LA SAUVEGARDE (THE SAFEGUARD) (2016)

Sculptural object, steel, brass, 100 x 176 x 28 cm
Embossing and screen printing on handmade paper, 28 x 39 cm

Keywords: Medical History Archive, Archive Card System, Image-Based Historiography, Archival Processes (Researching, Organizing, Appropriating), Artistic Appropriation of Archives

This work was produced as part of a project exhibition by The Golden Pixel Cooperative, search form, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, 2016.

The starting point of this work is the image collection of the Josephinum, which houses historical documents of the Medical University of Vienna. The collection was established by medical historian and physician Max Neuburger. From 1906 until his dismissal in 1938 following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, he collected and archived photographs, illustrations, and prints that focused, among other things, on European and non-European folk cultures. The registration and organization of these documents were carried out through archival methods using a thematic, non-geographically structured card index system.

From today's perspective, this could be interpreted as an indication that Neuburger was interested in relating different culturally situated medical practices through visual representations, thereby promoting a transculturally rooted historiography of medicine within folk culture.

The artistic work La sauvegarde explores the processes of researching, searching, selecting, and organizing images and narratives carried out within the archive. The selection and appropriation of the visual documents and their corresponding archive cards followed the artist’s personal points of reference.

Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (AT), 2016 
das weisse haus, Vienna (AT), 2019,
as part of the exhibition Parallax Trading, curated by Miwa Negoro
https://w.dasweissehaus.at/exhibition/gruppenausstellung-parallax-trading/

Art Collection of the City of Vienna (AT)