Artists’ initiatives worldwide: Archives
AAN (Art Autonomous Network)
The Art Autonomy Network (AAN) was founded in Japan in 2005 to support alternative art organizations and individuals from Japan (within the global context) in presenting small-scale but significant art activities in various art fields, which are often not represented in major institutions. Additionally AAN runs an art archive, featuring art documentation and information materials of art organizations.
http://www.a-a-n.org
Agency, Brussels (BE)
Agency was founded 1992 by Kobe Matthys as a fictive European corporation. The Agency sees its task in building up an archive of ‘quasi’-creative activities. These are defined as activities that by judicial standards are called ‘creative’, be these intended, risked or completely intentionless exceedences of the allowed.
http://www.projektmigration.de/kuenstlerliste/agency.html
Alexandria Contemporary Art Forum, Alexandria (EG)
The loose collective, archive and off-space called the Alexandria Contemporary Art Forum (ACAF) was founded in December 2005. Within its premises projects, lectures, screenings and symposia are being organized - in cooperation with both international partners and local artists. Additionally a small library, which features a growing collection of contemporary art publications for the benefit of the local arts community, is being hosted there.
http://www.acafspace.org
Art Metropole, Toronto (CA)
Art Metropole was founded 1974 by the Canadian artist collective General Idea as a non-profit artist-run archive and distribution agency for artists’ publications and other materials, additionally organizing video screening and book launchings. In the late 80s it was established as a small exhibition/display space with regular exhibition program.
http://www.artmetropole.com
Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts, Beirut (LB)
Ashkal Alwan is a non-profit arts organization, which aims to initiate and promote critical artistic practices and to document and build an archival record of contemporary intellectual and creative activity. It organizes projects that generate understanding around cultural practices and theories and supports cultural practitioners to explore new approaches to their work.
http://www.ashkalalwan.org
B+B, London (GB)
B+B is a curatorial partnership between Sarah Carrington and Sophie Hope, founded in 2000. While both of them are currently working independently, aspects of B+B remain active and can be accessed via the News page of their website. B+B provides a platform for discussion and debate on the role of the artist in society. Through consultation, events, exhibitions, research, residencies and workshops, B+B test and critique the role of the artist as an agent for change. Since 2000, B+B have been collecting material on socially engaged, activist and process-based art practices from the UK and internationally in order to map emerging practices and to investigate strategies to re-present process-based projects.
http://www.welcomebb.org.uk
bildwechsel, Hamburg (DE)
bildwechsel is an umbrella organization for women, media and culture. It is the women’s artist space among Hamburg’s locations and, with two international archives running since 1979, a place to meet and share for women artists, activists, and researchers on a local, regional, and international level.
http://www.bildwechsel.org
Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT)
Stating to be “an information agency servicing the Information Age”, the Bureau of Inverse Technology was founded in 1991 by Kate Rich and others as an organization of artist-engineers. These are involved from design to deployment and documentation of radical products based on commercially available electronic entertainment technology.
http://www.bureauit.org
Buy-Sellf, Bordeaux / Marseille (FR)
Buy-Sellf is an artist collective which collects and proposes objects that are not mass-produced but are the outcome of artistic processes, in more general terms of experimentation. Between 1999 and 2004 they produced a mail-order catalog for these kind of works as an alternative to the classical handling of galleries. Since then they organize exhibitions.
http://www.buy-sellf.com, http://www.buysellfartclub.com
CAA / CAA (Contemporary Art Archive / Center for Art Analysis), Bucharest (RO)
Under different names, the CAA has been active since 1985 in Lia and Dan Perjovschi’s home in Oradea, in the frame of the experimental studio at Art Academy Bucharest, in Lia and Dan Perjovschi’s artist studio in Bucharest, in national and international museums, galleries, non-profit or artist-run spaces and in the mass media. CAA is currently working with an investigative method, searching for sense, hidden and lost ideas, relevant works and authors - normalcy as exception - and preserving a dizzydent (from dizzy) critical attitude in a context of consumerism and intellectual stagnation.
http://www.revista22.ro
Counter Productive Industries, Chicago, Illinois (US)
The online-archive/network Counter Productive Industries presents collective pranks, protest graphics and spatial reclamation aimed against consumerism. It features collaborations and tactical media by The Institute for Applied Autonomy, The Bikewriters, StreetRec, and Spain’s Las Agencias/New Kids On The Black Block. Featured projects range from large-scale political actions, spontaneous events, flexible collaborations, and temporary collectives.
http://www.counterproductiveindustries.com
Digital Art Lab, Holon (IR)
The non-profit Israeli Center for Digital Art, established in 2001, is a dynamic platform for thinking, researching, producing, and presenting contemporary art, as well as providing a meeting point for exchange between contemporary artists, curators, critics and the public. It devotes a significant part of its work on art projects that foster questions about identity, ethnicity, nationalism and cultural exchange.
http://www.digitalartlab.org.il
Publish and be Damned (PABD), London (GB)
Publish and be Damned (PABD) is a loose knit co-operative centered on the production, exhibition and distribution of experimental editorial directions in artist-led fanzines, magazines and periodicals. The PABD self-publishing fair brings some 60 publishers together in London annually, while a ‘Public Library’ is a touring collection of 300 international titles that has been shown in predominantly artist-run spaces. Occasional additional projects promote the production of fanzines by the public and artists
http://www.publishandbedamned.org
Rhizome
Rhizome is an open non-profit online platform, which was initially founded in 1996 as an email list. Rhizome is dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology, technological experimentation as well as response to the broader aesthetic and political implications of new tools and media. Through open platforms for exchange and collaboration, the Rhizome website serves to encourage and expand the communities around these practices. Their programs, many of which happen online, include commissions, exhibitions, events, discussion, archives and portfolios.
http://www.rhizome.org
Temporary Services, Chicago, Illinois (US)
Temporary Services is a collective of the artists Brett Bloom, Salem Collo-Julin and Marc Fischer, which has existed, with several changes in membership and structure, since 1998. They produce exhibitions, events, projects, and publications on a collaborative basis.
http://www.temporaryservices.org
The Atlas Group
The Atlas Group is a project established in 1999 to research and document the contemporary history of Lebanon. One of their aims is to locate, preserve, study, and produce audio, visual, literary and other artifacts that shed light on the contemporary history of Lebanon.
http://www.theatlasgroup.org
United Net-works, Stockholm (SE)
United Net-Works is an archive, network and platform for communication, dissemination and exchange between artists, artists groups, curators, cultural entrepreneurs, environmentalists, activists and art lovers. It initiates and participates in collaborations, projects and exhibitions. United Net-Works Agency offers consultation to artists, museums, galleries and curators who seek to make contact with artists for special projects and exhibitions.
http://www.unitednet-works.org
V2_, Rotterdam (NL)
V2_, Institute for the Unstable Media, is an interdisciplinary center for art and media technology in Rotterdam. In 25 years, V2_ has become an international organization for experimentation, research and development in art and media technology. V2_’s activities include organizing presentations, exhibitions and workshops, research and development of artworks in its own media lab, publishing in the field of art and media technology, and developing an online archive.
http://www.V2.nl