10.5 Guasch - Art and Archive 1920-2010

Roots-Routes » Burning archivesArt and archive: 1920-2010. G... http://www.roots-routes.org/2011/03/31/3573/ Pagine HOME [ ARCHIVIO [ CALL 4 SUBMISSION [ CHI SIAMO [ CONTATTI [ LINK [ NON ABBONAMENTO Burning archives Art and archive: 1920-2010. Genealogy, tipologies and discontinuity di Anna Maria Guasch giovedì, marzo 31, 2011 . . Antoni Muntadas, The file Room, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago 1994. Instalación The Banff Center Canadá. Fotógrafo: Tara Nicholson /Muntadas/Database Imaginary (Walter Phillips Gallery) . I would like to begin this talk by pointing out the need to frame the discussion around the term “archive”, in order not to explain some artistic practices scattered throughout the XX and XXI centuries (especially in three historical periods: the years 20/30, 60/80 years ; 90s until today) but also to try to establish what we mean by “archive” and “archival turn” as a “modus operandi” between art, literature and historiography from the early 20th century to the present. I have just mentioned the need to narrow down the wide term archive and, in my view, this boundedness implies to address the idea of archive to its original concept ,from the greek world and from this, recover it in the context of positivism in the late nineteenth century with the Principle of Provenance in 1881 discussed as a literal use of archive. But, what it is most important for our proposal, is to switch to a more indirect or metaphorical uses (linked to Freud’s psychoanalysis, on one hand and, on the other, related to literary assembly techniques of Benjamin as well as to the techniques of Dada montage (collage, photomontage). Our first encounter with the archive as a creative strategy came with the findings of the critical text: “Warburg’s Paragon? Collage in The End of Postwar Europe by Benjamin Buchloh1 an essay in which Buchloh examined the “growing enigmatic nature of the work of European artists who accumulated collections of photographs from the decade of the sixties including Bernd & Hilla Becher, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers and Gerhard Richter. Works distinguished by their homogeneity and continuity (as in the case of Becher), and for their heterogeneity and discontinuity (as in Richter). Following Buchloh, the archive appeared, not only in these artists, but as a “continuum” embracing different practices, from Benjamin’s Passages to the Warburg Atlas project, from to the work of photographers associated with the New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) to the Hanna Höch and Rodchenko’s photomontages or even the pedagogical panels of Malevich. And, more importantly, Buchloh came to the conclusion that this new “paradigm” could not be understood neither under the terms of the avant-garde associated to the principles of immediacy, shock and fragmentation, nor with the terms traditionally used from the history of photography (documentary photography, topography, photojournalism). Everything seemed, Buchloh argued, the organization of both didactic and technical illustrations that serve as catalogs for administrative or archival projects with a few precedents in the history of the historic avant- garde. This discussion was followed, among others, by Hal Foster that in the essay of “Modern Art Archives”2 clearly placed Michel Foucault as the source of introduction of the notion of archive in the contemporary philosophical reflection. Again Foster, in an essay of 2004, “The Archival Impulse”3, extended Craig Owens´allegorical impulse with whom he had baptized many of the practical appropriation of the decade of the eighties4 to the archival Impulse that tracked artists such as Thomas Hirshorn, Sam Durant, Tacita Dean, Douglas Gordon, Liam Gillick, Stan Douglas, Pierre Huygen, Philippe Parreno, Mark Dion and Renée Green. Perhaps in this sense, Foster’s happiest intuition was to realize that the ideal of the archive would be the Internet “megarchive” and the rhetoric of “interactivity”, pointing out how some of the most recurrent terms in the recent contemporary art, such as platforms, evoke the “networks” of electronic archives. Okwui Enwezor has also joined the use and abuse of the term archive in the exhibition Archive Fever. Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art (2008)5, although only explored a possible reading of the archive, linking it to photograph and document. Apart of putting together artists like Boltanski, Tacita Dean, Stan Douglas, Harun Farocki, Hans Peter Feldman, among others, perhaps the most interesting issue was the need for an epistemological context (from Foucault to Derrida) to “ensure that the archive not only preserves the past or takes action against contemporary forms of amnesia, but it is a place where the suture between past and present is located in an indeterminate zone between the 1 of 5 4/29/15 3:00 PM Interesting question which Derrida developed in 1994.” It is under these parameters that we can understand the project of Bernd (1931-2007) & Hilla Becher (1934). of gathering together”7. which stipulated that archive documents must be available in strict accordance with the order in which they had been accumulated in the place in where they were originated before being transferred to the archive. mechanical sequence.6 according to the criteria: function. Christian Boltanski. questioned whether the structure of the psychic apparatus.. continued with interruptions between 1930 and 1934 and continued more systematically since 1937 until his death in 1940). material and structural shapes. gravel pits. proposes a new structure of thought and knowledge neither interested in the “interpretation of the document” nor in the history of ideas from concepts such as the genesis or the continuity but only “the bare experience of its order. albums. The archive based on the object culture and the logic of material memory systems and the archive-based in virtual information that follows a rationality closer to the flexible and non stable. lattice extraction. These images are to be classified by type (towers or water tanks. photography was the “technology model” of a new transparent and homogeneous society. visual art coincidentally taking a common context or historical background: the Germany of the Weimar Republic. but that seems overtaken by technological generations own magic slate. which are much more sophisticated tools that the “magic block”. psychoanalytic contributions justifies the this “turn” and. In both cases. Bernd & Hilla Becher. lime kilns. as it occurs with Foucault´s stataments. inventory. These have been some of the references I have used to create my own cartography on the practices of the archive. as Derrida pointed out in his seminal essay The Archive Fever. Derrida himself. and hence for fragmentation. following a chronological and historical approach from 1920 up to the present. (Without law). In the first case. The Archive and the photography: The beginning. or partition.roots-routes.org/2011/03/31/3573/ document and the monument”6. 60´s Let´s move to another important chapter of archival turn: which corresponds to the artistic practices of the sixties and seventies. Berlin. In both cases. by registering through various typologies (hence the use of inventories. in an absolute manner. according to the scientific mind of the nineteenth century. Everything close to the “historical a priori” of Foucault and his theory of statements. repetition. which is not a proposition or a sentence and only refers to the “materiality” of what is said as such. photography soon proved itself as a highly suitable instrument. prefabricated warehouses). And in second case. .or simulations of living things. the system that Freud associated with the magic slate toy. to delimit the archive current practices in line with the concepts of principle (arkhe) and consignation. In his The Archaeology of Knowledge10 Foucault. On the contrary of the work of Becher. and the use of serial systems: inventories. Hanne Darboven. a visual and thematic archive Warburg began to work with in 1925: the method of a archive reports a kind of critical work to the notion of linear history since the Enlightenment in the search for the notion of history as “harvesting” (Benjamin) or “memory” (Warburg). in particular. who since 1957 photograph in a programmatic way industrial anonymous architectures that..” (Note on the Mystic Pad)8 “have presented an accurate description of the psyche in a mode of archive. beyond any kind of evocation or empathy and allusion both subjective and objective). seriality. in the words of Derrida. coal silos. the principle of consignation in the sense that the act of consigning is not only to enter the residence or place an artifact in a particular place. of an ideal configuration: “In an archive. with which the photograph was identified impersonating archive as a non-hierarchical worldview. thesauri. The idea of photography as a kind of archive is present from the earliest days of photography. . For these artists. grain silos. secondly. literary. blast furnaces. in the early decades of the century. . and the historiographic by Aby Warburg in his Mnemosyne Atlas.Roots-Routes » Burning archivesArt and archive: 1920-2010. the law. Atlas 2 of 5 4/29/15 3:00 PM . that is. I would speak of a first relationship with the scientific concept of archive in the positivist context of the nineteenth century (based on the principle of provenance – Provenienzprinzip. cooling towers.the psychic apparatus to be better represented by different technological tools to archive and play – the so-called live memory prosthesis. while respecting the autonomy and individuality of each image. any heterogeneity or secret which could separate (secernere) . I think we should establish two large “machines” of the archive: one that emphasizes the principle of nomos (or law) and the topographical order. I would like to refer to the German New Objectivity photographers. and supporting our thesis of the two machines file. . the literary as in the case of Walter Benjamin and his unfinished project Das Passagen-Werk9 (The Arcades Book) beginning in 1927. art history. 1881). the method is not based on a linear homogeneous system but it is articulated by heterogeneities and discontinuities. TWO ARCHIVE MACHINES In this sense. among other archival structures or archival materials) but always in terms of specific regularities and. oblivion. Albert Patzsch Renger and above all August Sander (1876-1964) that was the first ones to replace photomontage for archive keeping an eye on the nineteenth-century archival model and its emphasis on the topological origin (not semantic) and positivist knowledge. amnesia and deletion. we can discover. with two apparently irreconcilable forces: the need to recover the memory in this case linked to the events of Trauma and the devastating effects of World War II. According to Derrida. there should not be any absolute dissociation. Annette Messager. may or may not resist the technological developments of the archive: Could – asks Derrida. and this will be discussed in the works of Gerhard Richter (Atlas). and second. gas holders. The archontic principle of the archive is also a principle of consignation. such as Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) and his collection of photographs of plants that were never used for artistic purposes but teaching. among others the use of the methodology of the archive is shifting concepts of “implosion” (pathos. The “archive fever” means a drive by storing. Freud in the text of 1925 “Notiz über den Wünderblock. but coordinate a single “corpus” in a system or a synchrony in which all elements articulate the unity. atlases. the larger project of Gernard Richter (1932). photography. Stanley Brouwn. Benjamin-Warburg In the same vein. in analyzing the potential impact of Freud´s “magic block or mystic pad” (1925). for classification. simultaneously. built an archive in the form of inventory. that accentuates the contradictory actions of storing and saving and. of buildings arising from the industrial revolution in Europe and the United States that threatened their demise. forgetting and destroying traces of the past. On Kawara. I would like to bare in mind two clear objectives: firstly to delimit the epistemological field that from the philosophical. G. The Mystic Pad would indeed be a “machine archive” incorporating the drive of “preservation” and at the same time one of the destruction. Dieter Roth. beyond issues related to documentary. In this sense. taxonomies and typologies that share a lack of interest in the interpretation in favor for the discursive construction of indexical memory. . shock effect) and collage and photomontage in benefit of new concepts such as index. serial monotony. Machines that we could also study in relation to the archive physical nature. another way to understand the archive related to psychoanalysis. 20´s and 30´s Let´s begin refering to a first period of the “archival turn” of the archive in which we can see how these two archival machines move in different fronts and different disciplines (literature. a drive that informs an anomic principle. And in order to create this cartography. indeed. not ordered linearly and independently of any hierarchy. but from another point of view. http://www. Salónica 2007. adopting a more “intuitive” (or anomic) way and less constrained by the formal system that dominated the 60s and 70s.. psychoanalysis would not have been what it was if the e-mail. One of the members of the curatorial team. The Atlas Group. becomes a flow of data. which will leads us to conclude our conference: the immaterial condition of the archive that relates the psychoanalysis of Freud with the archive on the Internet.) Rather than storage. for example. Daniel García Andujar have transformed the nature of the archive. art works) stored in certain places. This. to navigation and to the hyperlinks that connect the pieces of information. As Derrida says: “In the past. 90´s TO NOW A new chapter in this genealogy of the archival turn is the moment that begins in the nineties with the so-called “archive fever”. a change in orientation that is evident in the flow of projects in the network beyond physical geography and material9. is on the way to transforming the entire public and private space of humanity. some artists like Muntadas (The File Room. Portada del boletín número 1. 1994). 3 of 5 4/29/15 3:00 PM .12 . (Cortesía del artista). books.org/2011/03/31/3573/ began in 1962 and still active today who (5530 photographs both black and white and color (photographs found and own). from the moment E-mail. Romero. Storing Art11 in 1998-99. for example. 1994-1997. without any time restriction (only available here and now. Romero. and the public or the phenomena”. now is the exchange which has become the main function archivist. so the online digital archive is characterized by a continuous flow of data (the equivalent of “impressions” in Freudian psychoanalysis). rather than being a set of objects (folders. Before this inaugural exhibition. working and thinking outside the archive. with the subsequent displacement of the notion of storage. Pedro G.. even more than the fax. regardless of any geography or container. In the framework of this new culture of memory linked to the “digital culture” and of the archive that since 1994. and first of all the limit between the private. or in other words a theory of memory (in what is known as “magic block” – der Wünderblock). G.” . emphasizes the irregularity which inevitably puts us in the “universal reign of anomie. Archiving. the secret (private or public). the “archive fever” came from the hand of Derrida and his lecture-text delivered at the North London Freud House in London in 1994. Documentos y materiales.roots-routes. Vera Frenckel. http://www. Body Missing. . had existed.Roots-Routes » Burning archivesArt and archive: 1920-2010. In the same way that the theory of psychoanalysis is transformed into a theory of the archive. Ingrid Schaffner explained in the catalogue how the notion of “storage” makes reference to both memory (things kept as souvenirs) and history (as information salved) without forgetting the “virtual” (or immaterial) as an almost ideal way to preserve and keep the same material culture. . This use of a less systematic methodology and a system seemingly irrational was seen in the first exhibition devoted to this archive fever or archive turn: Deep Storage Archive: Collecting. Pedro G. in where Derrida advances one of his most brilliant insights. classification and retrieval of information. without geography and without time restrictions. And in the future it will no longer be what Freud and so many psychoanalysts have anticipated. became possible” And Derrida argues: “I also privilege the e-mail for a more important and obvious reason: because electronic mail today. 4 of 5 4/29/15 3:00 PM . .org/2011/03/31/3573/ Daniel Garcia Andújar. 2009 (cortesía del artista). http://www.. G.. 1989-2001.Roots-Routes » Burning archivesArt and archive: 1920-2010. La Comunidad Inconfesable.roots-routes. Postcapital Archive. James Strachey. 2002. Rolf Tiedemann). I think the use of the archive in contemporary art practice not only has developed new strategies by which to contest the constitutive a repository for pure facts. Art and archive © 2011 Roots-Routes. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1Benjamin Buchloh. 1998 and Settale. p. Storing and Archiving in Art. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago and London. 117-145. New York. as a site in which creative productivity occurs in conjunction with dissemination. ed. Frankfurt am Main. P. 3-22. London. - Tags: Anna Maria Guasch. vol. p. pp. Deep Archive Storage. the global era.1 Contemporary Art Center and Seattle . October 99 . op. 1980. P. New York. 5Archive Fever. such as the historical heritage (the historical facts). Spring. Designed by Wordpress Theme Designer 5 of 5 4/29/15 3:00 PM . The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). related to the library and the museum. pp. 227-232. (en prensa). New York. the connected peripheries. Haper Torchbooks. Henry Art Gallery. A Freudian Impression. 11Deep Storage. 46-47. 67-86. October 12. Richter´s Atlas: The Anomic Archive”. San Francisco. A time. Fall 2004. “Archives of Modern Art”.roots-routes. and Archiving in Art. 9Walter Benjamin.Roots-Routes » Burning archivesArt and archive: 1920-2010. LATINOAMERICA AND BEYOND. 8Sigmund Freud. An expanded text was published on October 88. 12J. “The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism”. Archive Fever. October 110. . 19. 1998-1999. Texas. 3Hal Foster. “A Note Upon the Mystic Writing Pad” (1925). 1972. 7Jacques Derrida. Das Passagen-Werk (ed. And this era seems much closer to the archaeological-archival system that’s hierarchical. 81-95. Winter. “Warburg´s Paragon? The End of Collage and Photomontage in Postwar Europe”. but acquires its full meaning in a time with the ongoing sophistication of the digital domain. New York. pp. Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art. pp..S. The Hogarth Press. 4Craig Owens. London. indexicality and fragmentation. Spring 1999 with the title “G. 50-60 . the conversation. Collecting. International Center of Photography.1 Contemporary Art Center. 1998-1999.- Published in ART AND ARCHIVES. The archive acts. All Rights Reserved Developed by PSD to Wordpress . related to the capitalism of communication and the informational theory the rhizome of the hyper mobility.. 2Hal Foster..S. Henry Art Gallery. University of Texas. then. Collecting.org/2011/03/31/3573/ To conclude. pp.. “An Archival Impulse”. 1961. 17. G. the nomadic. Storing. 10Michel Foucault. http://www. Derrida. 6Ibid. cit. Suhrkamp Verlag. in The Standard Edition of Freud´s Works. 2008. pp. 1982. 3. pp. 1996.