CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES MICHELA ALESSANDRINI contents 4 34 64 INTRODUCTION: THE RESEARCH-TOOL THE KNOWLEDGE-SEEKER THE CURATOR IN ABSENTIA, OR WHAT ARCHIVE ARCHIVE CURATORIAL ARCHIVES REVEAL ABOUT Vincenzo de Bellis Massimiliano Gioni CURATORIAL PRACTICES Michela Alessandrini 42 71 THE ORPHAN ARCHIVE THE MEMORY-KEEPER 11 Vasıf Kortun ARCHIVE PREFACE: Hou Hanru THE ART OF ARCHIVING 47 Philippe Artières THE NON-INSTITUTIONAL 77 ARCHIVE THE AFFECTIVE ARCHIVE Abdellah Karroum Cornelia Lauf INSTITUTIONAL CURATORIAL ARCHIVES 83 PERSONAL CURATORIAL THE VISUAL ARCHIVE 17 ARCHIVES Jean-Hubert Martin THE INBOX ARCHIVE Ferran Barenblit 54 93 THE INVISIBLE ARCHIVE THE INTIMATE ARCHIVE 22 Chiara Bertola Viktor Misiano THE POLITICAL ARCHIVE Manuel Borja-Villel 59 100 THE TIME-AND-SPACE-CONSUMING HARALD SZEEMANN’S 29 ARCHIVE ARCHIVE THE LEFTOVER ARCHIVE Giovanni Carmine Pietro Rigolo Charles Esche contents EXHIBITIONS’ REACTIVATION 136 AND EXHIBITED ARCHIVES POSTFACE: THIS, FOR THE SAKE OF 107 EXHIBITIONS THE POLYPHONIC ARCHIVE Meriç Öner Hans Ulrich Obrist 141 113 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE REACTIVATING ARCHIVE Lorenzo Benedetti 118 THE COLLECTED ARCHIVE Susan Hapgood 124 THE SYMPATHETIC-MAGIC ARCHIVE Francesco Manacorda 131 THE CONSCIOUS ARCHIVE Barbara Vanderlinden INTRODUCTION: The curator in absentia, or what curatorial archives reveal about curatorial practices Michela Alessandrini SALT023-CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES-004 CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES It was back in 2013 that I first heard about the archives are primarily used as documentation acquisition of Harald Szeemann’s archives by the by specialists, definitely not as independent sites Getty Research Institute (GRI) in Los Angeles. mirroring and contributing to the world’s—and I had known very little about his archives until not just the art world’s—organization. I came across the book Individual Methodology: Harald Szeemann1 by Session 16 of the École du A curatorial2 archive is much more than a Magasin. As a participant of the same curatorial curator’s archive; it is also an instrument and program in Grenoble, I remember the discovery working place for the curator and/or the institution of this publication in the students’ library as that hosts the archive. This publication aims to fundamental for the research on curatorial archives promote the idea that curatorial archives should I embarked on right after, and that is still ongoing. be considered not only as resources for objective research, but also as systems or operational Having access—albeit indirectly—to Szeemann’s structures where curatorial visions are set out. personal notes, sketches, and correspondence, In other words, a place where practice is expressed initially gave me a glimpse of his personality and and takes shape; a salon where it is possible intentions as a curator, which eventually led me to enter into discussion with individual and to a much wider and richer understanding of collective methodologies. Here I intend to consider the man and his work. Considering the growing curatorial archives as extensions of the curator and number of studies and publications on the his/her methodology. The potential of these para- history of exhibitions and curatorial discourse, curatorial tools lies in the fact that they are both the increased attention given to archives as a tool the origin and the resulting witness of a complex to understand curatorial methodologies comes process3 and could be used as an apparatus to as no surprise. Nevertheless, at present, these better understand wider curatorial dynamics. SALT023-CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES-005 CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES An archive exists between two places; it is this series of interviews hoping to contribute to a crossroads where personal and professional, filling this gap and finding connections between subject and object, past and future, undefined a curator’s personal approach to archives and and definitive inexorably merge. Exhibition exhibitions, i.e. in terms of building structures views, plans, sketches, notes, correspondence and conceiving the display of various materials with artists and art professionals, speeches, and works. administrative files all gather together for a yet- to-be-told story that intertwines the curator’s Curatorial Archives in Curatorial Practices is private life and professional practice. An archive not intended to give a comprehensive overview, is a space where the curator thinks, works, and but an accurate one based on the experience of puts fragments together in order to create new curators I have come across in the last five years. narratives. Yet, like a ghost, it somehow lingers in Some of them I know well; others I wanted to meet time. To be in this archive is to think alongside the because I felt their understanding of archives curator, through—and despite—his/her absence: would add valuable reflections to this project. in absentia. The outcome of considering this I visited and went through many of their archives, accumulation of material is significant for the others I have only seen in pictures or glanced future history of art and exhibitions, possibly an briefly. In this publication, theory interweaves open and plural one, especially as it reveals a lot with practice, and memories mingle with ideology about our society and its mechanisms. Curatorial and conjectures. Different generations of curators archives appear to be fundamental in shaping a regularly encounter curatorial and archival tools, curatorial discourse. Nevertheless, a methodology which they use and question accordingly. The for their exploration has yet to be imagined, and variety of content and approaches inevitably reflects a cohesive bibliography on this specific matter the constellation of personalities and practices that was still missing when I started this research. If helped me map out this issue. In fact, when I look at much has been said about artists’ and art critics’ the ensemble of interviews gathered here, I picture archives, serious consideration of curatorial a chorus of ethical viewpoints and behaviors. This archives is still lacking at present. I embarked on colorful and multifaceted landscape is reflected in SALT023-CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES-006 CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES the heterogeneity of archive types that have been political strategies that this mechanism implies or portrayed and crystallized in each interview’s reveals. Interestingly, however, interviews began heading. If some of the current trends related with the question “Do you have an archive?”, to curatorial archives emerged in a natural way and most of the curators answered “No, I don’t” during our discussions, analysis of the similarities without hesitation. I then realized that what I and differences among the curators’ reactions is meant by archive was something different to what complicated. Generally speaking, most of them they had in mind. In fact, most of them did not were reluctant to the idea of taking care or simply have a systematic archive of their professional keeping their own archives. Others had a clear activities, but I was not looking for that either. In sense of how pivotal the archive is to their practice my opinion, only what is unclassified, transitory, and the reason for this. Some of them were keen to ambiguous, and left behind can truly speak of show their emotional attachment to it. Basically, what remains unspoken. Consciously dealing one would be tempted to say that curators who with the past and doing so with respect for the care more about their archives are those who have ephemerality of a curator’s activity is as rare a strong sense of authorship of their exhibitions as it is precious. Indulging in archival study, and a clearly defined, individual, creative position. contemplation, and reactivation while these On the other hand, curators who are relieved ensembles are still fluid and alive appears to to let go of the archive’s weight by entrusting be a suitable approach, in contrast to the heavy it to art institutions, appear to be those with establishment-run, traditional idea of how to keep greater focus on collective action than personal an archive, collect the past, and freeze the present behaviors. Going through curators’ archives and by conveying static forms of representation. engaging in a conversation with them felt like an anthropological journey, one that ends where it QUESTIONS began: at the core of our times, caught up with the obsession to document the ephemeral; in the need A response in the negative was also a clue to order, to take care, to curate the huge amount to understanding that most curators do not of data that we produce; and, in the social and have time to archive. Most do not even have an SALT023-CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES-007 CURATORIAL ARCHIVES IN CURATORIAL PRACTICES assistant to deal with it, at least not in a way that researchers, and intellectuals? How can we would go beyond merely storing and classifying. benefit from the sensitive elements that can What would be the point of letting someone else be found in archives while they are still active archive one’s professional life, losing the intimate and in the form that their owner and creator connection with data? Or maybe this work should imagined for them? Should we be afraid of be done by someone else in order to be legitimate talking about emotions when discussing and not self-representative? Both positions seem curatorial archives? (C. Bertola, C. Lauf, valid. Their conjunction proposes a sketch for an P. Rigolo, M. Borja-Villel) emerging professional figure yet to be instated: • What is the role of art institutions in this the curatorial archive’s curator—a hybrid position process of meaning creation? How can the intersecting research, storytelling, curating and ephemeral nature of the curatorial media archiving, challenging the traditional role of the be translated into a non-static tool within gatekeeper, and guaranteeing flexibility to these the private and public archival system? And combined structures.