The publication Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive presents a series of original queer theoretical and artistic contributions relating the archive and writing of history to gender and sexuality. What gets forgotten in history writing, what has been forgotten in archives, and what is excluded from cultural canons? Lost and Found investigates how experiences and histories not shared and lived by the majority are remembered and told in an alternative language.

The book contains 4 essays and the works of 13 contemporary artists. In the article ’Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive’ the curators Jane Rowley and Louise Wolthers discuss the challenge posed to traditional archives and history writing by analysing the works of 13 contemporary artists represented in the book and eponymous exhibition. Analysing the strategies of speculation, flirtation and confrontation, art historian Mathias Danbolt then maps the role of the archive in the text ‘Touching History: Archival Relations in Queer Art and Theory’. In her text ‘Photographing Objects: Art as Queer Archival Practice,’ the American cultural theorist Ann Cvetkovich discusses the role of art as an ‘archive of feelings’ based on the artists Tammy Rae Carland and Zoe Leonard. And in ‘The Art of Losing’ the American literary theorist Heather Love emphasises the importance of the inclusion of loss, pain, isolation and loneliness in queer history writing – experiences so often excluded from mainstream narratives of homosexual liberation.

Beautifully bound in two sections, the book also presents works by the artists Elmgreen & Dragset (DK/NO), Tejal SHah (IN), Conny Karlsson (SE), Cecilia Barriga (CHI), Flemming Rolighed (DK), Aleesa Cohene (CA), Mary Coble (US), Kimberley Austin (US), Al Masson (DK/FR), Heidi LUnabba (FI) and Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (CA). The publication is interspersed with excerpts from I Remember (1970) by the American poet Joe Brainard.

Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive is published to accompany the exhibition of the same name curated by Jane Rowley and Louise Wolthers at Nikolaj Copenhagen Center of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen and Bildmuseet in Umeaa, Sweden.


Danish
Værket Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive præsenterer en række originale queer-teoretiske og -kunstneriske bidrag, som sætter arkiv og historieskrivning i relation til køn og seksualitet. Hvad er det, vi glemmer i historieskrivningen, hvad er gået tabt for vores arkiver, og hvad udelades af de store kulturkanoner? Lost and Found handler om, hvorledes erfaringer og historier, der ikke deles og udføres af majoriteten, huskes og fortælles i et alternativt sprog.

Bogen indeholder fire teoretiske artikler og bidrag af 13 samtidskunstnere. I artiklen ”Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive” diskuterer kuratorene Jane Rowley og Louise Wolthers, hvordan kunsten udfordrer de traditionelle arkiver og måder at skrive historie på gennem analyser af værker af de 13 samtidskunstnere, der er repræsenteret i bogen og på udstillingen. Kunsthistorikeren Mathias Danbolt kortlægger arkivfigurens rolle i nyere queer- kunst og -teori i teksten ”Touching History: Archival Relations in Queer Art and Theory”. Gennem analyser af spekulative, flirtende og konfronterende strategier argumenterer han for at anlægge et queer-perspektiv på arkiver og historieskrivning. I ”Photographing Objects: Art as Queer Archival Practice” diskuterer den amerikanske kulturteoretiker Ann Cvetkovich, hvordan kunsten kan fungere som en særlig slags ”følelsesarkiv” med udgangspunkt i kunstnerne Tammy Rae Carland og Zoe Leonard. Og den amerikanske litterat Heather Love fremhæver i ”The Art of Losing” betydningen af, at queer-historieskrivning inkluderer tab, smerte, isolation og ensomhed, som er blevet ekskluderet i den gængse fortælling om homoseksuel frigørelse.

Derudover præsenteres kunstneriske bidrag af Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset (DK/NO), Tejal Shah (IN), Conny Karlsson (SE), Cecilia Barriga (CHI), Flemming Rolighed (DK), Ingo Taubhorn (DE), Aleesa Cohene (CAN), Mary Coble (US), Kimberley Austin (US), Al Masson (DK/FR), Heidi Lunabba (FI) og Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay (CAN). Bogen igennem bringes uddrag fra digtsamlingen I Remember (1970) af den amerikanske forfatter Joe Brainard.

Lost and Found: Queerying the Archive er udgivet i forbindelse med en udstilling af samme navn på Kunsthallen Nikolaj (29.5.09-02.8.09) og Bildmuseet Umeå (25.01.10-25.04.10), kurateret af Jane Rowley og Louise Wolthers.