Living Archive* Exhibition

From August 6th until November 6th 2010, Východoslovenská galleria in Košice presents the exhibition ‘Andy Warhol a Júlia’.

As indicated in printed promotional material, works of art are loaned from The Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh, USA), Slovenská národná galéria (Bratislava, SK) and Múzeum moderného umenia Andyho Warhola (Medzilaborce, SK). Once entered the exhibition space, you noticed that thirty percent of the artworks are missing. They are substituted by grey panels of acrylic glas – and present only through a number on the floor and the associated label text. What happened to these missing and what do the authors of the exhibition want to say by underlining the absent pictures so explicitly? Without searching for an answer, I enjoyed the idea of looking behind the curtain of curatorial work – a thing not often possible.

*In reference to the exhibition series ‘Living Archive’, 2005-2009 at the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, NL). The concept was to open the museum’s archive and connect it with ideas of the external world. Exhibitions gave an insight on their own background and emergence, the museum’s strategy and the field of action of artists and museum directors.

Eva Scheller