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Performative Strategies and the Archive

Thursday, Jun 28, 2018, 9 pm

Panel discussion
Event on site
In German, Free admission

Panel discussion with Yilmaz Dziewior (art historian and curator, director Museum Ludwig, Cologne) and Sigrid Adorf (professor for contemporary art and culture analysis, Zurich University of the Arts), moderated by Bettina Knaup (curator, Berlin and London)

VALIE EXPORT is considered one of the most important artists working with conceptual media art, performance art and film. With her feminist and media-critical works, she has influenced subsequent generations of artists. In the course of her work, VALIE EXPORT has compiled an extensive archive that includes sketches of ideas, notes, drafts, reviews, screenplays, letters, contact sheets and much more. Since November 2017, the pre-mortem bequest has been researched under the direction of Sabine Folie at the VALIE EXPORT Center Linz and made accessible to an interested public. Together with the artist, Folie has developed an exhibition that is shown under the title VALIE EXPORT. Research – Archive – Oeuvre at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.). Here, archival material is presented in combination with key works by the artist, thus documenting EXPORT’s creative process in a unique way.


In the light of an exhibition design that helps to immerse oneself in the intricate system of the “wild” order of an artist’s archive and thus underlines the exploratory character of the artistic process, Yilmaz Dziewior and Sigrid Adorf talk to moderator Bettina Knaup about forms of linking performative and archival strategies.



Sigrid Adorf is a professor of contemporary art and cultural analysis, as well as Co-Head of the Institute for Cultural Studies at the Zurich University of the Arts. From 1998–1999, she worked in Vienna on the digital catalog raisonné and the archive of VALIE EXPORT. In 2007, she completed her doctorate at the University of Bremen, and in 2008, she published the volume Operation Video (Bielefeld: transcript). Most recent publications include “‘[E]ine echte, erfahrene Metapher’ – ‘in welchem Medium oder welcher Form auch immer’. Denkbilder zur Verschränkung von Erzählung und Erfahrung und ihre politische Bedeutsamkeit” (A real, experienced metaphor – in whatever medium or form. Mental images on the interconnection of narrative and experience and their political significance), in: figurationen, No. 1, 2017; “Offscreen – Wenn Bilder jenseits ihrer Ränder zurückblicken” (When images look back beyond their borders), in: Christiane Kruse / Birgit Mersmann (ed.): Images as Agents, München: Fink (in publication). Adorf is co-editor of the magazine FKW. Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und Visuelle Kultur (Journal for gender studies and visual culture).


Yilmaz Dziewior is director of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne since the beginning of 2015; before that he was director of the Kunsthaus Bregenz (2009–2015), as well as the Kunstverein Hamburg (2001–2008). In 2015, Yilmaz Dziewior curated the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Dziewior wrote his doctorate on Mies van der Rohe (Blick durch den Spiegel. Glas als raumdefinierendes Element im Werk von Mies van der Rohe) (View through the mirror. Glass as a space-defining element in the work of Mies van der Rohe). In addition to regularly contributing articles to Artforum, Camera Austria and Texte zur Kunst, Dziewior has published numerous books and catalogs on 20th and 21st century art.


Bettina Knaup works internationally as a curator and cultural producer with a focus on performance and gender. Since the end of 2015, she is a PhD research fellow at Roehampton University, London. Her more recent projects include the multi-year exhibition and archive project re.act.feminism (with Beatrice Ellen Stammer; Academy of Arts, Berlin; Antoni Tapies Foundation Barcelona; Tallinn Art Hall a. o., 2008–2014), as well as the performance festivals performance platform. body affects (with Silke Bake, Sophiensaele Berlin, 2012) and Performing Proximities (Beursschouwburg, Brussels, 2008). She was also co-curator and co-producer of the transdisciplinary laboratory for performance arts In Transit (Berlin, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, 2002–2003) and was responsible for the International Festival of Contemporary Arts, City of Women (with Sabina Potocki, Ljubljana, 2001–2004).

Der Neue Berliner Kunstverein wird gefördert durch die LOTTO-Stiftung Berlin