New Langton Arts’ Archive For Sale: A Sacrificial Act
The collective of Tercerunquinto has proposed to New Langton Arts to put the organization’s archive, or “the documentation of its historical memory”, up for sale.
After conducting an informal analysis of the structure of Langton as a non-profit institution — acknowledging a history of chronic economic uncertainty — Tercerunquinto has identified Langton’s memory as its most valuable asset. Langton’s history is closely tied to the emergence of new art forms — performance and time-based art, video, installation, improvised and electronic music, and language poetry. Langton’s archive reflects this diverse history, containing photographic, audio, and video documentation, as well as communication with artists over the past 30 years. Additionally, the ‘behind the scenes’ of the institutional archive, mostly fiscal documents, were deemed equally as important to the makeup of the organization’s history.
Besides the economic value that the archive might reach in the market, Tercerunquinto is interested in the “sacrificial act” implied in the gesture of relinquishing one of the most valuable resources that the institution possesses — an accumulation of artifacts that reflects its very character and institutional mission.
— Tercerunquinto
San Francisco, September 2007
September 26, 2007 at 1:57 pm
We live in a society of accumulation so it is only natural to consider the tangible value of 30 years of archieves that catalogue the leading edge art presented at Langton during those years. Langton is not burdened with a permanent collection and has not yey developed an “ediface complex” so the remnants of the past are useful to study art history and developement in the Bay area and beyond. Langton would funtion exactly the same if the archieves were destroyed. If the achieves were sold for money Langton would be able to continue and improve exhibitions and programs. The art of the past is easy while the art of the future is a risk. That risk is difficult to fund. Langton celebrates the present and the future and the fact the the archieves are sitting peacefully in boxes implies that they are ignored. What a fine capsule of the past for a research institution to make available to scholars (langton does interact with education) while providing langton with an endowement for the present. Thank you Tercerunquinto for opening our eyes and opening debate. We are about passion and let’s hope we have some.
October 1, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I am curious about the “integral and structural analysis” Tercerunquinto made while in residence at New Langton. I was disappointed that this research was not made available as part of their exhibition. It seems antithetical to their proposal to withhold or overlook the public access of such said research. Not having access to their research I can only infer how they arrived at the notion that Langton’s physical archive was “the one thing that defines you” and that which holds “maximum capital” for the institution at present.
Personally, I disagree with the end result of Tercerunquinto’s analysis. While Langton’s history is important, not as nostalgia but as the foundation for the context under which we engage new artists and produce new projects, the physical archive has little to do with that history in psychological terms. That history has been documented in several publications and has resurfaced in exhibitions which think forward while understanding the evolution of the past (not just of Langton’s past but of the trajectory which has formed various types of practices both locally and internationally).
In truth, Langton, doesn’t have the space or appropriate facilities to house archival material of any sort for extended amounts of time. The archive is inaccessible to almost everyone and therefore exists, even now as more of a psychological space than an actual resource. For this reason, the archive would be in better hands elsewhere, and Tercerunquinto has successfully pushed the conversation of the archive’s future life to the fore in a non-profit that tends to move slowly where questions of identity and possession are concerned.
What continues to concern me though is the assertion that the archive itself is the most valuable asset Langton has, and that it forms the core of Langton’s identity. I find this assertion to be dangerous in that it strays our emphasis from what I believe to be the core of Langton’s identity which is the production of new, experimental works. It is artists and curators who push Langton and who continue to mold and remold the institution from within.