The personal archives of Brazilian artist Rubens Gerchman (1942-2008) have been inducted into Unesco's Memory of the World Register, which recognizes documents, archives, and libraries of great international, regional, and national value. This is the first time that a Brazilian artist receives this seal, and the designation reinforces the mission of the Rubens Gerchman Institute to preserve, restore, promote, and publish the artist's collections and memory, with the purpose of stimulating the creation of new publics and facilitating access to his oeuvre. Created in 1992, the Memory of the World program identifies documents or documentary collections and designates them as part of humanity's world heritage. The program began in order to raise world-wide awareness about the existence and importance of documentary heritage, to facilitate universal access to it, and to promote its preservation using the most adequate techniques. The program's success depends on world-wide, national, regional, and local projects and activities. The designation now includes the collections of ten Brazilian institutions holding documents related to the artist Rubens Gerchman: the City of Belo Horizonte Public Archives, the Capitania de São Paulo Government Secretary's Archive, the National Library Foundation's Archive, the Justiça Federal de 1º Grau no Rio Grande do Sul Archive, the Casa Geyer e Museu Imperial Archive, the Museu Villa-Lobos Archive, The 3rd Region Work Tribunal – Minas Gerais Archive, the City of Rio de Janeiro General Archive, the Igreja Positivista do Brasil Archive, and the Rubens Gerchman Institute. "As the base material is of great quality and the staff is fully committed, this is an ongoing process and the result of a collective effort", said Clara Gerchman, the artist's daughter and curator of the Rubens Gerchman Institute (web site: uol.com.br). For more information, visit Unesco's Memory of the World's web page:
http://www.unesco.org/new/es/communication-and-information/flagship-project-activities/memory-of-the-world/homepage/