Custodians of art's stories

Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong's go-to destination for resources on art in the region, is celebrating its 20th anniversary through two simultaneous exhibitions. A report by Chitralekha Basu.

It's possible to miss some of the pieces in Asia Art Archive's Learning What Can't Be Taught exhibition, now showing in its library. Video installations are tucked away in between rows and rows of books and journals marked with fluorescent spine labels. Filing cabinet walls double as display boards.

The homey, informal and understated look of the show seems aligned to the ethos of its hosts.

One of Hong Kong's premier independent resource centers for art history, AAA is probably ahead of its peers in terms of the volume of documentation and research it has accumulated. Its collection of over 100,000 records is matched by the hundreds of programs the organization has initiated, led, hosted, facilitated or supported since its founding in 2000.

AAA runs a mobile library in Nepal. It has collaborated with the Atassi Gallery toward safekeeping the archives documenting works by contemporary artists from conflict-ravaged Syria and spearheaded an ongoing initiative to connect the art histories of Africa, South and Southeast Asia. The list goes on.

And yet at the non-profit's library cum display room in a high-rise on Hollywood Road one doesn't quite get a sense of the man-hours spent by AAA employees (around 40 in Hong Kong, five in New Delhi), co-workers and collaborators who helped build this remarkable body of work. Evidently, the spirit embodying the space favors well-coordinated, quiet work, driven by a common purpose.