One of Each: The Archive of Contemporary History

What context is required for an object to become historically “relevant”? Can mundane objects – supposedly devoid of cultural weight – be recontextualized and reinvested with memorial significance? These are questions which the artist Karsten Bott (b.1960, Frankfurt [Main]) has been dealing with since he began building his Archive of Contemporary History (Archiv für Gegenwartsgeschichte) in 1988. The archive, which contains almost half a million items, is Bott’s attempt of creating an extensive inventory of the every-day life. From bottle caps to bathroom sinks and hula hoops to pumice stones, his categorised archive is an ever-growing work of contemporary archaeology, raising questions about when present becomes past and what it really means to curate. Selections from Bott’s collection have been displayed in the US, the UK, Germany and Austria, most recently at the Norwich Castle Museum and the Städtische Galerie Wolfsburg.

Eine Zusammenarbeit des Programms Master of Fine Arts der Bauhaus-Universität Weimar mit dem ACC. Vortrag in englischer Sprache.  Eintritt frei!