Wednesday, 22 August 2018, 06.30 pm

“And nothing starts in the Archive, nothing, ever at all, though things certainly end up there. You find nothing in the Archive but stories caught half way through: the middle of things; discontinuities.”
Carolyn Steedman, Dust, The Archive and Cultural History, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, 2002, p.45.

Did Szeemann actually design the famous catalogue accompanying his exhibition “When Attitudes Become Form” himself? Who were the graphic designers who in the early years of the Kunsthalle designed the plain catalogues? And who was, in each case, responsible for the artistic back-cover advertisement for the Gygi construction company?

Since its founding, the exhibition catalogues of the Kunsthalle Bern have been crucial in disseminating its exhibitions and central concerns. As part of our research we visited the archive of the Kunsthalle to find out more about the work of the graphic designers. What was the working relationship between the designers and the director, the curator or the artists like? Who made – or makes – what decisions? What were the conditions of production like? And, beyond this, what does the design of the catalogues tell us about the activities of the Kunsthalle?

In the archive talk we present some findings as well as additional questions, for the work in the archive was, perhaps, more of a starting point than a result.

Image: Letter from Kunsthalle Bern archive