Exhibition Archive was a 12-hour durational performance/performative installation that showcases the archival process as a performative act of power through the construction of a temporal archive of a gallery event of multiple performances.
The work takes a performative approach towards archival practice and documents the events at Galleri Christoffer Egelund in Copenhagen from 12pm to 12am on February 7th, 2020. The space hosted a number of other performances and Exhibition Archive collected artifacts and photographs of the other performances and gallery happenings in real time, eventually archiving contributions from visitors.
The work explored what happened when pieces of other works were archived within another artistic work, how the curation and display of objects constructed new categories and brought forward new constellations of meaning, the act of archiving as an authoritative formalizing activity, and contested the authority of both gallery and archival practices with the construction of an alternative temporal archive that accumulated and existed for the duration of the event.
The work explored what happened when pieces of other works were archived within another artistic work, how the curation and display of objects constructed new categories and brought forward new constellations of meaning, the act of archiving as an authoritative formalizing activity, and contested the authority of both gallery and archival practices with the construction of an alternative temporal archive that accumulated and existed for the duration of the event.
(above photo is performace documentation by Jens Astrup)
