Venice, 2017

Chiara Bertola has been director of GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin since 2023. Previously, she served as chief curator at Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice from 1999 onward. She was also the artistic director of Hangar Bicocca in Milan from 2009 to 2012. Bertola founded the FURLA Art Prize and curated it until 2015. Together with Michelangelo Pistoletto, she was a founding member of Love Difference – Artistic Movement for an InterMediterranean Politic (1996–98). She curated the Venice Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007), co-curated the 15th edition of the Rome Quadriennale (2008), and was president of Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice (1996–98). She has organized many international exhibitions featuring leading contemporary artists such as: Ilya Kabakov (2003), Remo Salvadori (2005), Kiki Smith (2005), Georges Adeagbo (2008), Mona Hatoum (2009, 2014, 2015), Christian Boltanski (2010), Marisa Merz (2011), Surasi Kusolwong (2011), Carsten Nicolai (2012), Haris Epaminonda (2014), Jimmie Durham (2015), and Giovanni Anselmo/Elisabetta Di Maggio (2017). Group shows curated by Bertola include Terre Vulnerabili (2010–11), a four-part evolving exhibition at Hangar Bicocca, Milan.

DO YOU THINK THAT A CURATOR’S PERSONAL ARCHIVE IS A USEFUL TOOL?

I once heard someone define the archive as a “paper mirror,” because it reflects the working methods, interests, private and public relations- hip networks, and even the feelings and affections of an individual. Furthermore, an archive can certainly tell us something about the curator’s personality, but I do not believe curators themselves should take care of their archives. At least, I have chosen not to. I don’t doubt that there is a logic in everything I have accumulated in my archive over the years, but I cannot really see it clearly… and maybe it is better that way. Personally, I prefer to irrupt into places where my presence is not expected, whereas I get bored if it is.

AND DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH YOUR ARCHIVE?

Not exactly. Following my recent move— which was a very useful selection exercise, I must say—I found among my belongings a dossier with letters from artists and colleagues—particularly, two folders of correspondence with Giuseppe Caccavale and Ilya Kabakov that I still haven’t reread. It seems absurd, but I cannot find the time. Although I know that going back through this folder, I will rediscover ideas that have been set aside and traces of my own thinking, my own practice. It would be very interesting, definitely, but I feel that I still need to be in the present, and have ideas that are contemporary to me, rather than looking back on my past.

WHAT IS THE CHARACTERISTIC OF A PERSONAL ARCHIVE THAT STRIKES YOU THE MOST?

I have realized how archives can be misinterpreted. In fact, only the archive’s author fully knows how to read it; others must interpret the gaps within it; this can sometimes create narratives that are not very fluid. Nevertheless, the intruder’s position is very beneficial for the archi- ve. Transversal readings make it exist or re-exist every time. And it is exactly these unfamiliar, external readings that ensure the possibility to memorize, repeat, reproduce, and reinterpret. Derrida used to say that there is no archive without an “outsider.” The archive must be set in motion to behave again as a storyteller. We can and we should subject personal archives to processes of decomposition and recomposition, discover un- suspected plots and connections. I like the idea that walking into an archive is a bit like taking a tour inside someone’s head. I think of Elisabetta Di Maggio’s latest installation, which we presented in a small closet room at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia Museum in Venice. Contemplating it was really like entering her mind: full of pieces of paper, objects, and drawings gathered together, laid out as notes for her works. The installation was a sort of wunderkammer! Maybe a person’s head is just like a room of wonders, and the archi- ve is the instrument that allows us to take a look inside. Even attics are unexplored archives; my collection of cups is an archive, an installation archive. This has to do with the strong relations- hip I have with objects; I cannot get rid of them.

BY WHICH YOU MEAN?

I am dedicated to accumulating objects; I consider them as the residue of activities, and I like them to be close to me. Things follow me, surround me, constitute the landscapes in which I try to recognize and revive myself. The archive installation is also an extraordinary subject for self-representation. It is a work touched by the accumulation of time and life—a way to escape, sublimate, and survive within reality and against reality. In this sense, I believe that the work of Ilya Kabakov has deeply influenced me. I particularly think of the stories of his Ten Characters. The visual nature of the stories of the inhabitants of ten rooms in a common house demonstrates how, with an accumulation of objects, clippings, words, and sounds, a great deal of richness and beauty can be discovered—a lot of existence, life. But we have to be able to listen to these stories before they turn into trash. From beginning to end, Kabakov’s work is focused to an almost obsessive level on everything that has been neglected, discarded, undervalued. Working with him and studying his work, I understood that he organized his paintings according to principles of the collection and classification of waste. In particular, while we were installing The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away, I realized his work is nothing but a way to preserve memories and question the value of life. Through trash, in fact, multiple memories that relate to everyone’s own existence flow and appear. I am indebted to what Ilya Kabakov has written and imagined by working with scrap and classifying waste, the big trash bin of humanity.

AND YOU, ARE YOU A GOOD CATALOGUER? DO YOU TAKE PLEASURE IN ORGANIZING?

Not really! On the contrary, because of my very illogical and irregular lifestyle, I find it im- possible to maintain order. Documents disappear, move on, so I do not want to impose control on them, hold them back. We keep all those objects to help us remember the events related to them. In general, we are obsessed with keeping a record, understanding the present through our past, producing testimonies of ourselves. Precisely for this reason, it seems unhealthy to me to impose an order and a “self-centered” eye. I prefer to work on something that has yet to come: the work of artists. However, it is the artists themselves who make me ask such questions: where will my work be when I am gone? How will it be transformed? Who will read it? And how will it be interpreted?

ARE THERE OTHER WAYS OF CREATING AN ARCHIVE?

It seems to me that putting a book together is like making an archive. This is what I want to do now: break up a story and interrogate people, look for answers outside of myself.