Art + Archive: Understanding the Archival Turn in Contemporary Art

Anyone who has had even casual contact with the artworld over the last two decades would be familiar with its ardent references to the archive: both as a literal material site housing historical and photographic documents, but also as a notion that seems to capture many of the most pressing concerns of the contemporary moment. This book examines the function and meaning of the archive in critical and curatorial writing as well as in artworks and artistic practices in the years 1995-2015. It does so by outlining the concepts that support and reinforce the notion of the archive in an art context, and by analysing its grounding in wider social, historical, cultural, epistemological and technological conditions. Although much has been written about archive art--a collective term for artworks seen to mobilize the archive in different ways--there has yet to be an in-depth academic study that goes beyond the overt references to the archive in specific artworks and practices. This book sets out to rethink the so-called "archival turn" by firmly anchoring it in post-war art theory as well as within the theorization and critique of archives within other disciplines and contexts.