MANDEM—The Anarchronist Archive
From the artist: The "Anarchronist Archive" project is a retrospective of an imagined artist's work: an oeuvre manifested in defiance of the historical erasure of queer and disabled art/artists. The centerpiece is an apocryphal illuminated book, "Metamorphosės," which is intended to be touched and read (not behind glass). Other work by the fictive artist is also exhibited, including archivally-framed pages, photographs, studies/sketches, paintings, and other (forged) artifacts, creating an immersive experience.
We propose two overlapping realities. In the one, a contemporary artist (Mandem) is exhibiting newly-created work. In the other, an exhibit celebrates a mid-19th century artist whose body of work has been restored from various stages of decay and destruction.
The bound book includes manual and mechanical illumination, albumen prints, hand-colored photography, and palimpsests of text. (This forgery also functions as an "artist's book" in the contemporary sense.) The audience is encouraged to touch, read, and explore it — a multi-sensory interaction usually forbidden with fine art objects and rare historical manuscripts alike. If/when the book requires mending, "scars" remain as testimony to both the damage and the repair. The object’s vulnerability in the hands of the audience is part of the concept (the erasure of boundaries between the artist’s work and body — corpus and corps — are embedded in the text/imagery of the work).
Evoking the aura of a rare book archive or art historical exhibit allows the audience to suspend disbelief; the work, therefore, appears prophetic in its relevance to contemporary concerns and modern events. Part of the magic of storytelling — and particularly of telling mythological, magical, impossible stories — is this: when the impossible has been accepted (even for a moment), whatever remains of the improbable has room to become truth.
This project draws upon our own lived experiences and from our research as art history scholars in the fields of queer and disabled aesthetics. This forgery is a declaration of self-creation, reclaiming a legacy — of queerness, neurodivergence/disability, and Otherness — that has been systematically ignored/erased. We are creating a small pocket of historical dreaming, but this work will take care not to falsify the larger historical experiences of oppression or the continued marginalization of at-risk groups and individuals.