Ever Archive
By Joseph Grigely
Ever Archive: The Publications
and Publication Projects of Hans Ulrich Obrist is an exhibition devoted
to the Chicago-based publication archive of the curator Hans
Ulrich Obrist, who is Artistic Director at Serpentine Galleries in London.
Since 1991, when he organised his first show — The Kitchen Show — in his
apartment in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Obrist has curated over 400 exhibitions
and interviewed over 1,000 individuals: artists, scientists, filmmakers,
historians. This prolific activity has resulted in an archive of thousands of
publications and documents, including essays, books, transcripts, exhibition
ephemera and exhibitions presented as publications, as well as drawings, photos
and video documentation.
The
overarching theme of the exhibition involves exploring how the documents in an
archive constitute nodes within a network of human relations. An archive in
this respect is not merely a collection of documents or an enumeration of their
publication history, but a diverse array of information that underscores the
people, the ideas, and the cultural projects that contributed to their
materialization. Archives are essentially latent knowledge; they provide, for
each succeeding generation, answers to questions that have not yet been asked. Ever
Archive evolved as a way of showing how the materials of the archive
reflect upon Obrist’s curatorial practice of creating links between people,
disciplines, venues, and continents — a sustained practice of cultural
hyphenation.
With Obrist’s cooperation,
Joseph Grigely has been compiling the archive since 1997, treating it as both
art and as scholarship. As part of his teaching practice at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago, Grigely has organised project-based classes to
address specific aspects of the archive. Over fifty students have participated
in developing the archive over the past seven years. They have contributed to
compiling a style guide for the bibliography; indexing documents in a
bibliographical database; producing publications, including a Visitor’s Guide
to the Hans Ulrich Obrist Archive; and they have also produced over 15 vitrine
exhibitions based on material in the archive.
In Ways of Curating (2014), Obrist wrote: “Exhibitions should develop a life of their own.” Ever
Archive is an exhibition that does exactly this: it takes place over a
period of eight months, with new material added to the exhibition each month,
as a series of unfolding chapters.
The exhibition also includes a history of the
archive itself — essentially, an archive of the archive — documenting the ways it
has changed over time in relation to the context of technological resources and
human knowledge.
Ever Archive: The Publications and Publication
Projects of Hans Ulrich Obrist is a project of the Serralves Foundation —
Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, organized by Philippe Vergne, Director,
and Sónia Oliveira, Librarian.
It
was conceived and curated by the artist Joseph Grigely, with the support of
Rachel Wang and Tess Davey, Obrist’s assistant Max Shackleton, and other
members of the Hans Ulrich Obrist Publication Archive team.
On going
Past
Ever Archive: The Publications
and Publication Projects of Hans Ulrich Obrist is an exhibition devoted
to the Chicago-based publication archive of the curator Hans
Ulrich Obrist, who is Artistic Director at Serpentine Galleries in London.
Since 1991, when he organised his first show — The Kitchen Show — in his
apartment in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Obrist has curated over 400 exhibitions
and interviewed over 1,000 individuals: artists, scientists, filmmakers,
historians. This prolific activity has resulted in an archive of thousands of
publications and documents, including essays, books, transcripts, exhibition
ephemera and exhibitions presented as publications, as well as drawings, photos
and video documentation.
The
overarching theme of the exhibition involves exploring how the documents in an
archive constitute nodes within a network of human relations. An archive in
this respect is not merely a collection of documents or an enumeration of their
publication history, but a diverse array of information that underscores the
people, the ideas, and the cultural projects that contributed to their
materialization. Archives are essentially latent knowledge; they provide, for
each succeeding generation, answers to questions that have not yet been asked. Ever
Archive evolved as a way of showing how the materials of the archive
reflect upon Obrist’s curatorial practice of creating links between people,
disciplines, venues, and continents — a sustained practice of cultural
hyphenation.
With Obrist’s cooperation,
Joseph Grigely has been compiling the archive since 1997, treating it as both
art and as scholarship. As part of his teaching practice at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago, Grigely has organised project-based classes to
address specific aspects of the archive. Over fifty students have participated
in developing the archive over the past seven years. They have contributed to
compiling a style guide for the bibliography; indexing documents in a
bibliographical database; producing publications, including a Visitor’s Guide
to the Hans Ulrich Obrist Archive; and they have also produced over 15 vitrine
exhibitions based on material in the archive.
In Ways of Curating (2014), Obrist wrote: “Exhibitions should develop a life of their own.” Ever
Archive is an exhibition that does exactly this: it takes place over a
period of eight months, with new material added to the exhibition each month,
as a series of unfolding chapters.
The exhibition also includes a history of the
archive itself — essentially, an archive of the archive — documenting the ways it
has changed over time in relation to the context of technological resources and
human knowledge.
Ever Archive: The Publications and Publication
Projects of Hans Ulrich Obrist is a project of the Serralves Foundation —
Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, organized by Philippe Vergne, Director,
and Sónia Oliveira, Librarian.
It
was conceived and curated by the artist Joseph Grigely, with the support of
Rachel Wang and Tess Davey, Obrist’s assistant Max Shackleton, and other
members of the Hans Ulrich Obrist Publication Archive team.