2017
State of the Art Archives. International Conference on Archives Documenting Modern and Contemporary Art
Marking the anniversaries of their foundation, ZADIK – Central Archive for German and International Art Market Studies (est. 1992) in cooperation with the Department of Art History at the University of Cologne, basis wien – Documentation Centre for Contemporary Art (est. 1997), and the Institute of Modern Art Nuremberg (est. 1967) – all partners of european-art.net – invite you to a conference of international art archives.
In short presentations the host and invited archives will introduce their institutions, their respective collection focuses, their own work, and also the work opportunities that they provide to researchers. They reflect the development and importance of art archives, which, over the course of the cultural turns, have provided access to new realms of collecting and research for art history that emerged parallel to the paradigm shifts of modernity. In times of digital processing and publication the work of art archives increasingly attracts international attention and gains in efficacy, while providing new stimuli for art sciences such as the dynamically growing field of art market research as well as the exhibition practice itself. Since the millennium and, above all, in the last decade there have been more and more art exhibitions with documentary aspects of cultural history, which feature source materials from art archives and thereby demonstrate a recontextualisation of the presented artworks.
The conference offers archivists, art historians (including students), journalists, and the interested (expert) public a forum where one can learn more about the different archives with their respective specialisations and research opportunities. The presentations and ensuing discussions in German and English will be translated simultaneously. This service is also available for two moderated discussions/workshops on (1) qualitative and (2) quantitative art market research based on archive inventories. Each is open to 20 participants, who can sign up in the registration process and formulate their specific knowledge interests.
The conference begins on Sept. 21 with a lecture by: Chris Stolwijk, General Director of the Netherlands Institute of Art History Participating archives: Archives of the Finnish National Gallery (Helsinki, FI), Netherlands Institute of Art History (The Hague, NL), Archives of American Art / Smithsonian Institution (Washington, USA), Getty Research Institute (Los Angeles, USA), University of the Witwatersrand, (Johannesburg, SA), The Museum of Modern Art Archives (New York, USA), The Archive of Fine Arts (Prague, CZ), Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong, CH), Archivo del Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Barcelona (ES), Garage Archive Collection (Moscow, RU), Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts (ASAC) of La Biennale di Venezia (Venice, IT), Artpool Art Research Center / Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest, HU), european-art.net.
The conference proceedings have been published online in German and English on the open access platform arthistoricum.net – ART-Books and can be downloaded from the following link:
http://books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/arthistoricum/catalog/book/426
The photo and video documentation can be viewed at the organising institutions.
Further information: www.stateoftheartarchives.com
A comprehensive list of links to Art Archives in Austria, Europe and internationally can be found here
