Cahn’s Quarterly 3/2022 English Edition
Editorial Dear readers This autumn was marked by a mixture of the new and the tried and tested. After more than a year of preparation, the exhibition Empreintes. What is Old in the New and New in the Old finally opened at the Parisian premises of Cahn Contemporary. This solo show, dedicated to the artistic work of the feminist icon Ulrike Ottinger, is totally experimental. It was a great honour for us that Ulrike Ottinger, who was awarded the Hans Thoma Prize by the State of Baden-Württemberg last year, found the time to transform our gallery in Paris into a cosmos of her own, despite her very busy schedule. In the spirit of cinematography, she closed off the rooms against the outside environment and created her own surreal world on the inside. The result is an amazing web of film, photography and works of ancient art, which are presented on revolving platforms. This gives rise to subtle associations that reveal themselves little by little to the patient beholder. Our project complements the retrospective of Ulrike Ottinger's cinematic work at the Centre Pompidou and can be visited until 17 December 2022. A brochure on the exhibition is forthcoming. For further information please visit cahncontemporary.com/ ulrike-ottinger-empreintes. It was a pleasure to participate in the Antike in Basel art fair this November. Many art
Detail from Ulrike Ottinger: Empreintes. What is Old in the New and New in the Old. Solo show, Cahn Contemporary, Bagnolet, France, 20 October – 17 December 2022
lovers came to Basel to support this small event. They enjoyed our exhibition and we were able to acquire new customers. Thank you for your visit and your purchases. Our show Animals and Hybrids can be viewed until 22 December 2022. For further information please visit cahn.ch/exhibitions. I am also very pleased that I have been able to recruit two dedicated young employees who will order and digitize our analogue archives, which have grown over the decades: the archaeologist Charlotte Chauvier, who wrote a remarkable thesis on the painter Asteas and is also involved in provenance research, and the prospective archivist Nico
Piazzalonga, who is mainly responsible for the technical implementation of this project. The most comprehensive knowledge possible of the provenance of an object is essential today, and this project will help us to open up the wealth of information that lies dormant in our card indexes and folders. I can already say that we have made exciting discoveries; we will report on these at a future point in time.
The Debate
The Future of Archaeology By Klaus Fittschen Pondering the future of archaeology only makes sense if the main problem facing humankind namely climate change and all that that entails, is solved. The chances for this look bleak, for although lofty words and noble promises abound, hardly anything is actually being done. Everything is back to how it was before the pandemic; nothing has been learnt. That there will be any interest in a subject as remote as Classical Archaeology in the chaos that will doubtless ensue is scarcely conceivable. CQ
Having said this, the following prognosis can be made. Some developments are already apparent. Digitization, which experienced a major surge as a result of the pandemic, will become even more pervasive. This will have an impact in different areas, but books will be most seriously affected. In the future, specialist journals will be published only or primarily online. For example, since last year the American Journal of Archaeology has been published mainly in
digital form. It remains to be seen whether the new Römische Mitteilungen, currently available online and in print, will be able to maintain this dual form. While the tiresome scrolling back and forth for footnotes and illustrations can be eliminated technically, it is doubtful whether all journals will be able to afford to do so. In any case, the mass of books that have already been digitized will have to do without this. In consequence, footnotes are increasingly being 1