Armin Linke:
The City as Archive. Florence

On 6 February 2026, at 5:00pm, the curators Hannah Baader and Costanza Caraffa will offer a guided tour of the exhibition. The tour will be in Italian and is part of the programme accompanying the exhibition.

Please register via cityasarchive@khi.fi.it. Admission is free. 

On the occasion of the exhibition

Armin Linke: The City as Archive. Florence
Curated by Hannah Baader and Costanza Caraffa

An exhibition by the 
Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut 

Housed in the extraordinary spaces of Palazzo Grifoni Budini Gattai, which for years hosted the Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, the exhibition offers a critical and engaging reading of Florence through photographs by Italian-German artist and filmmaker Armin Linke, in dialogue with historical documentary photographs from the Photothek. The exhibition explores archives, museums and collections where works of art, documents, materials and knowledge have sedimented, forming and transforming the image of the city of Florence.

The exhibition features a selection of Florentine museums, archives and collections: from the State Archives of Florence to the Central Herbarium, from the Military Geographical Institute to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, from the Galileo Museum to La Specola, from the Bardini Museum to the Historical Archives of the European Union. This itinerary is linked to a broader discourse on archiving, sedimentation and activation of knowledge, as well as on the production and policies of art and cultural heritage, beyond traditional narratives about Florence.