Home
 
What Is The

Stichting Egress Foundation?
 
 

The Stichting Egress Foundation is an independent multi-faceted cultural foundation created at the beginning of the twenty-first century to encourage critical research and dialogue in 3 main areas: contemporary art theory and practice; historic textile research; and in the near future time and causality studies.


Our primary purpose is to serve as a means of communication to contribute to the development of innovative critical theory and research in these areas by

 

(1) Providing an ongoing public forum for the exchange and dissemination of free, open-access information concerning these subjects, including links to/from other people and groups involved in these areas, as well as by

 

(2) Providing initial funding and other support to selected projects in these areas, especially to "unprofitable" critical research projects centered on archives, documentation, bibliographic research and online open-access database issues.

 

Our varied range of educational resources, collections and libraries underlying these projects --several of which are still actively growing-- have been developing slowly over a period of 50 years, first in New York during the 1960s, then in Paris and Bagnolet, France during the 1970s and 1980s, and since the mid-1990s, in Amsterdam.
 
 
Underlying our research projects currently in development (see below), we maintain the following libraries and collection resources:
 
 
● A contemporary art collection and archives; The Siegelaub Collection & Archives. This is a collection of what is now known as "conceptual art", and the archives of Seth Siegelaub arising from his activities from 1964 through 1971 in New York and Europe, including exhibitions, projects, and interviews.

 
● The Center for Social Research on Old Textiles [CSROT] research library and the Bibliographica Textilia Historiae database. This is a reference resource centered on documenting the world literature on the history of textiles consisting of a growing library of more than 7,200 volumes from the 15th century to date, and a related database containing over 9,000 entries with over 25,000 bibliographic references to individual authors, texts and subjects.  To access the database click here.
 

● The Center for Social Research on Old Textiles [CSROT] historic textile, tapa, and headdress collection.  This is a wide-ranging, diverse international collection including woven and printed textiles, embroideries, and bark cloth (tapa) from Europe, Asia, Oceania & Africa from late antiquity (Coptic Egypt) through the 20th century, especially rich in 15th to 18th century European silks and velvets, with a collection of headdresses and caps from Africa, Asia and Oceania (currently a total of 668 works).
 

● The Egress Time & Causality Library and Database.  This is a nascent small but growing specialized research library and database centered on the theory of time and causality in the context of physics, which will appear in the near future.
 
What Does The
 
Stichting Egress Foundation Want?
 
 
It is our intention to use and develop these resources in partnership with other interested institutions and individuals over the coming years and use them as a basis for a series of projects. In certain cases we will provide grants for realizing projects of mutual interest, as well as the eventual gifting of our libraries and collections.


These projects will include:

 

● Contemporary Art. This section consists of 4 projects:

 

- Art Theory: A embryonic research project centered on the social-economic issues underlying the production, distribution and consumption of contemporary art and culture, The Egress Forum For Critical Art Studies.  Our first project is the How Is Art History Made? project (see below).

 

- How Is Art History Made?: A critical research project organized by the Stichting Egress Foundation, Amsterdam in association with the Kunsthalle Basel which was launched in Basel during the Basel Art Fair and Liste Art Fair in June 2011. For more information click here.

 

-  Art Law: A center for the study of the growing legal issues related to contemporary art and intellectual production in general, The Art Law Resource Center, produced by Daniel McClean;

 

- Conceptual Art: A complete documentation on the Seth Siegelaub Collection of "conceptual art"; his archives, and activities during 1964 - 1971.

 

●  Textile Research: The Center for Social Research on Old Textiles [CSROT] research library and the Bibliographica Textilia Historiae database will continue to develop its library and documentation resources to make it available as a free open-access database, fully-searchable by multple keywords and criteria. This is now up and running in a Beta version and can be accessed. To access the database click here. Eventually all this material will be gifted away if and when we find the right conditions.
 
 
●  Textile, tapa & Headdress Collection: The Center for Social Research on Old Textiles [CSROT] historic textile, tapa & headdress collection continues to acquire works and make them available on loan to exhibitions, as well as contribute to the scholarly study of certain aspects of these works. It will be soon be presented here as a free open-access visual database. Eventually all these collections will be gifted away if and when we find the right conditions.
 

●  Time & Causality: The Time & Causality Project for the moment is a nascent small growing library and database, whose purpose is eventually to serve as a focus for a scientific discussion to advance our knowledge of these elusive subjects. Eventually all this material will be gifted away if and when we find the right conditions.

 
●  Media Research: The International Mass Media Research Center [IMMRC] mass media library is a library of critical left, progressive and socialist books and pamphlets treating all aspects of the media which was built in France in the late 1970s. Its circa 3,000 volumes was gifted in the early 1990s to the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (The International Institute for Social History) in Amsterdam where it can now be consulted.
 
What Is To Be Done?

 

As you can see as of this moment only some of the projects are online, but it is expected that most of the site and its projects will be up and running by the end of 2013.

 

If you wish to receive free information and updates about any or all of our projects, just click on feedback on the top of this Homepage and fillout the form (This information will be kept strictly private). We also suggest that before visiting our website you should read our Terms of Use.

 

In the meantime, we welcome your suggestions, comments and proposals for possible collaboration. We are pleased to establish contact with groups and individuals involved with projects related to ours, including the exchange of links. For more information just send us an email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

 Lastly, if any links on the site are not working properly, we would very much appreciate if you can send us a message at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

For more information, related material and links, see the relevant section on our Links page

 

STICHTING EGRESS FOUNDATION