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Archives have become an increasingly common practice in the art world since the 1960s. On the one hand, there are archives founded by artists or collectors; on the other, a more recent development, there are those founded by curators, who sought to make their collections of materials accessible and make their selection criteria public. That desire may have arisen from the dissolution of the notion of the self-contained artwork, which has been eclipsed by a contingent art object that makes a new form of cultural memory necessary and always contains a note of protest and a critique of museum practices. At the same time, archives that collect material and make it publicly available are always concerned with a kind of self-enabling, to ensure that they are themselves inscribed in the cultural memory and can be heard in the “murmur of discourse,” as Michel Foucault calls it.
In order to be consistent with the kind of critical material that the participating curators have made available, the Curating Degree Zero Archive tries to preserve an open character in its a narrative structure. The arrangement is not immutable; rather, it travels from institution to institution and in collaboration with these hosts, constantly changes and expands the selection of positions represented.
The fundamental idea behind the archive is to enlighten: to bring together information that is difficult to find and then make it accessible. The website serves as a navigational structure available to the users of the archive as a basis for scholarly and practical research both for the participating curators and for other members of the “operating system” of the art world. The archive is not intended to establish a self-contained narrative but rather to present a range of divergent positions in order to provide a framework for, and shed light on the contexts of the work of individual curators who wish to be critical and political. With that in mind, the contradictions that become evident in an overview of divergent practices seem fruitful to us. We want to allow these contradictions, fissures, and rifts to stand, and to use the questions that arise from them as an opportunity to gain knowledge.
The concept of critical curating is inherently not a unified one. It is subject to constant historical change, just as the discursive formation of the visual arts is subject to constant transformation. In this context the making of exhibitions should be understood as a practice that produces, influences, and alters the object of which it speaks.
On the one hand, we take critical curatorial practice—as it relates to the Curating Degree Zero Archive—to mean an orientation around content that addresses political themes such as feminism, urbanism, postcolonialism, the critique of capitalism, and the mechanisms of social exclusion. On the other hand, we are interested in finding ways to go beyond the structure of the “white cube” and classical exhibition formats. This can take the form of interventionist practices, questioning the art world’s “operating system,” or new ways to impart knowledge processes.
The archive is intended as neither a survey nor a canon, it is an ongoing
research and event project foregrounding a variety of practices and positions.
Both the selection of material and this web-site are expanding as the exhibition
tours Europe and the growth of the archive is based on the logic of networks,
friendships and circles of shared interest. We choose to reinterpret the Archive at every venue on the tour making the exhibition itself a visual manifestation of various discourses around display and mediation of content. The presentations have ranged from funky displays to sculptural presentations and discussions, and these pose the central question: how is it possible to make material accessible and encourage curiosity, to create a debate and to call into question the traditional positions and normalizing effects of the power of display?
This web-site is an interface both
for exhibition visitors and people accessing the project via the Internet.
For those in the exhibition itself it acts as an indexing tool for defining
which materials are of interest and it also extends the real space into
the virtual, linking to the web sites of the participating curators. For
those accessing it remotely it offers an overview of the project, a bibliography
and numerous links to a selection of material on critical curatorial practice.
As the tour develops the site grows in its potential as a rich research
tool for an international network of curators, art practitioners, students
and others with an interest in issues of display and mediation.
We are actively looking for suitable further touring venues with whom to
develop and display the archive. The archive is suited to spaces and institutions
that have an interest in critical practice or run a curatorial program,
it is multi-lingual and can be curated into large and small spaces as an
exhibition in itself or as part of a larger exhibition.
We’d like to thank all the participants who have agreed to their practices
being presented in the archive and generously provided us with material,
and those the national funding bodies, foundations and sponsors who have
supported its development (see Tour).