Publisher's Synopsis
On-Curating Issue 26 dis one of three publications on the Curating Degree Zero Archive. The Curating Degree Zero Archive (CDZA) documents the work of over 100 contemporary art curators who are known internationally for their critical and experimental positions. This collection of exhibition documentation, gifted to the archivists by the curators themselves, contains, among other materials, catalogues, DVDs, magazines and ephemera. In this way the archive presents a representative cross-section of the critical curatorial discourse at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The project began with the three-day symposium "Curating Degree Zero", organized in Bremen in 1998 by Dorothee Richter and Barnaby Drabble. Between 2003 and 2008, the two curators worked together again on the archive, which grew in size as it travelled to eighteen venues around the world as an exhibition and a program of live events and discussions. In 2011, the resulting collection was gifted to the Media and Information Centre (MIZ) at the Zürich University of the Arts (ZHdK). Since the opening of the university's new premises in the Toni-Areal in 2014, the archive is accessible as a permanent reference collection on public display. https: //www.zhdk.ch/miz_curating Initiated by Barnaby Drabble and Dorothee Richter, the archive was developed in partnership with the following venues, collectives and institutions: Plug-in (Basel), Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva, Künstlerhaus Bremen, O.K Centrum für Gegenwartskunst (Linz), Spike Island Art Space (Bristol), Halle für Kunst (Lüneburg), International Project Space (Bournville), Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art (Sunderland), Artlab at Imperial College (London), Sparwasser HQ (Berlin), Edinburgh College of Art, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti (Milan), Festival der Künste & Museum für Gestaltung (Zürich), INSA Art Space (Seoul), Association Drash & Point Éphémère (Paris), Rakett (Bergen), West Cork Arts Centre (Skibbereen) and Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb.
