This is a long overdue collection of essays that examines archives and the phenomenon of self-archivization by artists in east central Europe. While self-archivization is not unique to the region, there are aspects to it that are unique to this context. As it is widely known, much of the contemporary, experimental art that developed in the region did so independent of major institutions. There was no real art market to speak of, so any independent gallery that existed was usually set up by the artists themselves—for example, Ewa Partum's Galeria Adres, established in 1972 in Łódź, Poland, which is discussed in this volume. The publication takes the 2020 conference “Artpool 40—Active Archives and Art Network” at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest as its point of departure. Artpool is also an archive that was set up by artists. Founded in 1979 in Budapest, its purpose was to preserve the avant-garde activity taking place in the country at the time, which was not recognized by the state. This text examines a range of examples of other “active archives” and artist archives across the region.
What Will Be Already Exists features a range of texts from scholars across the globe, creating comparative studies between archival practices in east central Europe and the rest of the world, between artists in the region, or honing the focus on one particular case study. These texts provide a much needed overview of the various ways in which artists in east central Europe have created or engaged with their own archives, how they have self-historicized, and self-archivized. This analysis is a much needed addition to the discussions on institutional critique insofar as many of these artists craved the institution in one way or another, and this is evident in the fact that they sought to preserve and maintain records of their work for some imagined future. As Zsuzsa László noted in the introduction, many of these artists were “fighting not against but for socialist modernization” (18).
The texts in the volume demonstrate how many of the artists in east central Europe active in self-archivization saw the archive much like Artpool, taking a dynamic approach to history “as an open artwork and as an activist art practice” (11). In the introduction, László notes how Artpool's mission was “not only to preserve collected documents but also to feed them back into projects that circulate information internationally and provoke yet-to-be-realized ideas” (11). It is perhaps the necessity of preserving their work that drove them, but the uncertainty about the ultimate destiny of the archives created a situation that supported the creativity to create more than an archive; rather, a self-reflexive practice that includes the process of documenting, preserving, and later using those art works. This was certainly the case with Polish artists KwieKulik, who were discussed in Tomasz Zaɫuski's chapter “The Alternative Official?” KwieKulik not only thought consciously about the archival preservation of their work, but also the documentation of their performance art practice, which they referred to as działanie, or activities.
While it is clear that the artists from east central Europe discussed in this work were not operating within the context of an art market in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, in the 1990s, many of them became exposed to international markets, and what had once been a folder full of A4 sheets suddenly came to have monetary value attached to it. It would have been useful to hear more about the impact of that collision between artist and artwork with the market, and how that changed—or did not change—their perception of the documentation, or the purpose of the archive.
It was also refreshing to read Lina Džuverović's feminist re-reading of the Yugoslav collective group OHO. It will not surprise the reader to learn that despite the context of lived socialism, women in east central Europe experienced as much subjugation to the patriarchy as women elsewhere. It may, however, surprise the reader to learn that these patriarchal structures were repeated in dissident, alternative, and avant-garde art groups. Despite their progressive agendas, they were blind to their own misogyny. This revisiting of OHO is a long overdue one, and it will be great to see such re-evaluations further, as there are many art groups and collectives for whom we are in need of such a reading.
It was disappointing, then, to see that aspect missing from many of the essays, because there is much work to do with an archive that is administrative, tedious, and requiring great care—the type of work that is often left for women to do. It would have been great to hear about the wives of the male artists who managed their partners’ archives, during their lives or after their death (for example, Marilena Koželj, Raša Todosijević, Branka Stipančić, and Mladen Stilinović, respectively). And it would have been instructive to hear about the division of labor with KweiKulik, and how much of the “manual” labor fell to Zofia Kulik as opposed to Przemysław Kwiek, as the artist herself described the events they hosted in their Warsaw apartment as very labor intensive.
That said, this is one of the first publications to address this very specific issue of the self-archivization of the artists’ work and life in east central Europe. As such, it is not only long overdue but also makes a welcome contribution to the field and will be a valuable resources for years to come.
