basis wien – Archive, Library and Online-Database

basis wien is a place for contemporary art. Here you can find information on contemporary art, on projects by artists, on exhibitions and temporary sites of art presentations and discussions.

In close collaboration with the artists and through thorough observation of projects and exhibitions, we guarantee an ongoing documentation of the production and presentation of contemporary art. The data put into the database can be used for the latest information on current art production on the one hand, and to save the data for the current discourse and for the art theory of tomorrow on the other.

Beside the ongoing input of national and international exhibitions and projects, our editing team works on complete artists’ biographies: since the end of 1997, artists have supplied documentation on their work at basis wien, which has been inserted into the relational database and adequately linked. Hence, we can offer artists their own constantly updated homepages, which are realised in co-operation between the artist and the editing team of basis wien. Details about this process and the necessary steps to get into contact with us can be viewed under updating and sending data.

The basis for all these activities is an extensive person-related archive, a video archive and a catalogue collection. The space of basis wien within the Museumsquartier, which is currently under construction (inauguration: June 2001) has been designed by the architects propeller z and is accessible to the public.

On The History of The Archive

The archive originally derived from the necessity of a working and information station for the state curator for art, Lioba Reddeker, during her time in office from 1997 to 1999. It was her programmatic focus on artists, scenes and institutions in the Austrian provinces, which showed a massive lack concerning the accessibility of updated material on artistic positions. The structure of institutions as well as the art market facilitates an ongoing professional mediation and distribution only of a few people’s work.

Thus, the programme >basistage – offene Ateliers, Kunst und Diskussion< (basis days – open studios, art and discussion) worked on data of more than 120 professional artists from the Austrian provinces. Research and evaluations on the question of documentation and digital information of current art production in Austria showed that there is no central unit offering such services, which is the reason why the work of the basis-platform was made accessible to a larger audience.

In the beginning, the archive had been developed from the material of the state curator and the collection of material from the Depot and the Akku association. Meanwhile, the documentation supplied by artists forms an important additional source to add data.
At the same time, newspapers and magazines have been analysed for critique, reviews and exhibition guides. Invitations and press material – in brief, the whole “grey” literature rounds off our activities.

Since 1998 Peter Nosbers has been responsible for the development of the database. Upon programming The Thing Vienna, a prototype has been developed, which was presented to the public in March 1999 to go online thereafter. Since then, constant maintenance has augmented the data ten times, and the users’ access has increased five times. With the founding of the European network >VEKTOR< by basis wien in winter 1999/2000 it has become clear that the data prototype has to be further developed into a scientific instrument to document cultural heritage.

The new database of basisarchiv:kunst implements international standards and norms such as the Dublin Core Element Set to ascertain meta data. In collaboration with Johnny Pichler, founder of the archive of Austrian popular music, SRA, and Kriso Leinfellner from propeller z, extended database functions and a new user-friendly surface have been realised.