‘Black Ballpoint Pen on Artcard’

Emilie Banville, PhD Candidate & Architect (OAQ), Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) & University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM)

Unpacking the archive

“An unused archive is not an archive. An archive is only an archive when it is entered, or, more precisely, when things come out.”[i] Architectural historian Mark Wigley here describes what has recently been referred to as ‘productive archives’: the idea that archives become meaningful only when activated into dynamic entities, enabling new networks and relationships.[ii] Productive archives can unveil the hidden, convey the unknown; they do not state the obvious nor reproduce the canon. They generate new knowledge out of past understandings, convert old meanings into novel interpretations. More than passive archives rendered active or, as discussed by theorists Beatrice von Bismarck and Benjamin Meyer-Krahmer, ‘objects transformed into things’, the notion of productive archive implies a transition from a regime of representation or re-production, to one of inception, conception or production.[iii]

But making archives productive is about more than simply unpacking material which has never left the crates before. Archives potentially become productive when looked at curatorially rather than systematically.[iv] Archives are objects, productive archives are things, curatorial things, potentially. The curator curates not things, but objects; his duty is to produce some-thing in excess of those objects. Thereby, curatorial things are ‘things that have been made manifest through curatorial practice’.[v]

Unpacking the box

‘Hello, this is me

I look for grey areas

I seek content in display

And I keep revisiting archives.’[vi]

In The Museum is Not Enough, a manifesto-like booklet published by Sternberg Press at the end of 2019, the Canadian Centre for Architecture introduces itself along nine lines of thought written in the first-person singular. “With an archive, I don’t cherry-pick. I take everything that comes in”.[vii] The fourth self-reflective segment thereby begins with the institution acknowledging its own modus operandi when it comes to expanding the scope and size of its collection. Aside from conventional items such as drawings and models, archival holdings at the CCA comprise notebooks, photos, correspondence, receipts, mementos, etc.

In 2003, former director Mirko Zardini (2004-2019), then Senior Consulting Curator, envisioned an experimental format for exploring newly acquired, not yet processed archival material entering the vaults of the institution. Submitting an archive to critical eyes from outside the institution and various disciplinary backgrounds was a keystone of such a curatorial attempt at broadening the edges and purpose of the collection.

‘Out of the Box: Price Rossi Stirling + Matta-Clark’, presented in the main galleries from October 2003 to September 2004, was conceived as an open-ended exhibition aimed to ‘unsettle and to open up given explanations to new speculation’.[viii] Showcased exhibits could be retrieved or added as the ongoing research progressed. Thus, beyond the etiquette of display, the gallery would operate as a laboratory or a reading room. 

Through serendipitous endeavours, ‘Out of the Box’ is meant to open up new paths of inquiry and to question the critical scope of archival and curatorial practices. Methodologically, it challenges the very definition of an architectural archive, which is ‘determined not so much by the objects inside it but by what it means to enter that space and to bring an object out’.[ix]

Unpacking the mind

Figure 1 Books on alchemy, gravity, inner spaces and networks selected by curator Yann Chateigné from Gordon Matta-Clark’s library, 2019. Photograph © CCA.

‘I wanted to start there.’[x] Gordon Matta-Clark’s personal library instantly appealed to curator Yann Chateigné when he delved into the various structural series and sub-series of the CP138 collection, donated to the CCA in 2011 (see figure 1).[xi] His curatorial intervention, titled ‘Material Thinking’ (see figure 2), was part of the 2019-2020 ‘Out of the Box’ series, which was structured as a study in three acts, each of them being led by a different guest curator and devoted to distinct aspects of the American artist and trained architect (1943-1978).

Figure 2 Exhibition view of ‘Material Thinking. Out of the Box: Gordon Matta-Clark selected by Yann Chateigné’ at the CCA, June 7-September 8, 2019. Photograph © CCA

The books gathered under the label CP138.S7 were Chateigné’s gateway into the Matta-Clark’s creative universe, deeply stored underground within binders and boxes. Inside the ‘CP138.S7 box’, one could find 71 objects: 67 books, 2 catalogues, 2 magazines. Outside the box, 47 selected objects became things, more specifically curatorial things. For example, Paradise Lost by John Milton, published in 1962 by The Odyssey Press in New York, is a book – an object. Here, it is also a thing labelled PH2008:0020 within the CP138 collection held by the CCA. The same book, as exhibit no.76 in ‘Material Thinking’, is a curatorial thing (see figure 3). Objects precede things. Objects are inert, self-referential, passive. Things are manifest, relational, active.[xii]

Figure 3 PH2008:0020. Paradise Lost, John Milton, 1962, New York: The Odyssey Press. Heavily annotated book by the artist, 20.2 × 14.5 × 2 cm (7 15/16 × 5 11/16 × 13/16 in.) © Odyssey Press © Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark, on deposit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal.

Within ‘Material Thinking’, books became curatorial things. Indeed, unlike the much-expected output of an architecture exhibition which would feature the documentation of finished works, here the displayed content did not directly pertain to the architect’s hand. Still, once brought together, the books held a singular potential for producing knowledge about the CP138 collection which yet had to be written. Encompassing topics as diverse as alchemy, architecture history, cybernetics, physics, psychology and philosophy, together they suggested a network of shared meanings and references which revealed the conceptual processes behind Matta-Clark’s works; the materials of his thinking. Further hidden behind his words, conceptual threads informing the genesis of his work also arise within the remains of his extensive writing practice. Thematic groupings and dynamic relationships established between the library and incidental discoveries related to other series such as textual records (CP138.S1) further uncover the consistency and continuity of cognitive processes that result in creation. For example, beyond its existence as an object, a partly crossed out poetic note written with a black ballpoint pen on an artcard is a thing when identified as PHCON2002:0016:001:027.6 within the CP138 collection, and a curatorial thing when identified as exhibit no.62 within ‘Material Thinking’ (see figures 4.1 and 4.2).

Figure 4.1 PHCON2002:0016:001:027.6. [The Space] The air [Falls] behind you as you move -. Card 7,6 × 12,7 cm (3 × 5 in.) © Estate of Gordon Matta-Clark, on deposit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal.

Figure 4.2. Enlarged photo of PHCON2002:0016:001:027.6 with caption on wall. Exhibition ‘Material Thinking. Out of the Box: Gordon Matta-Clark selected by Yann Chateigné’ at the CCA, June 7-September 8, 2019. Exhibition photo by Emilie Banville.

Nonetheless, beyond theoretical and ontological matters, is the curatorial productivity of the archive a fair counterpart to the ‘thingness of the object’?[xiii] If the former has to do with epistemological work, and the latter implies the emergence of a subject in relation to the object, or in excess of it, then the role of the curator should be to turn the ‘thingness of the object’ – or the archive – into curatorial thingness. If the exhibition itself can be understood as a gathering of curatorial things, ‘Material Thinking’ is an overarching curatorial thing which, outside the vaults, has transformed CP138 into a productive archive.

Notes

[i] Wigley, Mark. “Unleashing the Archive”. Future Anterior: Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory, and Criticism 2, no 2 (2005): 10-15.

[ii] Miessen, Markus, Yann Chateigné. The archive as a productive space of conflict. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016.

[iii] Von Bismarck, Beatrice, Meyer-Krahmer, Benjamin (eds.). Curatorial Things: Cultures of the Curatorial 4. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2020.

[iv] Borasi, Giovanna, Albert Ferré, Francesco Garutti, Jayne Kelley & Mirko Zardini. The Museum Is Not Enough. Berlin; Montreal: Sternberg Press; Centre Canadien d'Architecture, 2019.

[v] Curatorial Things: Cultures of the Curatorial 4, 2020.

[vi] The Museum Is Not Enough, 2019.

[vii] Idem.

[viii] Mary Louise Lobsinger. Out of the Box: Price Rossi Stirling + Matta Clark Exhibition. Canadian Center for Architecture. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (September 2004): 384-386.

The first iteration of the Out of the Box program presented in 2003-2004 focused on four different archives (AP144 Cedric Price, AP142 Aldo Rossi, AP140 James Stirling and CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark). Four guest curators (Mark Wigley, Marco de Michelis, Anthony Vidler, Philip Ursprung + Hubertus von Amelunxen) were paired with in-house curators and professionals (Howard Shubert, Pierre-Edouard Latouche, Gwendolyn Owens, Louise Désy, Alexis Sornin, and exhibition designer Louis-Charles Lasnier).

[ix] Mark Wigley in The Museum Is Not Enough, 2019.

[x] Chateigné, Yann, Hila Peleg, & Kitty Scott. CP138 Gordon Matta-Clark: Readings of the archive by Yann Chateigné, Hila Peleg, and Kitty Scott. Montreal; London: CCA; Koenig Books, 2020.

[xi] The 2019-2020 series is the third in the Out of the Box program. Three curators were invited one after the other for a ten days residency in the Gordon Matta-Clark archive: Yann Chateigné (Brussels and Geneva), Hila Peleg (Berlin) and Kitty Scott (Ottawa). Chateigné mainly explored CP138.S7 (Library, 1924-1972) in ‘Material Thinking’, whereas Peleg explored CP138.S6 (Films and Videos, 1971-1978) in ‘Rough Cuts and Outtakes’. Scott explored CP138.S3 (Working Photographs, [1943-1978, predominant 1970-1978]) in ‘Line of Flight’. The second series occurred in 2015-2016 and was dedicated to Spanish architects Ábalos & Herreros. Three curators/practitioners were invited to delve into the AP164 fonds and produce an exhibition out of their findings: Kersteen Geers and David Van Severen (OFFICE, Brussels), Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu (SO-IL, New York) and Juan José Castellón Gonzálves (Houston). ‘Industrial architecture’ by Geers and Van Severen explores Ábalos & Herreros’ interest in new building techniques and mass-produced materials as means to achieve better energy efficiency. ‘Landscape of the Hyppereal’ by Indenburg and Liu explored the role of collage as a form of representation and a means of production in the work of Ábalos & Herreros. ‘Jai-Tech’ by Castellón Gonzálves explores the concept of lightness in the work of Ábalos & Herreros. © Canadian Centre for Architecture, Press Relations.     

[xii] Curatorial Things: Cultures of the Curatorial 4, 2020.

[xiii] Idem.