Studio Martha Schwindling

On the occasion of the bicentennial of Kunstverein München, the exhibition brings together two centuries of the institution’s archival documents for the first time. During the exhibition these will be embedded in a dense discursive program to question how this historical material and the topography of its absences can be made productive for the present.

Joining materials stored on site at the Kunstverein, among them publications, posters, and printed matter, is an inventory of archival records held by the city archive of Munich. Here administrative documents, documentation of exhibitions or artworks are presented, “read,” and put into relation with each other as visual testimonies situated in an adaptable display structure.

For the exhibition, we have converted shelves donated by the Munich Public Library. They form a space for storing, exhibiting, hosting, reading, browsing and meeting.