In 2022, one of the highlights of the Archives of Contemporary Arts Collection of Literary Estates at the University for Continuing Education Krems will be the 85th birthday of Julian Schutting, who has donated his papers pre-mortem. Furthermore, the archive plans to become increasingly involved in KOOP-LITERA Austria, a network of institutions that process artistic estates and bequests. The results of this research will be contributed to publications on filmmaker Peter Patzak and composer Kurt Schwertsik.
The Archives of Contemporary Arts Collection of Literary Estates comprises pre-mortem bequests in the fields of music, film, architecture, and literature. To mark the 85th birthday of the author Julian Schutting in October 2022, a volume of scenic-dramatic works will be published in the Literaturedition Niederösterreich, presented in cooperation with the Unabhängiges Literaturhaus Niederösterreich. Due to the new management of the archive, the literary area will be more in focus: As of November 2021, Helmut Neundlinger succeeded the previous director, Christine Rigler. Neundlinger had worked at the Center for Museum Collections Management at the University for Continuing Education Krems since 2014, where he oversaw the literature collection area of the State Collections of Lower Austria.
Archive an institution of research
As it is integrated into a university, the research mission of the Archives of Contemporary Arts Collection of Literary Estate is clear. Through collaborations in a wide variety of fields, the archival materials in Krems are scientifically studied and are thus the subject of a lively discourse. Besides already existing partnerships such as with the Institute for Musicology at the University of Siegen, collaborations with other research institutions are to be initiated, for example with the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and the Institute for Musicology at the University of Vienna. Fermin Suter, University for Continuing Education Krems, will work together with colleagues from the Universities of Bochum and Geneva to initiate a trilateral research cooperation in the field of literature. Two conference proceedings are expected in the new year: on the symposia celebrating the 75th birthday of filmmaker Peter Patzak, who sadly passed away last year, and on the 85th birthday of composer Kurt Schwertsik in 2020.
Cooperation raises visibility
Cooperation with KOOP-LITERA Austria is to be intensified. The aim of this cooperation is to deepen the collaboration with KOOP-LITERA Austria, a network of Austrian institutions that acquire, index, preserve pre-mortem bequests and bequests and open them up to the public. In the next working conference of KOOP-LITERA Austria from 8 to 10 June 2022, at the StifterHaus in Linz, the Archives of Contemporary Arts Collection of Literary Estates will be present to give lectures on the topic of "Stored Feelings - Affects in the Archive."
At the end of 2021, the "Cerha Online" project on the work of composer Friedrich Cerha will be launched, bringing to the public more than 20,358 pages of handwritten scores, sketches, librettos, and arrangements of his own compositions, 1,434 pages of lectures and notes, more than 1,500 pages of correspondence, 480 photographs, posters, concert programs and reviews, critical reports, hundreds of sound and image carriers, videos and DVDs. In this way, the interested public now has access to important sources and documents for musicological research in the field of contemporary music in Austria.