- documenta archiv
The internationally unique Performance Art Archive Schwarze Lade / The Black Kit was founded in 1981 by artists and actors from the performance art scene. Since its inception in 1981, it has developed into an important repository of knowledge as well as an ever living working tool for artistic formats such as happenings and performance art. The Archive, maintained in the non-institutional space, was able to grow over four decades into a comprehensive multimedia collection of material and objects, today extending over some 450 linear meters of shelving. In addition to film documents and photographs, the collection includes project sketches, scripts, artists’ correspondence, and rare gallery catalogues as well as artefacts and performance relics.
The Cologne artist Boris Nieslony (born 1945) is one of the initiators of Schwarze Lade / Black Kit. Nieslony was a participant in documenta 8 (1987) and a member of the performance group Black Market International.
Boris Nieslony is now donating this performance archive, previously based in Cologne, to Kassel’s documenta archiv, which will continue to work on and with the materials in the spirit of its founders. For documenta archiv, having access to this valuable repository is also a great asset because the Schwarze Lade / the Black Kit, as a mirror of international trends in the field of performative art, is linked in many ways to the very history of documenta itself. The archive materials document the artistic practice and theory of numerous art movements, groups and individual artists, including the Fluxus movement and historic pioneers of happenings and action art such as Joseph Beuys, Allan Kaprow, and Ulay & Abramović.
The acquisition of the Schwarze Lade / the Black Kit provides the documenta archiv with a complex artists’ archive capturing the history of performance art in a nuanced way while reflecting not only a broad spectrum of artistic practice, but also the wide-ranging networks of actors on the international performance scene.
Further information on the donation can be found here!
