The book is what remains.
(…)
An artist’s so-called catalogue raisonné lays claim to a degree of completeness; it is a representation of all the works created up to a particular point, a reference work. It’s also a way to draw relationships between different series and to define one’s artistic biography. Inevitably, the catalogue raisonné and the archival entail a form of closure and classification, leaving ample space between the selected works for interpreting the intentions and biographical circumstances that may have underpinned the works. Dörte Eißfeldt’s approach rejects this form of final classification; despite its photographic nature, her archiving practice tells of process, change, and movement. She utilizes her artistic design abilities to define not only the components of her archive, but also the conditions of its intent. This definition primarly serves to emphasize fluidity—fluidity in the artistic process, fluiditiy through the passage of time, but also a fluidity that requires us as viewers to again and again encounter Eißfeldt’s works from a variety of perspectives.
Find the complete essay in Dörte Eißfeldt, Stehen Liegen Hängen, Distanz Verlag 2024.