The Skulptur Projekte Münster Archive. A research institution for scholarship and the public

Basic data for this project

Description

Initiated by Klaus Bussmann and Kasper König, the Skulptur Projekte Münster have been taking place every ten years since 1977. The exhibition represents a unique concept whose continuity allows it to perceive and accommodate the developments, shifts and reassessments of sculpture in the public space to a degree unmatched by any other sculpture show. The archive that has accumulated over the past forty years in conjunction with the exhibition organization has yet to undergo scholarly processing. It forms a substantial part of the more recent collection of the present-day LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, and decisively shapes the character and identity of that collection. In addition to artistic and historically relevant documents, the archive also contains files on legal proceedings and administrative processes. The latter form the foundation for the scholarly research and evaluation of the exhibition history, the creation and reception of the artworks, but also curatorial and institutional decisions. Common research interests, the need for communication to the public and the spatial proximity of the museum and the Institut für Kunstgeschichte of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität guarantee ideal conditions for successful cooperation. Both institutions aspire to the professional analysis of the archive. This core research interest comprises two task areas that are interrelated in terms of both content and form. The first is the systematic processing of the exhibition residua and the ongoing maintenance of the archive by an archivist and a scholarly assistant at the museum. Secondly, this process is now, for the first time, giving rise to two dissertations. Whereas the focus of the first doctoral project is the investigation of the archive as a multiple source of artistic strategies, the second dissertation is analysing the dislocation and temporalization of site-specific practise. In both cases, the archive holdings form the nucleus of the scholarly research and point of departure for the further investigation of the material and the methodological approach. The results will in turn be integrated in the archive. Production-aesthetic and reception-aesthetic approaches embedded in a discourse-analytical context form the methodological mainstays. The work on the archive will be networked through cooperation with specialist partners. By way of innovative formats, the archive materials will be presented to the public on an ongoing basis in exhibitions, lectures and publications, both in Münster and - in collaboration with other institutions - elsewhere. The aim of the prospective project is to establish a publicly accessible research centre for the Skulptur Projekte at the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur.