Milan, 2016

LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR ARCHIVE.

I only started a real archive very recently, perhaps a couple of years ago. Before that, the documentation of my research was much more casual. Later, the more the projects grew in size and multiplied, the more necessary it became to archive them. My personal archive is made up of my library and my computer. It was hard to bring my library to Minneapolis, so I had to leave it in Milan. Nevertheless, I scan all the things that I know I will need for the next months, and I store them on the computer. The latter is organized by “artist.”

The approaches that have distinguished me as a curator are the attention I give to the exhi- bition and institutional formats, as well as the close contact I have when I work with artists. I’m not a big supporter of thematic exhibitions. For example, Ennesima, which I curated in 2015 at the Triennale di Milano, is a show that tries to avoid in every possible way the traditional idea of a group exhibition. I think that few group shows succeed, and I’m convinced that even fewer are really necessary. That is why I have preferred to focus on individual shows that can support and promote the artist’s work. As a result, my archive consists of “nominative” folders that combine all the documents that I find about the artists that interest me. In general, I catalog everything that I can use immediately, though not in a systematic way. My archive comes from a spontaneous and temporary need, so there are no traces of my research as a whole, only of some fragments that have helped me develop it. The entire foundation of my theoretical research, which comes together only to a minor extent in my exhibitions and that I cultivate mostly for personal reasons, is not col- lected in this archive. So far I’ve been involved in the fieldwork and the immediacy of the project, so I’ve had little time to dedicate to research. Just like my work, my archive develops directly from work with the artists.

THE ARTISTS IN YOUR ARCHIVE ARE EXCLUSIVELY THOSE THAT YOU HAVE WORKED WITH?

No, there are lots of files for artists I have not yet collaborated with, but whom I would love to. For example, Jimmie Durham participated in Peep-Hole sheet #10 by donating paper copies sent through his old fax machine, and I have obviously collected all this material in his folder. Just by chance, as soon as I got to the Walker Art Center, I was asked to organize a show on Jimmie Durham (Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World), which started at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles before moving to the Walker in the second half of 2017, and after that to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Canada. For this project, I inherited an archive of information that had already been put together by the institution that hosted the first show, the Hammer, although I could also consult the “Durham” file in my own archive. It was a personal retrospective, so the documents available are particularly useful.

Without a doubt. A curator’s archive is connected to the kind of work we do, to the appro- ach and methodology that we develop. From my master’s class at CCS Bard in New York onwards, I have always kept track of my activities. I consult the bibliography and lecture notes that I studied back then frequently. For instance, Peep-Hole ori- ginated from a course on alternative spaces—obviously adapted to the Italian context, which was quite different from that in New York in the 1970s.

THEREFORE, YOUR ARCHIVE HELPS YOU WITH RESEARCH MOSTLY.

Yes, but I must say that when I work with young artists, the archive comes from my own work, whereas if it’s about established artists, it has already been developed. In the first case, the archive is a trace; in the second one, a working instrument. Peep-Hole continues to follow up the evolution of the artists it has chosen to present, trying to use the archive not only as a documentation center for possible researchers, but also as a support tool for artists. In fact, not having the economic resources to write books about them, we like the idea of following and documenting their career. Asking them to send us material about their work and the exhibitions that include them is a way to guarantee the continuous updating of their personal oeuvre, and indeed to preserve our own history as well.

DOES THE DOCUMENTATION OF EXHIBITIONS AND ACTIVITIES PRODUCED BY PEEP-HOLE REMAIN WITH THE ORGANIZATION, OR IS IT PART OF YOUR PERSONAL ARCHIVE?

It’s hard to separate the two archives. Ideally everything is part of one communicating archive. But it is important that, institutionally, exhibition archives stay in Peep-Hole, because Peep-Hole’s history is collective, not just mine. I can make copies if it’s necessary.

THIS OVERLAPPING COMES FROM THE FACT THAT PEEP-HOLE IS AN INSTITUTION THAT YOU CO-FOUNDED AND CO-DIRECT. AT THE WALKER ART CENTER, YOU HAVE TO HAND OVER ALL THE DOCUMENTATION THAT HAS BEEN PRODUCED. FROM THE EXCHANGE OF EMAILS WITH THE ARTISTS TO THE MOST ADMINISTRATIVE PART, EVERYTHING WILL BECOME PART OF THE INSTITUTION’S ARCHIVE.

That’s how it works in American institutions: when you go, you have to leave everything you have produced. But it’s clear that you can keep your own archive regardless. I’m quite adamant about this is- sue: whatever belongs to MiArt is MiArt’s; whatever belongs to Peep-Hole is Peep-Hole’s; and whatever is mine is mine. What I produced at the Triennale as a guest curator is “my story”; that’s why the archive is with my documents. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the Triennale is filed as “their story.” A personal archive consists of documents that are different from those that make up an institutional archive. Although they are based on the same story, they tell different things precisely because they are based on different choices and needs. For example, starting from the first interactions with the artists up until the point at which the show goes to the administrative phase, into the hands of other pe- ople in the team, I send emails from my personal address, not from Peep-Hole’s. If you looked for the preparatory phase in the institutional archive, you wouldn’t find that part there, and vice versa; you wouldn’t find the next phase in my personal mailbox. Obviously, at the Walker Art Center I work with the official email address so that everything can be kept in the institution.

THIS MEANS YOU WILL HAVE TO CAREFULLY CHOOSE WHAT MATERIAL FROM THIS NEW DOCUMENTATION YOU WANT TO KEEP IN YOUR PERSONAL ARCHIVE.

Yes, but I have to say I have always done that. Particularly, I have always collected everything related to criticism and press, because I see it as a way to make up for the fact that I have never ca- red much for catalogs. From MiArt I only kept the press material; I don’t have other documentation.

AT AN INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL, HOW DO YOU IMAGINE ARCHIVES WILL BE PRESERVED IN THE FUTURE, AND FOR WHOM?

I believe that one of the fundamental missi- ons of an institution is to archive history, in both senses of the word archive: to make it available through an archive, but also to go beyond. The fact that one of the seven formats shown at Ennesima was the archive proves how much I care about creating documentation, a testimony, a way of writing history.

From the point of view of the exhibition, there are as many ways to share an archive. It all depends on what kind you want to talk abo- ut. Showing an artist’s archive without the work is not a good solution. For a museum, however, it is normal that an archive consists mostly of documentation.

CAN AN INSTITUTION’S ARCHIVE BE CONSIDERED A COLLECTION?

Certainly, why not. If I were the director of a big museum, I would like to bring together a series of archives alongside the collection. I speak mainly of the artist’s archive, that of the collection, and that of the institution. Of course, the artist’s archive and that of the exhibition must be treated in a completely different way. All these archives together tell the story of what I imagine to be the museum of the future.

IN YOUR OPINION, COULD A CURATOR’S ARCHIVE THAT HAS NO APPARENT CONNECTION TO THE INSTITUTION IN QUESTION NEVERTHELESS BE PART OF IT?

Yes, absolutely. Curating has to become a subject of study by institutions. We have to be careful not to mythicize the curator, because it seems to me that this has happened too much. I don’t think everything has to be preserved, but it should all be remembered. Of course, every institution should be responsible for maintaining and giving access to the archives of curators that, in one way or another, have contributed to the evolution of the institution itself. There should be an archive on the history of exhibitions that all the museums in the world could share virtually. The archive of an institution’s exhibitions tells us a lot about a society during the time when they were conceived and produced, and often holds information that can change the perception of history. Such an archive should not only be preserved, but also exhibited.

AND THAT’S ALWAYS TRICKY. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST SATISFYING WAY OF PRESENTING THE ARCHIVE?

Through publications and the internet. They are the best media available at the moment to distribute the documentation produced in an exhibition.

However, I’m quite skeptical about the reactivation of a show. When I recreated AVANBLOB, within the exhibition of the Via Lazzaro Palazzi Group’s archive in Ennesima, it was because the show could be considered not only as a turning point for the group, but also, and above all, a work of art. Additionally, it appeared to me as an example of the way in which they had to work together as a group. Therefore, it was important that this mythical exhibition was integrated with the other shows, together with a timeline of the events and developments of the group. The archive of the Via Lazzaro Palazzi Group didn’t exist before it was shown at Ennesima. I also wanted to have documents and analog material on display, and not just digital, because printed matter was characteristic of their generation; it’s impossible to organize a show about the 1970s that is completely digital. The analog part must be digitized, but above all, preserved and exhibited if possible. The original is what defines an archive. The book and the PDF are not the same thing. Perhaps everybody should have access to the PDF, to guarantee the appropriate dissemination of knowledge, and fewer catalogs should be printed, so that the status of the book as an object is somehow respected for its own rarity. Precisely because there is a digital format for research, printed matter should be more appreciated. The catalog is, without a doubt, the best way to document an exhibition, but if we make too many copies, they are easily wasted. Institutions should only produce catalogs for the shows that require them and when it makes sense. When curators put up an exhibition, they know in their hearts if it will be relevant or not. When I conceived Ennesima, I reflected on an editorial project precisely because I thought it could be an influential show capable of bringing forth crucial questions. If I organized a group show based on the Walker Art Center’s collection, though, a catalog would not be necessary, because it would only be one exhibition among many others about the same collection. In this case, it would be more appropriate to make a good and efficient website that can reach out to all the people that do not have the opportunity to go to Minneapolis. We should reevaluate the digital resources of institutions; for example, the digital function of exhibitions and collections. Correct use of virtual technology doesn’t replace the physical experience of visiting the show, but can help propagate the knowledge provided by that exhibition.

THE TWO EXPERIENCES, REAL AND VIRTUAL, SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED BECAUSE THEY ARE PROFOUNDLY DIFFERENT.

And it’s the institution’s responsibility to keep this from happening through an adequate use of digital tools. Furthermore, the catalog doesn’t really replace experiencing the exhibition; nevertheless, we invest a lot more in catalogs, which are sometimes useless, than in a comprehensive website. I believe that catalogs are documentation tools, and therefore archiving instruments that are very valuable. An archive preserves and gives meaning to the past, using the current media and taking into account the present context.