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Welcome to the Artl@s Catalogues Database Harvest Interface !

Artl@s develops a global database of exhibitions catalogs from the 19th century to the present. This database is constantly evolving: it expands regularly as volunteer researchers contribute to the project. All the contributors are specialists, who are generous enough to make the result of many hours of work available to all. We thank you for citing them systematically. A work in progress, the database will be all the more exhaustive as you contribute to the project! Join us by contacting us.

Need a Tutorial? https://artlas.huma-num.fr/en/contributing-how/

The construction of the database was supported by the Agence nationale pour la Recherche (ANR), thanks to a projet Jeunes Chercheurs – Jeunes Chercheuses (2011-2106). Its development and maintenance are supported by the École normale supérieure, the Paris Sciences Lettres Research University and the labex TransferS (Ecole normale supérieure / Collège de France, Paris).

What does the Artl@s database contain?

The database contains exhibition catalogs from around the world since the 19th century, which permits simple or complex queries. Information that is not in the catalogue is not taken for the database. Consequently, the database is not and cannot be exhaustive! Neither does it represent all the exhibitions of living art since the 19th century.

For the moment, we are focusing on collecting “peripheral” biennale catalogs (Brazil, Egypt, former Yugoslavia, Italy for a start), in order to reconstruct the internationalization of the art market and the situation of living art since the 19th century. We want to move beyond the monocentric and bilateral geopolitical perspective, which has so far characterized the history of the visual arts of the 19th and 20th centuries (focus on Paris-New York, and little regard for “the rest”).

The database should also allow us to study in a global way collectionism, the presence of the women, the evolution of subjects matters and styles, the institutionalization of modern and contemporary art, the history of the art market, the politics at work in Biennials, etc. … as well as questions of centers and peripheries in the global history of living art.

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