they were collectively designated as “Alternative Traditions in the Contemporary Arts” and housed in the old Art Building. After the 2008 flood that devastated Iowa’s arts campus, the materials were moved to the Main Library for safekeeping and eventually made part of Special Collections.

Finally, in 2018, the Libraries were contacted by the curator of the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, the largest and most important collection of concrete poetry in the world. The Sackners had been building this private collection for over 40 years and were hoping to eventually find an institutional home for it. Following Ruth’s death, Marvin began looking in earnest for such a home. This became more urgent when Hurricane Irma tore through his Miami condo, forcing him to move the entire collection to an art storage facility in New York. When they learned about the Dada Archive, Marvin and his curator approached the Libraries to see if it would be interested in housing the archive. The end result was that virtually the entire Sackner Archive arrived at the Libraries in the spring of 2019 as a combined gift and loan, and following Marvin’s death in 2020, essentially the entire collection was donated to Iowa.

In 2021, the IAAG was established as an umbrella for these three collections as well as other relevant holdings at the university. The Archives could potentially designate holdings not only in the Libraries but also elsewhere in the university, especially the Stanley Museum of Art, which is a major partner.