Nina Hoechtl and Julia Wieger - SKGAL
Sekretariat für Geister, Archivpolitiken und Lücken (Secretariat for Ghosts, Archive Policies, and Gaps, SKGAL)
Scholarship for artists and artistic researchers VALIE EXPORT Center Linz
Mai - December 2024
As the Sekretariat für Geister, Archivpolitiken und Lücken (Secretariat for Ghosts, Archive Policies, and Gaps, SKGAL), Nina Hoechtl and Julia Wieger focus their attention on places, documents, and objects that receive scant attention from the grand narratives of historiography. To this end, they are conducting research on various archives: the archive of the Association of Austrian Women Artists, the newspaper photos and images archive of the Arbeiter Zeitung, and the STICHWORT archive of the autonomous women's and lesbians’ movement. The secretariat links events from different periods that use different materials and different artistic working methods to establish connections with the present-day and to investigate mechanisms of discrimination. It is very important to SKGAL that feminist and decolonizing perspectives are incorporated. Their film Spuken im Archiv! (Haunting in the Archive!) (2017) won the “Women's Voices Now Best Documentary Feature Award” in 2018. In 2019, they co-curated the exhibition Dunkle Energie (Dark Energy):OrganizingFeministically, Working Collectively (exhibit, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), and in 2022 they opened their two-part installation project Hoch die Lappen (Run up the sails) at the venues Vorwärts-Haus and Fluc in Vienna.
In the context of their working scholarship at the VALIE EXPORT Center, SKGAL are continuing to explore the archives, which includes an attempt to explicate the various forms of vampirism found in the archive of VALIE EXPORT. Based on a script by the artist for a commercial (Drehbuch zu einer neuen Interpretation des Vampirthemas (Script featuring a new interpretation of the theme of vampires), 1966), SKGAL works intermittently and in different formats on the vampirish aspects in the VALIE EXPORT archive that shed light on sociopolitical dimensions and gender constructions: (1) the vampire-like reception of EXPORT's works by the press; (2) the art world, which, like a vampire, always thirsts for something new, more provocative, more lurid; (3) the art world’s exploitation of nature and of reproductive labor; (4) blood as a material in EXPORT's artworks.
Review
C A C H E Feminist Aesthetics and Archival Processes
Nina Hoechtl
INES_Magazina
Nina Hoechtl has published an article about the exhibition C A C H E – Feminist Aesthetics and Archival Processes and the workshop ARTISTS’ ARCHIVES: DOCUMENTS AND DOMICILES OF ARTISTIC PRACTICES at the VALIE EXPORT Center in INES_Magazina. INES is a platform for art criticism, based in New York City, dedicated to documenting and reflecting upon the art world and broader cultural narratives from perspectives that break away from patriarchal and heteronormative frameworks.
Nina Hoechtl is a visual artist, researcher, curator and teacher. Based in UNAM’s Center of Gender Research and Studies (CIEG), and, together with Julia Wieger as SKGAL, is currently receiving a working scholarship from the VALIE EXPORT Center.
Bissspuren im Archiv von VALIE EXPORT (Teeth marks in the archive of VALIE EXPORT)
SKGAL
21/11/2024, 13.30 - 16.00
Zeitbasiertes Wohnzimmer, Kunstuniversität Linz, Domgasse 1
SKGAL Sekretariat für Geister, Archivpolitiken und Lücken (Nina Hoechtl and Julia Wieger) Bissspuren im Archiv von VALIE EXPORT
(Secretariat for Ghosts, Archive Policies, and Gaps, SKGAL) (Teeth marks in the archive of VALIE EXPORT)
The workshop provides insights into writing as part of artistic practice and engages with "biting pieces" in the archive of VALIE EXPORT.
