in danger
basis wien, archive and documentation centre for contemporary art in and from Austria, is threatened with closure!
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Vienna, 23.05.2013
Because the responsible Ministry, the BMUKK, has refused basis wien any grant, we fear the institution will be compelled to end its 16 years of activity documenting the Austrian art scene.
The basisarchive, which was founded by Lioba Reddeker in 1997 in her then capacity as federal curator, collects and indexes in analogue and digital form material of an ephemeral nature concerning art production. In accordance with scholarly standards, the archive collection was developed into an online database, which was integrated from the start into the international context and serves as the memory of Austrian art production.
The activities of the archive could be carried out continuously for more than a decade thanks only to the unstinting personal dedication of the founder and director, Lioba Reddeker.
After Ms Reddeker’s death in the summer of 2011, and the subsequent financial loss caused by the discontinuation of the HangART-7 exhibition programme, we began both a substantive and financial re-structuring of basis wien.
With the participation of the federal states of Upper Austria, Styria and Lower Austria, we succeeded in setting the financing of the archive’s work on a broader basis.
In addition, with the integration and development of the Archive of the Art Collection Centre St. Pölten, we were able to expand our database and make it available to another institution.
Although the existing conditions realistically implied a continuation with the financial participation of the federal government, the latter notified us of refusal of support in May 2013.
This decision now compels us to point to the imminent cessation of basis wien’s work of documentation and to ask for your support.
basis wien Team
