Call for Papers, No. 34, September 2024

The Editorial Board of AM Journal of Art and Media Studies is inviting all potential contributors to send their proposals for issue No. 34/September 2024.

AM Journal is structured in four sections: Main Topic, Beyond the Main Topic, Artist Portfolio, and Book Reviews. Only the first section, which is also the central one, is predefined by the main topic of the issue.

The main topic of issue No. 34/September 2024 is Art and Archives in the Digital Age.

The guest editor is Daniel Grúň (Institute of Art History, Art Research Centre of Slovak Academy of Sciences; Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia).

What challenges and threats does the digital age pose to archives, and how is the medium of the archive represented by contemporary art and theory? The radical challenges brought about by social media have not only changed the relationship between users and archives, but they have also changed the role of documents, as well as the status of archives themselves. Wikileaks, Flickr, Instagram, and many others are paradigmatic examples of this trend, marking a temporary culmination by providing a repository for the limitless production of digital images created by smartphone cameras and shared by anonymous users.

We are interested in various conceptualizations of an archive, departing from, for example, archive and historical a priori (Michel Foucault), archive fever (Jacques Derrida), archival territory (Allan Sekula), archival entropy (Wolfgang Ernst), archival violence (Ariella Azoulay), archival activism (Joaquín Barriendos), and others. This issue welcomes contributions dedicated to the aesthetics of contemporary artistic practices, artistic research in/with archives, and studies theorizing cultural memory media. What defines an archive besides being an accumulation of documents meticulously organized according to an all-encompassing classification and imposed power structures? How can the archive become a living and activated site from which we can rethink art and its institutions? Could we not only perceive archives as time capsules but also as depositories of unfinished or incomplete utopias or alternative futures?

There has been a growing interest in contemporary scholarship, including visual anthropology, sociology of visual culture, and social art history, in the reevaluation of archival iconospheres from socialist and post-socialist times. The issue will also discuss artistic self-archiving and its role in constructing regional art histories. Theorizing the very notion of an archive leads us to the question of how to subvert and unlearn the imperial legacy of an archive or even how to activate its hidden potential.

Potential contributors are invited to submit their full-text proposals of 3,000–5,000 words, formatted according to the Journal's stylistic guidelines, by April 30, 2024, at the latest.

Stylistic Guidelines are available here: https://fmkjournals.fmk.edu.rs/index.php/AM/about/submissions

All articles will undergo double-blind peer review.

The issue is scheduled to be published in September 2024.

Please email your full-text submissions and inquiries to the journal email address: amjournal@outlook.com.

Guest Issue Editor

Daniel Grúň

 

Daniel Grúň (1977) is an art historian and curator with a specialization in the theory and history of modern and contemporary art. He is senior research fellow at the Institute of Art History, Art Research Centre of Slovak Academy of Sciences and lectures at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. He completed his studies in the history of art and culture at the University of Trnava in Trnava (2003), defended his doctorate at the Department of Theory and History of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava (2008) and in 2017 was habilitated as an associate professor at the University of Applied Arts in Prague (UMPRUM). He has received several international scholarships, including a Fulbright Scholarship at the City University of New York (2012 - 2013) and International Visegrad Scholarships (2006 and 2007) at Adam Mickiewicz University and Charles University. In addition, he is in charge of the Július Koller Society and co-curated the artist’s first international retrospective, Július Koller One Man Anti Show, MUMOK, Vienna (2015 - 2016). He is the recipient of several awards: the White Cube, the Slovak Council of Galleries Award for Contribution to Gallery Activities (2018), the Art Magazine Kuratorenpreis "Ausstellung des Jahres 2016" (2017) and the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory (2010).

He is the editor and co-editor of several bilingual books, published in Slovakia as well as internationally: Healing Through Sculpture Juraj Gavula and His Work for Architecture (Bratislava: Čierne diery, The Július Koller Society, 2022); White Space in White Space, 1973−1982. Stano Filko, Miloš Laky, Ján Zavarský (Vienna: Schlebrügge.Editor, 2021); Subjective Histories. Self-historicisation as Artistic Practice in Central-East Europe (Bratislava: Veda, 2020); Tomáš Štrauss. Beyond the Great Divide : Essays on European Avant-gardes from East to West (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2020), AMA. Ľubomír Ďurček, Květoslava Fulierová, Július Koller and Amateur Artists (Vienna: Schlebrügge.Editor, 2020); Július Koller One Man Anti Show (Vienna/Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walter König - Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, 2016); Július Koller Galéria Ganku (Vienna, Schlebrügge.Editor, 2014) and is author of the book Archeology of Art Criticism. Slovak Art of the 1960s and its Interpretations (Bratislava: Slovart - Vysoká škola výtvarných umení v Bratislave, 2009).