Although I often work with archives, I am not an archivist. The data may be stored on my hard drives, but I don’t call it an archive. Reinhard Mende’s photographs, too, are material that flows through my computer like the data stream on the Internet. I don’t possess any of it. I use the images, formulate something with them, and let them go their way again. Although that happens under my authorship, it is one of many possible ones. The real work lies in continuing to write, rewriting, or inscribing the images in a new context. Interim spaces form and are challenged by readabilities. Criteria emerge through which we “see” and “read.” This method was also behind my new work If I put my glasses in a vitrine, they will never break, but will they still be considered glasses?* The title takes up a quotation from Christian Boltanski and relates it to a selection of photographs from the archive – for example, working women who by means of the gaze have become images. The filtering or screening of the material triggers a movement that is continued by the images – in the form of a pictorial essay in the book and an installation in space.

Installation View, Halle 14, Leipzig 2012 
© Produzieren/ Armin Linke 

If I put my glasses in the vitrine, theywill never break, but will they still beconsidered glasses? *
Or: Screening an Archive
* quoted after Christian Boltanski
2012, Bildessay in space with photografies from the Archive Reinhard Mende, floatglass grey, floatglass white, satianto white, chinchilla white, crystal mirror