Correspondences: de Appel 1975–2025

Join us for the New York book launch and opening of an archival display of Correspondences: de Appel 1975–2025, a publication drawing on fifty years of correspondence from de Appel Archive to trace the institution’s relational history. Through letters, telegrams, postcards, faxes, and emails sent to and by de Appel, the book traces the networks and collaborations behind the Amsterdam institution’s public activities, offering insight into the often-private exchanges that have shaped its exhibitions, performances, publications, and programs. Bringing together the perspectives of over a hundred correspondents, it reveals how the contributions of many artists, cultural workers and initiatives, across different places and contexts, come together in the seemingly singular work of an institution. The book features correspondence by artists such as Alison Knowles, Carolee Schneemann, James Lee Byars, Laurie Anderson, Mona Hatoum, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Written contributions by Alice Butler, Alison Burstein, Annet Dekker, Susan Gibb & Brian Fuata, de Appel archivist Nell Donkers and co-editors Martha Jager & Hannah Cheney explore aspects of the archive, the role of correspondence, and the artistic practices reflected in its materials. The display at Printed Matter brings original material from the de Appel Archive back to New York, including letters and postcards sent from the city to Amsterdam some thirty to fifty years ago. Founded in Amsterdam in 1975 by Wies Smals, de Appel quickly became an important platform for performance and media-based practices, connecting artists and emerging approaches to contemporary art across geographical and cultural contexts. Through this material, the display traces the transatlantic exchanges and artistic relationships that helped shape the institution. On Wednesday 11 November, 6–8pm, the archival display will be activated by a panel conversation between Jeremy Johnston, Ben DuVall (Darling Green), Martha Jager (independent curator/editor), Nell Donkers (de Appel Archive) and Rachel Churner (director, Carolee Schneemann Foundation). The publication Correspondences: de Appel 1975–2025 was initiated by Martha Jager and co-edited with Hannah Cheney in collaboration with Nell Donkers, de Appel Archivist, designed by Bardhi Haliti and Zuzana Kostelanská, and published by de Appel. The display Correspondences: de Appel 1975–2025 at Printed Matter is convened by Darling Green and curated by Martha Jager, in dialogue with de Appel, with support from the Mondriaan Fund, Creative Industries Fund NL, NOT Fonds, and Netherlands-America Foundation. Martha Jager is an independent curator whose practice spans research, curating, and publishing. Her work explores the everyday and the domestic as sites of artistic production, as well as correspondence, administration, and archiving as forms of documentation and representation. Working collaboratively across performance, exhibitions, public programmes, and publications, she is also co-curator of Playbill, an Amsterdam-based initiative focused on text- and language-based practices. Nell Donkers has been the custodian of the Archive of de Appel since 2002. She develops and organises presentations and events that engage with de Appel’s history, bringing together artists, researchers and audiences. de Appel is an exhibition space, a curatorial and pedagogical lab and archive in Amsterdam since 1975. Darling Green is a collaborative curatorial practice. The studio provides curatorial consulting, exhibition and graphic design, and collections management for museums, galleries and collections. Successful projects concluded for Bennington College, SculptureCenter, Printed Matter, the Permanent Mission of Norway to the UN, MoMA PS1, and The Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others.