MATTHIAS MICHALKA - EXHIBITING THE ARCHIVE

Archives are in vogue. Many artists today are focusing their attention on history, memory, and documentation, and art historians speak of an "Archival Impulse" in contemporary art, while exhibitions on this "Archive Fever" are attracting broad interest. The effects of this development are also strongly in evidence in curatorial work. This talk looks at the implications of the growing interest in archives in exhibitions and explores concrete examples of the complex relationship between artwork and document. Michalka will be focussing on the status of performative, site-specific, and media forms of artwork, and also in particular on the curatorial and artistic uses of archive materials and various forms of combining exhibition and archive. Matthias Michalka is art historian and curator at Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien. He recently curated Changing Channels. Art and Television 1963 – 1987 (2010) as well as exhibitions on Mathias Poledna, Matthew Buckingham, Harun Farocki, Omer Fast, Runa Islam, Zoe Leonard and others. He has published several books, such as Kamen Stoyanov. At Arm’s Length and Runa Islam. Empty the Pond to Get the Fish. Michalka teaches at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien and at the Vienna Universities art history department.

Related events

• OPEN ARCHIVE #2 - REFLECTIONS ON CONTEMPORARY ART, MEDIA CULTURE AND ARCHIVING

This event is part of MEDIA, MEMORY, HISTORY - CURATORIAL LECTURE SERIES