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Kim? exhibition archive published in the new online repository of contemporary art documentation – Contemporary Art Library

25.5.2021

Kim? Contemporary Art Centre is pleased to announce our participation as a founding partner of the Contemporary Art Library, a new online repository of contemporary art documentation from the nonprofit organization that publishes Contemporary Art Daily.

The Library includes a growing archive of more than 370,000 images, documents and videos, and fully records Kim? exhibition archive – in total 160 records, spanning from the beginning of institution’s public activities in 2009 up until now.

Already the deepest public archive of its kind, the new Library contains more than 370,000 images, documents, and videos representing more than 12,500 exhibitions, performances and other projects drawn from 12 years of Contemporary Art Daily and additional documentation from 78 Founding Partner art spaces. As the archives of Contemporary Art Library are being further expanded, the organizers plan to focus on regions underrepresented in their archives so far, spaces whose documentation is at risk of disappearing from public view, and artist-run and alternative spaces that do not benefit from a professionalized archival infrastructure. Kim? and the Contemporary Art Center (Vilnius) are the only art institutions from the Baltics represented in this project.

Visitors to the Library website—contemporaryartlibrary.org— which is completely free to access, can search for an artist or art space and browse a chronological listing of exhibitions, performances and other public activity for which we have documentation. Throughout the Library, the names of artists and spaces are links to these chronologies. In place of taste algorithms and deterministic categories, visitors can do free-flowing, associative research and discover artists and spaces in the context of their real-world interconnections. Likewise, Contemporary Art Daily, which continues publishing current exhibitions and other projects each day, will include links to the Library records of artists and spaces. In the folowing months, the Library will add a selection of publications and events by the institution to the Kim?’s Library account.

By bringing together and interlinking individual archives of contemporary art documentation, Contemporary Art Library will make it easier for students to learn, for professionals to do research, and for artists to keep up with the work of their peers. By incorporating these bodies of documentation into a modern information storage system that will stay up to date, organizers will preserve them even when associated spaces and their websites close. And by making more and more corners of recent art history more accessible, easier to navigate, and free to the public, the Library will make the process of learning about these histories more inclusive.

The Founding Partners of the Library reflect the range of art spaces that make up the field of contemporary art, from independent project spaces to galleries and institutions of all sizes: Air de Paris, Almine Rech, Altman Siegel, Antenna Space, The Approach, Arts Club of Chicago, Art Sonje Center, Atlanta Contemporary, Ballroom Marfa, Galerie Barbara Weiss, Bel Ami, Bergen Kunsthall, Bortolami, Bridget Donahue, Galerie Buchholz ,CENTRAL FINE, Contemporary Art Centre Vilnius, Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati, The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Crèvecoeur, Dépendance, The Drawing Center, Etablissement d’en face, FRAC Lorraine, Galerie Francesca Pia, Hammer Museum, Hannah Hoffman Gallery, Galerie Hussenot, Jacky Strenz, Jessica Silverman, JOAN, Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Kunsthal Aarhus, Kunsthalle Basel, Kunsthalle Bern, Kunsthalle Lissabon, Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Kunsthalle Zürich, Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien (KM–), Kunstverein Hannover, Kunstverein Nürnberg, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), LAXART, Layr, Les Bains-Douches, Long March Space, Lulu, MAMCO, Maureen Paley, Meliksetian | Brigg,s Mendes Wood DM, Mercer Union, Midway Contemporary Art Misako & Rosen, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Modern Art, Museo Tamayo, Neue Alte Brücke ,The Newsstand Project, Nonaka-Hill, Overduin & Co., Parker Gallery, Participant Inc., Petzel, Pivô, The Power Plant, Radio Athènes, Schinkel Pavillon, Swiss Institute, Taka Ishii Gallery, Te Tuhi, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, u’s, Vleeshal, The Wattis Institute, What Pipeline, WIELS, XYZcollective.

To access Kim? exhibition archive click here.

The participation of Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in the Contemporary Art Library is supported by the State Cultural Capital Foundation of Latvia.