Susan Sherman Archive
The complete archive of the poet, playwright, essayist, and publisher of IKON magazine, Susan Sherman. This collection includes photographs, correspondence, drafts of work, production files especially related to IKON magazine’s second series, teaching files, ephemera, audio/visual and digital materials, and project files.
IKON, founded by Sherman and collaborator Nancy Colin in the 1960s in New York City, began as an experiment in centering artists’ own perspectives above art criticism, though was shuttered after Sherman returned from the Cultural Congress in Havana, Cuba, in 1968 and found herself blacklisted. IKON relaunched in the 1980s (the second series) as a feminist/activist periodical focusing on the work of women, and published issues with Art Against Apartheid, Asian Women United, Coast-to-Coast: National Women Artists of Color Project, and other groups.
The project files of the archive document Sherman’s presence within important histories of radical international politics (and its intersection with feminism and women’s movements) in the 1960s and beyond, including scarce material related to Cuba, the revolution in Nicaragua, the persecution of activists by the FBI including the Susan Saxe, Jane Alpert, and Assata Shakur, and attempts at radical women-centered education like Sagaris.
A polyvocal archive with Sherman’s many collaborators, highlights of this collection includes works or letters by Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, Carole Byard, Gale Jackson, Meena Alexander, Carol Bergé, Joe Johnson, Lucy Lippard, Clarissa Sligh, Denise Levertov, Diane Wakoski, La Monte Young, and especially Sherman’s close friend Margaret Randall.
The archive has sold.