How can queer history not only be preserved, but also kept alive? Romain Pinteaux has been part of the archives at the Schwules Museum since 2022—now he is leaving with a suitcase full of experiences, insights, and research ideas. In conversation, the film and art historian looks back on three eventful years: from cataloguing the Rosa von Praunheim collection to international encounters with queer archivists to his current dissertation between art history and critical medical humanities. Romain talks about his fascination with underground film, his passion for the artist David Wojnarowicz, and why archives are not only places of remembrance for him, but also spaces for self-empowerment, healing, and resistant knowledge.
Yasmin: Hi Romain! Now we’re finally sitting down together again before you leave, I’m so glad! How long have you been at the Sschwules Museum?
Romain: Since September 2022, so just under three years! My last interview with the SMU was almost exactly the same amount of time ago, back when I had just started. I’m happy to be able to talk again, I now have a completely different perspective on the archive.
So you’ve remained loyal to the archive, right?
Sure, I’m still in the archive and the collection.
What do you mean by the collection?
Oh yes, the collection is one of those nuances that wasn’t entirely clear at the Schwules Museum a few months ago. Now, with our new archive and collection manager Julia Hartung, this distinction between written documents and the art collection is much more apparent. I actually studied art history and realized that I was actually more involved with the art collection most of the time.
An art student, I didn’t know that!
Yes, I studied an interdisciplinary bachelor’s degree that included art history and philosophy. Later, I specialized in film studies, especially in my master’s degree. The international master’s program I graduated from took place between Paris, Stockholm, and Montreal; it really enriched my understanding of film and media history.
Very impressive! I heard that you are currently working on your dissertation?
Exactly, I am currently preparing a project. It takes place somewhere between art history and critical medical humanities. It will focus on how queer underground scenes, especially those in Marseille and Berlin, have developed new health policies. In other words, how they have dealt with the issue of disease and fought battles in this area. Of course, I’m particularly interested in the HIV/AIDS crisis, but also in the period before the collectives were founded. For example, many people know what the ACT-UP coalition did around 1987. However, the official beginning of the crisis goes back further, to 1981 – what happened in those six years? Deutsche Aidshilfe became active as early as 1983, which would be a special context that I want to look at as an example.
Can you already outline which topics you will address?
In any case, it will be about recovery, subjectivity, self-narration in the disease, and, of course, marginalization. I also gave guided tours of the archive on these topics last year. For this, I worked extensively with the Jürgen Baldiga estate. Together with Aron Neubert, he created a photo series documenting the progression of his illness, thereby gaining control over this representation. That’s what I’m interested in!
That’s right, you also offer educational programs…
I mean, we always try to activate the archive. I simply enjoy giving tours for the public or for specific groups. The audience is always different; last month, for example, we had a few groups from the US. Otherwise, I also like to participate in panel discussions; last year, for example, I was invited to speak at an event at Delphi-Lux on World AIDS Day.
I find the audience aspect really interesting. Have you gained any new insights from your interactions?
Yes! At the cinema event with Salzgeber, someone from the audience shared their memories from the period when HIV/AIDS was new in Germany. They were a nurse at a Protestant hospital in West Berlin at the time and reported that they had many gay and queer patients. It makes you wonder how that could be in such a religious institution, but precisely because of the religious orientation, sexuality was not discussed, let alone homosexuality. So it was simply not an issue, nor was HIV/AIDS, and the patients were treated normally. She is and was a lesbian herself at the time and also remembered the cognitive dissonance that working in the hospital meant. The end result was that she changed jobs. It’s encounters like this that make me love my work! When we meet artists and activists in the archive, the archive is no longer just a basement where we store things from the past, but a living place where we can rethink and reflect on things together. Of course, this is also about the past, but it can also help us rethink the future, to create a future for our communities together!
That’s really beautifully put! When I think of you, I also think of a global network of archive enthusiasts – I get the feeling that you get around quite a bit with your archival work.
That’s right, and it’s also my favorite part of the job! You might think that an archive is a dusty place, tucked away somewhere in the dark. And while that’s sometimes true, archival work at the Schwules Museum is quite different: our archive, or reading room, is a gathering place for people from all over the world and from all walks of life. Recently, we had people here from an archive center in Vietnam who were having problems getting a queer encyclopedia printed and published. We received a copy of the book and were able to exchange ideas. That’s when I realized that the archive goes beyond its actual premises! And somehow there’s always something fetishistic about meeting strangers in a quiet little room, wearing gloves, talking about sex, sexuality, death, and grief, or looking at erotic nude portraits…
Wow, I wonder if it’s the same at the state archives… Can you tell us more about how you got from film to archives?
When I started as an intern at the SMU, one of my first tasks was to catalog the Rosa von Praunheim collection. Shortly thereafter, I had the opportunity to participate in the documentary film about Jürgen Baldiga, for which I digitized Baldiga’s photos. Shortly thereafter, I became a film sponsor for “Entsichertes Herz” and, together with Salzgeber, spoke a few words on camera for the Queer Film Festival… Such cool opportunities awaited me at the interface between archives and film, and I grew increasingly fond of the archives! When I then had the opportunity to work with Marion Scemama on her film about David Wojnarowicz, I was hooked. (laughs)
Your favorite, I hear…
Yes, Wojnarowicz is really my favorite. Here in the archive, we have produced material about him. This has had a lasting impact on my research question: how do we view this material today, what exactly does the reuse of archive material in contemporary art and contemporary films mean? The HIV/AIDS epidemic has not yet reached its end, but it is still interesting to see what we are doing today with the material from the last four decades!
Why Wojnarowicz, actually?
Two years ago, I co-organized a screening at the Cinémathèque Française, where I presented a film by Wojnarowicz, among others. I got to know him mainly through my research and later through my friendship with the director and photographer Marion Scemama. He was very active as an artist on the New York scene in the 1980s and was also known for his activist skills and activities. At the same time, his films are not that popular—but since I wanted to work on underground film, it seemed like a good fit. I brought something about Wojnarowicz with me today. Would you like to see it?
Definitely! What do we have here?
This is all material related to David Wojnarowicz! I searched for his name in the index of persons at some point and was totally surprised: there really is something there! Normally, the index of persons contains documents about people, for example newspaper articles about XY. But the material here consists of so-called ego documents, i.e. personal documents from the person in question! Such material is actually extremely rare, and when I looked in the envelope for Wojnarowicz, I had very little hope. To my surprise, however, I found this letter, for example: here Wojnarowicz gives Andreas Salmen, the curator of the STOP AIDS Project, permission to translate and use a poster design for an AIDS campaign. The German translation of the poster was first produced for the exhibition “Übers Sofa – auf die Straße! Kunst und schwule Kultur im AIDS-Zeitalter” (Off the sofa – onto the streets! Art and gay culture in the AIDS era) here at the SMU and at the NGbK. Accordingly, we also have this poster in the archive.
Is that the poster with the young child on it?
Exactly. And fun fact: that’s Wojnarowicz himself as a little boy! I think it’s really cool that the text on the poster isn’t explicitly about HIV or AIDS, but rather about homophobia. Even though Wojnarowicz is known as an AIDS activist, he designed the poster before the HIV/AIDS epidemic. And yet his design has found its way into two projects related to this topic. It’s very interesting how the text on the poster refers to the medical system and the treatment of health care workers. At that time, for example, it was commonly believed that homosexuality was a virus in the mind that could be cured! So this stigmatization was already there before. And how activists dealt with this stigma is at the heart of my research. The HIV/AIDS crisis and the activist struggles within it have had a strong influence on the discipline of medical humanities.
So this scientific niche is essentially making use of the movement’s knowledge?
Yes, definitely. The expertise of people who are ill, but also of all other people who have experienced stigmatization in this context, is put to productive use and helps us all to better understand our relationship to medicine, the body, health experts, illness, and death. Of course, this primarily concerns psychosocial aspects, such as awareness of the spaces in which I talk about my status or not. Such knowledge has emerged, for example, from peer support groups that were active in hospitals during the raging crisis, but also founded their own houses to accompany and care for people from the community. I think it’s very powerful that being queer becomes a skill here! Those affected were able to retain their subjectivity without having to be pathologized by doctors.
The tension between queer people and the healthcare system was recently brought to our attention again during the Magnus Hirschfeld Days…
Exactly, this critical perspective is becoming increasingly relevant! And HIV/AIDS is a good starting point for this discussion.
So you’re leaving the SMU with a solid academic foundation, which I think is great! Will you still be connected to the institution in some way?
Definitely, I will continue to give workshops and tours with and about the archive. There will also be some work to do with the database, which I want to finish. But I am really very grateful for my Archival Activist Era here at the SMU! I have gained a lot of self-confidence for myself and my work! The archive team is small with many tasks, which was a great opportunity for me.
A well-used opportunity, I would say!
(laughs) Thank you very much!
Thank you very much, Romain!
Interview and photo: Yasmin Künze