Instructions for use

 In order for you to consult this complex archive, here are some useful key points outlining how it was created. The following points briefly explain the structure, fundamental concepts and terminology that can aid your search. The configuration of the archive reflects the artist’s personal perception, vision and analysis regarding her work whilst respecting ministerial archival standards.
 
STRUCTURE AND LINKS
The archive is divided into three main sections: Works, Exhibitions and Documents. Each file is dedicated to a document, an exhibition or a specific work, and is furnished with detailed information and direct links to other related files. For example, in the file about a work you can also find a list of the exhibitions it participated in, the articles that mention it and the books in which it was published or cited. Clicking on each element, you can directly access the file of the relative exhibition or documents.
 
VIEWING (c’era scritto ‘visualisation’ ma preferisco ‘viewing’)
It is possible to view this vast quantity of data in three ways. The first consists of a complete list (in which the principal dates are visible on a horizontal line) which scrolls vertically from top to bottom. The second way – the grid view – presents the images without any accompanying text. The third internal viewing allows you to directly access each single file.
These viewing means are based on three principles: the importance of the list as a tool that leaves nothing out, placing everything on the same level; visual reasoning through the appearance of individual images; detailed analysis through objective information and descriptive and interpretative texts, facilitating a deeper understanding.
 
SEARCH
The search can take place by imposing one or more parameters in the lefthand column. The archive number ensures the unequivocal identification of the work through the alphanumeric code that identifies it. All the fields allow you to select intersecting searches according to various parameters, for example all ‘the green works created in 2003’ or all ‘the group exhibitions curated by a particular curator’ or even all ‘the articles about the artist in 2024’. The dates selected can be ordered by clicking on the headers in the top part of the individual columns. For example, by clicking on ‘Year’, the list can be organised in ascending or descending order according to this parameter. This search function is not solely a tool of scientific analysis: it also represents a means through which the user can delineate their overall vision of the archive-work and the artist herself can create new works.
 
ARCHIVE FILES
Within each file it is possible to find comprehensive information regarding descriptive and interpretative texts, links between files from different sections (works, exhibitions, documents), attachments (documents made available to the public) and numerous images. As well as the material available on the site, the archive also conserves other documents whose publication rights are reserved but which can be requested for research and study purposes by writing to: archivio@mariamorganti.it.
 
WORK FILE
The work file is structured on two columns: the left-hand column contains the written descriptions and links; the right-hand one contains the technical details of the work. Some sections of the work file that have been created ad hoc for the artist are also indicated.
The OTHER ENTITIES field is a segment of information that appears if filled in and can indicate other professionals who have contributed to the development and creation of the work in some way. The glossary that defines the type of relationship established includes:
 
·   Co-creation: for works created directly with another person.
·   Collaboration: for significant contributions but without being a co-creation.
·   Participation: for works that others have participated in without being co-creators.
·   Contribution to XX’s work: for contributions to other people’s work without being a co-creator.
·   Appropriation: for works remade or re-developed by others.
·   Incorporation of XX’s work: for works in which the artist incorporates the works of others. These are differentiated by living and dead artists.
 
DATING can be composed of a multiple system which allows you to find three fundamental phases of Maria Morganti’s artistic process: CREATION refers to the moment of the definitive configuration of the work (crucial to attributing the archive number); CONCEPTION indicates when the concept of the work arose or when a ‘work status’ is retroactively attributed; PRODUCTION specifies the date of its practical execution, used for installations or exhibition editions.
Often in relation to the dating field, the STATUS specifies what phase of its material conformation and transformation the work is. This is assigned at an established time and is always potentially changeable. The central idea is that the works can continue to exist, in different forms, and that they are always becoming and are potentially regenerated, erased, replicated or interrupted.
Created: Existing, created works.
Not created: The works which have never been created. Aborted, failed projects that were impossible to exist. The reasons why they were not created can vary: financial reasons, something went wrong, someone or something stopped its success, gave up continuing, they lost their reason for being, etc.
To be created: The works which have already been thought of, conceived, but which have yet to be produced.
No longer extant: The works that no longer exist. Ephemeral works, which only existed for a short time (for example, during an exhibition), or which were destroyed voluntarily or involuntarily, cancelled or disappeared.
Replicated: The existing works, remade in the same identical way. Replicated works, reproposed, brought back to life in an identical manner.
Regenerated: The works conceived and made in the past, reactivated, reprised and reinterpreted in the present, changing something, carried out in two different times, retouched, re-elaborated. They are thus modified works and brought back to a new life in a different way.
In progress: Works in progress, started and not yet finished, which have within them the sense of transformation over time. Even when I am no longer here and they will therefore be left unfinished, I would still give them this same definition because for me it is important to leave the sense of openness and not of conclusion.
Suspended: The works which for some reason have been left suspended and unfinished.
Altered: These are works whose original form has changed without the artist wanting them to. Works which have been transformed by external agents such as, for example, someone else’s intervention, an involuntary accident, a natural accident.
Replicable: The works that at the moment of their creation have the possibility of being repeated in their essence, possibly even with different parts.
The TYPE identifies the material, technique or predominant nature of the works.
The SERIES groups together works that share a conceptual and temporal central theme.
 
The COLOUR is a classification system that comprises both the nomenclature commonly in use (red, green, yellow, blue, purple, etc.) and some unusual and specific denominations that derive directly from processes implemented by the artist and terms that have a symbolic meaning from a conceptual point of view (multicolour, sludge, earth, red-red, etc.).
 
The WORKS GENERATED BY part lists the works which directly derive from the work under analysis, while the WORK IS GENERATED BY section indicates works which have given rise to the work in question. These two sections illustrate the continuity of the artistic process and offer and genealogical vision of the artist’s research.
CONCEPTUAL CONNECTIONS are words that help the artist reflect on the works, connecting them to each other according to creative criteria. In some cases, these definitions can form the chapters in ‘Self-portrait’ or give rise to new series. These are words that run parallel to the search; the artist defines them as ‘associations, affinities with what I feel. Synapses, connections, links, threads, crossroads of meanings, definitions to construct new narrations and create new reasonings.
 
EXHIBITION FILE
The exhibition file follows cataloguing criteria and thus standard classification, apart from the STATUS field, which, as in the works section, permits the inclusion of exhibitions that have not followed a canonical process of execution. The various types of status can be:
 
·       Not carried out: aborted or uncompleted projects.
Carried out and concluded: exhibitions with definitive beginnings and ends.
To do: exhibitions conceived but not yet carried out.
Permanent: exhibitions that last over time.
 
 
DOCUMENT FILE
The document file follows cataloguing criteria and therefore classification standards to which the artist has decided to add a criterion of classification for type and category which the document genre (conference, monograph, artist’s writing, critical essay, etc) and the format genre (text, digital, audio, video, etc) correspond to. For example, a document can be type ‘article’ and category ‘text’, ‘interview/audio’, ‘poster/visual participation’.
These two fields are in the process of being revised to make them correspond where possible to the editorial standards normally in use.
As for the works and the exhibitions, the STATUS of the documents is categorised as follows:
Done: existing documents that have been completed.
Not done: aborted projects.
To be done: documents already planned but not yet physically produced.