Kunstlicht is a Dutch journal for visual art, visual culture and architecture. It is affiliated with VU University Amsterdam. For more information (in Dutch), see www.tijdschriftkunstlicht.nl

Kunstlicht’s third 2011 issue will focus on what Hal Foster called the ‘archival impulse’ among artists. In the last decades a variety of artists have displayed an urge to collect, select, arrange and exhibit extensive bodies of (either found or produced) material. While sharing a common central idea, the motivations and objectives to assemble such collections differ greatly. Some ‘archives’ are intended as Warburgian mnemonic projects, some function as medial amalgamations to bypass formalism, others are meditations on the ‘order of things’ or in fact autobiographical reconstructions. Yet in all cases the organization of the material is crucial. Whether it is Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, Gerhard Richter’s ongoing Atlas project, Tacita Dean’s ‘collections’ or Sam Durant’s ‘combinations’, ultimately it is the shape of the structure that is decisive in the disclosure of meaning. This phenomenon is not limited to the visual arts since 1960. For instance, in the ‘private museums’ of architect Sir John Soane (1753-1837) and painter Gustave Moreau (1826 –1898) the objects on display seem to ‘speak’ through the way they are ordered. What is the relation between the system and the substance, the framework and the infill? How do the archives come about? How are they shaped? Kunstlicht invites (young) scholars to send in a proposal for a paper that innovatively discusses this ‘archival impulse’, by means of critical reflection on the general development or the analysis of a relevant case study.

Proposals (200-300 words) can be sent to redactie@tijdschriftkunstlicht.nl. The deadline is July 29. Selected authors will be asked to write a paper of 2.000-3.500 words (excluding notes). The deadline for the first version of the paper is September 9. Proposals and papers may be written in either English or Dutch.

Authors who publish in Kunstlicht receive three complimentary copies. Kunstlicht does not provide an author’s honorarium. Two years after publication, papers in Kunstlicht will be included in freely accessible online archive at www.tijdschriftkunstlicht.nl/site/index.php/archief.