Work description and interpretation
I decided to catalogue the archive as a work in the archive because I think the conserving, cataloguing, managing and reasoning about my work, along with the interpretation of others, is something that needs to be cared for in order for the artistic act to continue to exist.
What is normally considered an organisational system of the artist’s work in this case is itself considered a work. For me, calling it a work means highlighting it and giving it value; it means imagining a space dedicated to my vision and to a form that clarifies it. The archive is where everything is reunited and the point through which my world is defined in the world.
I began thinking about the archive in around 2006 and effectively began cataloguing in 2010. In 2016 I made it public through the platform www.mariamorganti.it calling it an artistic project.
In the autumn of 2023, to give it juridical and scientific structure, I decided to establish the Committee for the Maria Morganti Archive, which consists of myself, Cristina Baldacci, Barbara Garatti, Elena Volpato, my husband Luca Pes and my son Piero Pes.
On 11 November 2023 they wrote:
‘The members of the committee declare that they are witnesses to and participants in the life of the Work-Archive, which they acknowledge as the artist’s creative universe. At the same time, they act as guarantors of its legal foundation, assuming the role of interpreters of the space of thought and ambiguity between these two dimensions.’
It is a living work, in progress, in constant transformation and renewal.
To consult it in the part of the site accessible to the public, enter via the word ‘Archive’. For a more in-depth look at my thinking, refer to the chapters ‘Archiving Oneself’ and ‘Regulating’ in the section titled ‘Self-Portrait’.
Series description and interpretation
Apparatuses
"I decide to use all of those elements usually considered as equipment, tools, systems which transmit the work, such as the caption, the site, the archive etc., as an integral part of my work. It is almost as though I were going to define a sort of ecosystem, a world that is capable of defining itself.
All the works that are part of other series also belong to this one." Maria Morganti (2023)
Typology description and interpretation
Digital
Opere realizzate su supporti digitali online e offline
Tool
Opere che possono essere utilizzate come strumenti per fare qualcos’altro nello studio e nell’archivio