What Will Be Already Exists

How do artist archives survive and stay authentic in radically changed contexts? The volume addresses the challenge of continuity, sustainability, and institutionalization of archives established by Eastern European artists. At its center stands the 40th anniversary of the Artpool Art Research Center founded in 1979 in Budapest as an underground institution based on György Galántai's »Active Archive« concept. Ten internationally renowned scholars propose contemporary interpretations of this concept and frame artist archives not as mere sources of art history but as models of self-historicization. The contributions give knowledgeable insights into the transition of Cold War art networks and institutional landscapes.

Emese Kürti (PhD) is an art historian, researcher, and art critic, the head of Artpool Art Research Center, and deputy director for research at Central European Research Institute for Art History Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest. Her dissertation set the ground for a new narrative of Hungarian action art based on a musical genealogy. In the last few years, she has been focusing on the transregional artistic collaborations between Hungary and Yugoslavia, and the self-historicizing and institutional ambitions of the neo-avant-garde. Among several other publications on the above themes, she is the author of Screaming Hole: Poetry, Sound and Action as Intermedia Practice in the Work of Katalin Ladik, 2017.

Zsuzsa László is a researcher and curator at Artpool Art Research Center, Budapest. She is also a member of tranzit.hus board and the editorial team of Art Margins Online. Her forthcoming dissertation discusses the emergence and critique of the concept East European Art. Her recent publications and curatorial projects explore transnational exhibition histories, progressive pedagogies, cultural transfers, and decentralized understanding of conceptualism and neo-avant-gardes in Cold War Eastern Europe.