An Unhappy Archive
2016
Zurich
Artist edition by Sabian Baumann & Karin Michalski
28 pages, 27.5 x 27 cm, leporello 10"00, vinyl record with the audio version of The Alphabet of Feeling Bad
(dir. Karin Michalski, performance Ann Cvetkovich, 13”00)
The booklet feminist killjoys (and other wilful subjects) by Sara Ahmed
Cover with the art print NO TEARS by Dafne Boggeri
Published by edition fink, Zurich, ISBN 978-3-03746-203-5
Courtesy of the artists and Edition Fink, Zurich (design Anna Frei)
With contributions by: Sabian Baumann, Lauren Berlant, Elfe Brandenburger, Dafne Boggeri, Ann Cvetkovich, Judith Jack Halberstam, Jennifer Doyle, Anne-Käthi Wehrli & Bettina Stehli, Karin Michalski, Evan Ifekoya, Lia García, Feeltank Chicago, Elizabeth Freeman, Sara Ahmed, José Esteban Muñoz, Ann Cvetkovich, Heather Love, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Mel Y. Chen, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gillian Wearing, Elspeth Probyn, Nicole Eisenman, Gillian Wearing
An Unhappy Archive is an exhibition project and an artist edition with the same name by Sabian Baumann and Karin Michalski. The exhibition was initiated by Andrea Thal at Les Complices* in Zurich in 2013 and presented for a second time at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe in 2014. Based on the Fotos in Karlsruhe, An Unhappy Archive has been reactivated as an imaginary exhibition space, the artist edition An Unhappy Archive. It assembles texts, books, posters, drawings, and other materials that call into question the social norm of “happiness”.
The name refers to the work of the theorist Sara Ahmed, who describes the “unhappy archive” as a collective, feminist-queer, and antiracist project. It not only sets out to impel criticism and resistance within society but also intends to forward the states of pleasure and utopia that are facilitated by supposed anti-figures like the feminist killjoy. Part of the archive is The Alphabet of Feeling Bad by Karin Michalski, an experimental interview with the theorist and activist Ann Cvetkovich in which she defines terms such as “depression” as well as everyday negative feelings and provides them with a different meaning. In the tradition of initiatives like the SPK (Socialist Patient Collective) of the 1970s, negative feelings are not understood as the result of individual failure or sickness. Rather, the question is raised of how these could be collectively sensed as “public feelings” and also politicized in the context of neoliberal working conditions and of homophobia and racism.
Artists Bios:
Sabian Baumann
Sabian Baumann lives in Zurich and works in the media of drawing, sculpture and installation. They frequently initiate and co-organise/curate various transdisciplinary, queer-feminist and intersectional art and film projects. Baumann also teaches art and has received numerous awards, including scholarships in New York and Berlin, and the Erna and Curt Burgauer Grant in 2012.
Karin Michalski
Karin Michalski works as an artist and a curator of film and video art in Berlin. With her video films The Alphabet of Feeling Bad (2012), working on it (2008, co-directed by Sabian Baumann), Monika M. (2004) and Pashke & Sofia (2003) she has been invited to numerous festivals and exhibitions. She co-edited the artist edition An Unhappy Archive and the book I is for Impasse. Affektive Queerverbindungen in Theorie_Aktivismus_Kunst, as well as the fanzine FEELING BAD – queer pleasures, art & politics. www.karinmichalski.de
Captions:
An Unhappy Archive, Exhibitionview Kunstverein Karlsruhe (Foto Stefan Baumann)
An Unhappy Archive, Exhibitionview Les Complices Zürich (Foto Sabian Baumann)
Edition An Unhappy Archive (Foto Anna Frei)