The Archive
Take it! make it ! activate it!
VBKÖ-Archive, which has been constructed by women artists themselves, like the VBKÖ itself has lived through and changed with history from the latter days of imperialism, to the fall of the Habsburg Empire and WWI, Austro-Fascism, the Nazi Era, but also through the progressive movements in the arts in Austria all the way to the current expansion of the European Union and the austerity cuts in public funding.
The take it! make it! activate it! VBKÖ-Archiv contains significant material components, antiquated files and collections from 1910, the time of the foundation of the VBKÖ to 2005 and enables, for example, an overview of the history of the VBKÖ through the nearly-complete exhibition catalogs available.
Archival objects, as 632 files, prints and work contents (a 22 meters work collection), are available for observation. The conditions of use and provisions of reproduction can be viewed on location. The itemization process is currently over, although additions are expected, which place an updated reissue of the inventory on view.
Usage:
The inventory list of the archive (compiled by Sabine Harik, PhD) was released in 2006, expanded by the Findbuch zur Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs (Ed.: VBKÖ, Rudolfine Lackner) as well as the download, for the purpose of independent preparatory research. The archive is accessible following previous arrangement: archiv@vbkoe.org
ARCHIVE | HISTORY | PROJECTS
Critical engagement with the history/histories and the archive of the Association of Women Artists of Austria.
While the feminist beginnings of the association represent an impressive and important point of reference, even from a contemporary perspective, the association’s history/histories are ambivalent. Due to the VBKÖ’s collaboration with the National Socialist regime, and the subsequent unreflective continuation of the association, an intensive engagement with its history and archive only became established after a change in leadership.
To date, there are 26 artistic and scholarly projects that deal since 2004 with the archive, the Nazi past and with post-colonial and racist practices in a critical way.
VBKÖ History: In 1938, the association decided to collaborate with the National Socialist regime, and after 1945 there was, for several decades, no clear break with the everyday routines and personnel structures that had been in place during the Nazi period.
The association’s thematic orientation only began to change noticeably toward the end of the 1990s, when a clear generational shift occurred within the VBKÖ board. Along with this shift in direction, the association founded its archive in 2004 and began to engage with the contemporary feminist art context in Vienna. The history of confronting VBKÖ’s past and working with the archive continued to develop. In 2012, various projects attempted to examine the archive’s historical narratives. The acts of revision, reinterpretation, reconceptualization, refiguration, repositioning, and rearticulation of these narratives aim to enable a different vision of the past, present, and future—to produce and analyze “constructed artifacts” that have left their mark.