The Getty Research Institute (GRI) seeks a motivated and knowledgeable Archivist with Spanish and Portuguese language skills for a three-year limited-term project to process three modern and contemporary Latin American collections: the Videobrasil records, the Gertrudis de Moses photographs, and the Grete Stern photographs of indigenous peoples of the Argentine Gran Chaco.
The Videobrasil records (approximately 6 pallets) document 20 editions of the program’s International Electronic Art Festival (1983-2023), which features digital art, installations, and performances by artists from the Geopolitical South–Africa, Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, Oceania, and the Middle East. The collection materials are primarily in Portuguese and consist largely of audiovisual and born-digital materials, with a small papers component.
The de Moses and the Stern photographs, both Spanish-language collections, will be processed following the completion of the Videobrasil records. The de Moses photographs (approximately 27 linear feet) cover the Chilean American photographer’s work from the 1920s to the 1980s, with approximately 10,000 prints and 4,400 negatives, and 30 albums comprising de Moses’s experimental work from 1938 onward, including portraits, nudes, and color images. The Stern photographs (approximately 20 linear feet) consist of the German Argentine photographer’s work documenting the indigenous inhabitants, living conditions, and landscape of the Argentine Gran Chaco from 1959 to 1964. The collection includes 176 vintage gelatin silver prints; 1,500 black-and-white and color negatives; three handmade albums compiled of sheets of annotated contact prints; as well as black-and-white and color slides.
Reporting to the Special Collections Archivist III who will supervise the project, the Special Collections Archivist II will work independently to physically process and arrange the materials according to archival best practices; creating online finding aids in compliance with local guidelines and national standards; communicating and closely collaborating with curatorial, conservation, and digitization staff; and writing blog posts and participating in outreach activities related to the collections.
Additional collections will be assigned if time permits.
Located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, the Getty Research Institute is dedicated to cultivating advanced knowledge of art and its varied histories. Serving an international community of scholars, the Getty Library is one of the largest art and architecture libraries in the world, with holdings of more than one and a half million books and periodicals, rare books and journals, rare photographs, prints dating from the 15th century to the present, architectural drawings and models, audiovisual recordings, digital content, and extensive archives and manuscript collections.
