ART-PRESENTATION:Stay Safe-Stories from the Archives
The word “archive,” from the Latin archivum or archium, traces back to the Greek word arkheion, which referred both to the physical space where archival documents were stored as well as to the archons, or citizens, deputized to manage it. It is both the primary source, the literal remnants of what existed from a time and place, as well as the physical location where such documents are kept.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Ilaria Bignotti’s Archive
The rise of performance art in the 20th Century meant that artists became heavily reliant on documentation as a record of their work. A similar problem arose in relation to the Land art movement of the 1960s whose interventions in the landscape were often eradicated by the elements. Conceptual art often consisted of documentation. In practice the documentation (photograph, video, map, text) was rapidly adapted to have the status of artwork. In Ilya Kabakov’s “The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away” (1996), the main character has a room filled with a lifetime’s garbage, bearing witness to ultimately pointless efforts to classify and record all the links between the items. Using visual material, words and thoughts in general, the project “Stay Safe-Stories from the Archives”, based on an idea developed by Ilaria Bignotti in collaboration with the Archivio Antonio Scaccabarozzi, Milan consists of short stories about artists’ archives recounted directly by their curators, heirs and artists: these will be published at weekly intervals so as to help the art community and the public at large to find words, images, documents and food for thought on the value of time and memory in this period of waiting and reflection that is indisputably changing the way we relate to our fellow human beings and their lives.
As Ilaria Bignotti says “While we are well aware that the worldwide health emergency is currently our priority from both the ethical and physical points of view, I want to be able to continue believing that art serves to educate and support the community and, in these difficult times, rather than a way to occupy one’s leisure time, it is an opportunity for reflection and liberation, conveying the concept of courage not only for specialists, but also for people of all ages and levels of knowledge”.
Ilaria Bignotti wish, to ask curators of archives, the heirs of the artists who founded them, the galleries representing them to kindly send us:
- the name of the archive, its location and its team;
- the name of the artist it represents, together with a short biography;
- one reproduction of materials and documents representative of the archive;
- a brief text, written by the curator, heir or the artist the archive relates to, explaining how this archive can today offer solace and inspiration to the world of art and the public at large, summarizing the ideas of the artist to whom it is devoted (max. 2,000 characters).
You can contact her at ilariabignotti79@gmail.com
