Research Postcards: Cicely Haggerty in New York City

Our Research Postcards series heads next to New York City, as we check in with M.A. candidate Cicely Haggerty and her archival research on the A.I.R. Gallery in Brooklyn:

Cicely Haggerty: "This June and July I am living in New York City while I conduct archival research for my Major Research Paper, which explores the 1980 A.I.R. Gallery exhibition Dialectics of Isolation: Third World Women Artists of The United States. While I’m here, I am also taking ARTH 860: Directed Research at a Cultural Institution, through the gallery, which was the first women’s run cooperative gallery in the United States."

CH: "My role at the gallery is to help a former A.I.R. fellow, Sky Syzygy, with their current archival/curatorial project, 'Liberating Gender/Gender Resistance.'” This project aims to celebrate the art and activism of transgender, Two Spirit, and non-binary individuals who were active in liberation movements in the U.S. during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. The project uses A.I.R.’s founding as a portal to a moment when many liberation movements were building alliances in N.Y.C., as well as to highlight where and how trans and non-binary gender identities show up (or are missing) from A.I.R. history. So, we are conducting archival research, as well as interviews and oral histories with former members of the gallery and their contemporaries in the art world."

CH: "While in the city I’ve been able to spend a lot of time visiting various exhibitions and galleries, including a Nicole Eisenman show at Hauser and Wirth, a Faith Ringgold show at the New Museum, a Cindy Sherman show at Hauser and Wirth, and a Judith Eisler show at Casey Kaplan. I also spent two weeks at the Fales Library at New York University looking specifically at A.I.R. archives, which was a big treat."