Collection consists of 8mm and 16mm films, videocassettes, compact discs, and audiocassettes, deriving from artist David X. Young's work in New York City, Cape Cod, and Haiti. His New York work includes films of W. Eugene Smith working in his loft studio in 1971, as well as experimental films dating from the 1950s to the 1980s. Homemade audiocassette mix tapes document Young's interest in jazz as well as his piano playing. Videocassettes consist of reference copies of several films and television programs on W. Eugene Smith. This collection is part of the Archive of Documentary Arts. Original recordings are closed to research access pending reformatting.
The David X. Young Films, 1955-2007, includes film reels, videocassettes, and audiocassettes produced primarily by artist David X. Young between 1955 and 1996, in New York City, Cape Cod, and Haiti. Although transferred to the Archive of Documentary Arts at the Rubenstein Library in 2012, the collection was originally acquired from Young’s estate by the Center for Documentary Studies, for use by Sam Stephenson in his research on W. Eugene Smith for the book The Jazz Loft Project (2010). As a consequence, nearly half the collection is comprised of materials relating to Young’s involvement in the production of "Let Truth Be The Prejudice," a half-hour documentary on Smith produced by CBS in 1971, as part of its Lamp Unto My Feet series. These materials include a composite print of the final 28-minute program, un-synced picture and soundtrack reels not used in the final program, and videocassette and disc copies of the reels created by the Center for Documentary Studies in 2007.
The balance of the collection consists primarily of elements related to film projects created by Young between 1955 and 1986, including Klaximo, Seven Haitian Moods, Duck Season. Many of the elements in the collection, representing these and other projects, were spooled--put together on one reel--to facilitate video transfer previous to the films being acquired by the Center for Documentary Studies.
In addition to these films, the collection contains nine audiocassette tapes, including radio broadcasts of music and spoken-word material, as well as one recording of David X. Young playing piano, and four VHS videocassette tapes, from television broadcasts of programs on W. Eugene Smith.