Seth Siegelaub
1942 - 2013
Died in Basel (CH), born in Bronx (US).
Seth Siegelaub was an American collector and exhibition organiser who was a key figure for the conceptual art movement. In the early 1960s, he opened his own gallery in New York called Seth Siegelaub Contemporary Art and Oriental Rugs, and in 1968 he began producing radical landmark exhibitions that took the form of catalogues, working closely with artists such as Carl Andre, Robert Barry, Douglas Huebler, Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner. While at the same time continuing his passions for textiles, especially rugs. In 1971, he devised what is known as the ‘Artist’s Contract’ (The Artist’s Reserved Rights Transfer and Sale Agreement), which sought to protect the rights and interests of the artist as their work circulated within the art system. In 1972, he left the art world and, after having moved to Paris where he published and collected books on Marxist theories of communication and culture, he founded the International Mass Media Research Center. From the mid-1980s to the end of his life, he was involved with research on the production of popular culture, especially concerning the social history of handwoven textiles throughout the world. In 1986, he founded the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles [CSROT], and in 1997 he compiled, edited and published the Bibliographica Textilia Historiae, the first general bibliography on the history of textiles.
