THEJORGELUCEROSTUDYCOLLECTION is a modest art library and ephemera archive assembled by artist and educator Jorge Lucero during his various teaching appointments across the American midwest. The STUDYCOLLECTION is a roving site which is currently housed in the School of Art & Design (South Studio 7), at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The STUDYCOLLECTION is open by appointment mostly or on many Fridays at 3pm CST (during the academic year). Browsing, study, quiet reading, sitting, and open discussion is encouraged during your visit to the STUDYCOLLECTION.
THEJORGELUCEROSTUDYCOLLECTION is primarily a repository for books, journals, and videos on Conceptual Art, performance art, art of the global south, the art of Chicago, collage, art education, curriculum theory, critical pedagogy, critical theory, religion, and philosophy.
The special holdings of the STUDYCOLLECTION is proud to have acquired a twenty-five volume sampling of self-published books by the Chicago based duo Temporary Services in 2015. We are also the home to a robust assembly of published works by the performance groups Goat Island and Every House has a Door, as well as an--almost complete--collection of books authored by and about the experimental composer, artist, and teacher John Cage. We are proud to also be holders of a first edition copy of Herman Melville's Moby Dick, beautifully illustrated by Rockwell Kent (Random House, 1930), as well as a carefully curated assortment of art books in Spanish. In 2021 the STUDYCOLLECTION purchased the entire collection of publications produced by the artisteacher-centric, Freelands Foundation (UK). In 2022 the Swedish journal PARSE donated its entire back-catalogue to the STUDYCOLLECTION.
In the early summer of 2017 the STUDYCOLLECTION was gifted the entire art periodical archive of the preeminent historian of Modern and Contemporary art, Jonathan Fineberg. The archive consists of fifty years worth of the germinal magazines Art in America, Art News, ArtForum, Art International, Art Journal, Raw Vision, and others (see image of stacks). This part of THEJORGELUCEROSTUDYCOLLECTION is the first (and maybe last) to be exhibited outside of the STUDYCOLLECTION's confines in Fall 2017. It was exhibited at the Krannert Art Museum.
Finally, the STUDYCOLLECTION is happy to be the humble home of a hodgepodge selection of important artworks, posters, objects, and tidbits of significance. At the collection visitors can view one of only fifty existing Workboxes, an artist book co-authored by Cupola Bobber and performance philosopher Laura Cull. Other practitioners included in this area of the STUDYCOLLECTION are: Alberto Aguilar, Bruce Nauman, Stephanie Springgay, Roger Brown, Janine Antoni, Jay Ryan, Jim Duignan and Stockyard Institute, Angela Baldus, Ryan Griffis, Panhandle Slim, Liz Born, Yoko Ono, Edra Soto, Pedro Reyes, Russell Dietrich, Sam Rocha, Ross Roadruck, Mark Menjivar, Catalina Hernandez, Stephen Signa Aviles, Conrad Bakker, Alex Bradley Cohen, Rirkrit Tiravanija, A.D. Carson, Jerome Hausman, Will Arnold, and Charlie Roderick. This part of the STUDYCOLLECTION also carries a spectacular array of drawings and objects created by Maribel and Jorge Lucero's children.
The STUDYCOLLECTION is non-circulating. It is the primary mission of the STUDYCOLLECTION to be a forum for conviviality, especially over these unique items within this particular place and time, therefore we are unable to lend our holdings. Some exceptions can be made on a case by case basis. All requests to borrow items must be made in person.
Chief curator, lead educator, and archivist, Jorge Lucero, says this about the STUDYCOLLECTION: "Sometimes books are heavy, but not if you carry them in small batches and with others". Artist Coco Fusco commented, “You have a lot of stuff in here!”
STUDYCOLLECTION SPECIAL EVENTS
THEJORGELUCEROSTUDYCOLLECTION holds no special events other than the singular event of being open during its designated time each week. Visitors to the STUDYCOLLECTION have made reasonable suggestions about specific public events that could potentially increase the number of visitors and the visibility of the STUDYCOLLECTION (e.g. public readings, organized discussions, screenings or listening events, etc.). Although these suggestions are appreciated and understood as coinciding with other models of how similar spaces are normally participated in, the mission of the STUDYCOLLECTION is not necessarily to be consumed en masse or to provide purposeful entertainment of any sort. The staff of the STUDYCOLLECTION is perfectly at ease with nothing (or the appearance of nothing) happening during the open times of the STUDYCOLLECTION.
THE STUDYCOLLECTION ELSEWHERE
Over the years the STUDYCOLLECTION has found itself elsewhere. Under very specific circumstances the University of North Texas (in 2018) and the University of Tennessee (in 2023) borrowed the STUDYCOLLECTION in its entirety. At the University of North Texas a graduate level curriculum theory course worked with the materials in the STUDYCOLLECTION to develop more than twenty projects, plans, and display at the intersection of the themes covered in the STUDYCOLLECTION and their own curricular studies. At the University of Tennessee the STUDYCOLLECTION was installed for full use in the UTK Downtown Gallery. The general public was granted access to study, interact and even reconfigure the STUDYCOLLECTION as much as they wanted. Special workshops were held with local high school students, Knoxville museum educators, faculty and students from the University of Tennessee’s art school, and k-12 educators attending the 2023 Tennessee Art Education Association Conference in October of that year.
In the year 2023, the STUDYCOLLECTION opened a smaller satellite branch in the heart of the University of Illinois campus. This quiet initiative coincided with Jorge Lucero’s appointment to an administrative role in the College of Fine and Applied Arts. The extension—called STUDYCOLLECTIONADMINOFFICE—is located in the basement of the Architecture Building in Room 20A and is open to the public at random hours of the week.
