Sellars’s archive covers all phases of his career and includes posters and banners, correspondence, research, photographic material, notes, drafts of plays and musical scores, architectural plans, and puppets and related props.
The Los Angeles Festival—held in 1987, 1990, and 1993—combined performing arts, visual arts, and cinema, and originated as a follow-up to the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival. The donation to the GRI, given by the festival’s board of directors, comprises records pertaining to the 1990 and 1993 festivals, which Sellars directed.
In 1990, Sellars and co-curator Judith Mitoma focused on arts from the Pacific Rim and emphasized the connection between traditional art forms in 25 foreign countries and those countries’ expats in Los Angeles, so as to acknowledge the contribution of these communities to the city’s cultural landscape. The 1990 festival expanded into more than 70 venues all around L.A. County, including malls, temples, community centers, and parks.
The 1993 festival took place during the aftermath of the Gulf War and Rodney King uprising. The event had a clear focus on African, Middle-Eastern, and African American cultures, with Leimert Park, a neighborhood in South Los Angeles, as its geographical epicenter. Sellars also experimented with a less centralized curatorial model, and one of the main sections was curated by guest artists.
The archive includes research files, correspondence, work documents, photographs, and audio- and videocassettes. The acquisition will expand the GRI’s performing arts-related holdings to a global scale, and also offer research material on a major, city-wide art festival that paved the way for events such as Getty’s Pacific Standard Time series.
