ANALOGUE. The archive’s analogue holdings are preserved in hanging file cabinets, shelving units and archival boxes. They constitute the primary source for the records in the basis wien online database. Archival materials and publications can be retrieved and consulted directly at the archive.
An ARCHIVAL ITEM is an individual object preserved as part of an archive and catalogued in a database. Such items frequently consist of small-scale materials, including invitation cards, exhibition plans and texts displayed in exhibitions to inform and orient visitors. Archival items are also received by the archive in digital form.
ARCHIVE INTAKT refers to the archival holdings of IntAkt – Internationale Aktionsgemeinschaft bildender Künstlerinnen (International Action Community of Women Artists). A substantial portion of these holdings is being catalogued as part of the Austrian funding programme “Kulturerbe digital” (Digital Cultural Heritage) and made accessible through the basis wien database and the digital platforms Kulturpool and Europeana.
The holdings document a feminist cultural and political practice. They demonstrate how the artists’ association, founded in 1977, actively contributes to its own historicisation and representation by preserving, documenting and transmitting records of its activities and working processes.
Since its foundation, IntAkt – Internationale Aktionsgemeinschaft bildender Künstlerinnen has advocated greater visibility for women artists and improvements in their social and artistic conditions. It also supports their active participation in Austria’s art and cultural policy landscape.
The concept of the ART FIELD, as developed by Pierre Bourdieu, provides the theoretical framework for the documentation approach of basis wien. Since its foundation, the archive and documentation centre has aimed to document the entire field of contemporary art in the Austrian context. In addition to artists, the institution therefore documents authors, curators and other people active in the art field, as well as their activities.
ARTISTS’ ESTATES. An artist’s estate often presents significant challenges for those responsible for preserving it. Assessing the scope of the estate and defining its holdings, renting and maintaining storage facilities, securing funding for estate management and making the work accessible to the public all require considerable effort.
Preserving and processing an artist’s estate can make an important contribution to the visibility of art and help address imbalances in the distribution of attention.
By recording artists’ estates in the basis wien database, they can be made discoverable and accompanied by information about their scope, cataloguing status and the contact details of those responsible for them. basis wien preserves the estate of Brigitte Aloise Roth, an artist, photographer, activist and educator. A substantial portion of the estate is accessible online through the digitisation initiative: https://nachlass-brigitte-aloise-roth.basis-wien.at/
As a cooperation partner, basis wien developed the framework for documenting the estate of Linda Bilda, which is located in the artist’s former studio in Vienna’s 19th district. In addition to the physical preservation and care of the individual works, objects and written materials, the project focuses on communicating Linda Bilda’s artistic work and practice. Her work has been made accessible to a wider audience through exhibitions, film presentations and, most recently, the publication Linda Bilda. Die goldene Welt, edited by Melanie Ohnemus and Helene Baur. The estate is supported by the association Artclub Wien. Both basis wien and Artclub Wien can be contacted regarding loan requests.
Since 2025, basis wien has been working as a cooperation partner on the development of the estate of Eugenia Rochas.
The basis wien archive also preserves the documentary portions of the estates of Lioba Reddeker (1961–2011) and Albert Reuss (1889–1975), which have so far received little or no processing. basis wien welcomes research and scholarly enquiries.
AUTHORITY DATA are standardised data used to identify and consistently name people, institutions, places and other entities within a database.
Authority data help assign information unambiguously, for example when different forms or spellings of a name occur. They also make it possible to distinguish clearly between people or places that share the same name.
AUTONOMOUS. basis wien understands itself as an independent documentation institution for contemporary art. As a non-profit association, it operates autonomously and independently, with the aim of documenting contemporary art in the Austrian context on a continuous and long-term basis.
BARRIER-FREE ACCESS. Providing barrier-free access was one of the objectives in developing this website. If required, a lift is available, for visitors to the archive and library on the second floor of the former factory building at Fünfhausgasse 5, 1150 Vienna.
BIBLIOTHEK HAUS DES WIDERSTANDS. In 2023, Helene Baur of basis wien and art historian Hannes Loichinger developed the idea for a Library of Resistance. That same year, both were working with the association prenninger gespräche, whose registered office is located at a historic site: the former home of the Feuerlöscher family in Prenning. Artist Anita Leisz was invited to develop ideas for the library’s furnishings, including shelving, a table and seating. The library was presented in a room of the house in 2023 in cooperation with steirischer herbst. In its initial version, the library comprised a collection of publications and literature relating to individuals connected with the House of the Feuerlöscher family. These included Herbert Eichholzer, Anna Feuerlöscher, Ernst Fischer, Axl Leskoschek, Kurt Neumann, Walter Ritter and Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky. The collection was supplemented by contemporary thematic contributions addressing the concept of resistance from the perspectives of artists, theorists and historians.
In 2026, work is underway to reconstruct the original library and expand its holdings. The collection focuses on individuals and actions directly associated with resistance to Austrofascism and National Socialism. It offers insights into the work and reception of individuals whose activities are associated with historical resistance and includes publications examining the history of resistance in the Austrian context.
COOPERATION with national and international partners has been a central focus of basis wien since its foundation. In recent years, these activities have expanded, with further development of the collaborative use of the database as a meta-level for cataloguing and accessing different collections and archival holdings.
DATABASE. The architecture of the basis wien database makes it possible to establish relationships and links between records.
Starting with a source – for example, an archival item serving as the basis for creating an object record – additional records relating to exhibitions, people and institutions are created and linked to one another.
In this way, the information contained in the sources and the relationships between the different elements are documented and made visible.
DIGITAL. Analogue and digital objects are catalogued and made searchable through the online database. The Latin word digitus, meaning “finger”, points to the idea of showing or indicating something, which also informs the meaning of “digital” in this context. The online database functions as a meta-level that provides references to objects, people, institutions and events related to artistic practice.
DONATIONS directly support the work of the archive and documentation centre and make a valuable contribution to its activities in documenting contemporary art.
EPHEMERA constitute the primary focus of the institution’s collection. They are transient information carriers produced for a specific purpose and a limited period or occasion. Such materials are rarely collected and catalogued systematically according to archival standards.
EUROPEAN-ART.NET (EAN) is a network of art archives that provide online access to their holdings. A cross-archive search enables the databases of participating archives to be connected and searched collectively at the level of person records. basis wien is a founding member and has chaired the network since 2017. The network maintains an ongoing professional exchange, implements collaborative projects and meets once a year at a different archive location. All partners and the joint database search are available online at European-art.net.
The FOUNDATION of the institution can be traced back to Lioba Reddeker’s work as Federal Curator between 1997 and 1999. Initially based at Hof 7 in the MuseumsQuartier, Lioba Reddeker took over the premises of its predecessor and founded basis wien – Art, Information and Archive. Conceived as an open archive for everyone active in the art field, basis wien was developed under Lioba Reddeker’s initiative into an independent, service-oriented documentation centre for contemporary art operating throughout Austria.
GROUP can refer to different forms of collaboration between individuals and may encompass artists’ groups, research groups, curatorial groups and collectives. Individual participants are recorded, and exhibitions, events, archival materials and publications are linked to group records.
The HARALD STERK LIBRARY comprises 1,387 books and 239 archival items belonging to the Austrian cultural journalist Harald Sterk (1938–1991). The publications date from 1958 to 1991 and were predominantly published in Austria. The library was donated to the basis wien archive by the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) in 2019. It is preserved there as an independent collection and is accessible to the interested public.
HOLDINGS refers to the entirety of materials, documents and objects that form a coherent unit by virtue of their provenance, creation or content. The overall digital holdings, searchable through the basis wien online database, are organised into individual collections and fonds, including artists’ estates, archives and collections held by other institutions. These holdings may be located either at basis wien or at other repositories elsewhere. The reference number assigned to each individual object makes it possible to trace its storage location and provenance. Individual holdings can be selected and searched specifically through the object search function.
INTERNSHIPS can be undertaken as part of programmes such as Library and Information Studies, Erasmus+ or other specialist training at the archive and documentation centre. Their duration depends on individual circumstances and requirements.
Due to limited financial resources, internships cannot be remunerated. Consequently, no regular internship positions are currently advertised. The team welcomes unsolicited applications from interested candidates where opportunities and capacity permit.
INVITATIONS are frequently published as cards or folders and are increasingly distributed in digital form. They contain detailed information about events and exhibitions, including titles, dates and participants, and constitute an important source for documentation.
LIOBA REDDEKER founded basis wien – Archive and Documentation Centre in 1997. The institution was based in Vienna’s MuseumsQuartier until 2000. Following her death in 2011, the team, which continues to work at the institution today, strengthened its archival focus. Part of Lioba Reddeker’s estate is preserved at the basis wien archive and documentation centre. See also FOUNDATION.
A META-LEVEL emerges through the digital cataloguing and publication of objects and documentary materials from different collections and archival holdings in a database. The basis wien database thereby enables remote access to collections and holdings. Regardless of their physical location, their contents are digitally connected, searchable and accessible for research.
METADATA are structured information describing objects and their relationships, making them searchable and enabling them to be placed in context. In the basis wien database, metadata describe, among other things, characteristics of people, institutions, artworks, exhibitions, events, publications, places and archival holdings. They enable the unambiguous identification, linking and retrieval of documented content and establish relationships between different records. Metadata describe not only individual objects or documents but can also represent the contexts of their creation, transmission and historical significance.
An OBJECT is an individually documented information carrier or an assemblage of materials within a collection or archival holding. Examples include invitation cards, exhibition information sheets, texts, magazines, exhibition catalogues, posters, photographs, audiovisual media and digital documents. Each object is described using metadata and can be linked to people, institutions, exhibitions, events, places and other objects. Documentation records not only an object’s formal details but also makes it possible to situate it within the contexts of its creation, transmission and history.
PARTICIPATION in the documentation process is expressly encouraged. The archive is open to researchers as well as artists, curators, gallery owners and other interested parties who wish to contribute to the expansion of the documentation centre for contemporary art by donating significant materials.
PERSON refers to the individuals documented in the basis wien database who are connected with contemporary art in various ways. These include artists, curators, authors, gallery owners, art educators, researchers, collectors and other participants in the art field. Person records can be linked to collections, artworks, exhibitions, events, publications, institutions and other records. They enable the unambiguous identification of individuals and facilitate research by making their different activities, roles and documented relationships visible. A person record does not claim to provide a complete biography. Instead, the documentation reflects the entirety of the objects recorded and preserved within the basis wien holdings. Information about an individual is therefore drawn from the sources documented in the archive and is continuously supplemented as new materials become available.
PRESS INFORMATION relating to exhibitions, performances and other activities constitutes an important source for the documentation work of basis wien. These materials are catalogued and preserved in their original form. Institutions are invited to include basis wien on their press distribution lists or to send press information directly to the institution.
A PUBLICATION is a published medium produced in the context of visual art that contains information or content relating to artists, exhibitions, institutions or art-historical and cultural-historical contexts. Examples include artists’ publications, fanzines, exhibition catalogues, journals, magazines, brochures, essays and other printed works. Publications are documented as independent objects and linked to the people, institutions, exhibitions, events and other objects mentioned or discussed in them.
A RECORD is a structured collection of information relating to a specific person, object, event or institution.
RUDOLFSHEIM-FÜNFHAUS is the name of Vienna’s 15th municipal district, where the archive and the institution’s headquarters have been located at Fünfhausgasse 5 since 2000.
SEARCH (OBJECTS) returns results related to the search term entered. Results are ranked and sorted according to their relevance to the search term. If no search term is entered, results are displayed in order of the date on which they were catalogued in the archive. The arrow icon allows users to sort the results chronologically in ascending or descending order. Filters provide additional options for targeted searches and for narrowing down the results.
SUBJECT INDEXING refers to the description of an object’s content through the assignment of terms. It enables users to search for content and thematic relationships independently of an object’s formal details. At basis wien, subject indexing draws on authority data, particularly the Integrated Authority File (Gemeinsame Normdatei, GND), Iconclass and the Art and Architecture Thesaurus of the Getty Research Institute.