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terms such as ‘archive theory’, ‘archival theory’ and ‘theories of the archive’ to refer to a range of different writing about archives. 3 The stated assumption of these texts is that there has been an intensifying interest in the archive in the humanities, and that this interest is grounded in, and develops, the writing on archives by different philosophers, historians and cultural theorists. By anchoring the archive art phenomenon in this broader cultural interest in archives, the current chapter
Since technological, philosophical and historical developments contributed to an increased reflection and attention to the archive as place and as notion in the second part of the twentieth century, it would be easy to conclude that contemporary art was just one among a number of different fields affected by this general surge of archival interest. However, the connections between post-war art and archive are so significant that the archive art phenomenon can be approached as a useful raster through which to understand not just specific
, ‘Introduction’, in R. Comay (ed.), Lost in the Archives (Toronto, 2002), pp. 12–15, quote at p. 12.   40 S. Spieker, The Big Archive: Art from Bureaucracy (Cambridge, MA, 2008).  41 S. Osthoff, Performing the Archive: The Transformation of the Archive in Contemporary Art from Repository of Documents to Art Medium (New York, 2009), pp. 23–4, 139–50.  42 H. Foster, ‘An archival impulse’, October, 110 (2004), 3–22. For other examples, see B. von Bismarck et al., Interarchive: Archivarische Praktiken und Handlungsräume im zeitgenössischen Kunstfeld / Archival Practices and 25
contemporary conditions. In this respect, one of Godfrey’s insights in setting out the terms under which ‘artists as historians’ are now gaining significance, concerns an important paradox, one relevant to the question of how Colin Graham’s comments on Post-​Troubles archival art might relate to broader strains of similar practice. Godfrey notes, firstly, that ‘it is important not to lose sight of the localised conditions’ that many of his selected examples ‘confront’.27 A good example here, he claims, is the issue of post-​Communist memory that is central to the Albanian
mid-1920s. The flow of unhindered language received from the unconscious is therefore also processed, filed, and registered, and technologised by the Bureau. Sven Spieker perceptively detailed this aspect of early surrealism in The Big Archive: Art from the Bureaucracy (2008), which discussed the activities of the Centrale as ‘The Bureaucracy of the Unconscious’. Characterising the image of Simone typing, he proffered, ‘Nowhere was early surrealism as close to the office as in the practise of automatic
position she or he takes up in relation to history, institutions, archives, art or life? To consider these questions, I look to the performances of the Kipper Kids, both live and for video, to explore and theorise the specific sensibility they espouse in their on- and off-stage antics, supported by interviews with the artists and a critical engagement with the politics of extremity, of violence and of sabotage. In this chapter’s close, the film K. O. Kippers (1988) narrates and metaphorises a provocative and uncontainable development of the anti-aesthetic in their
overreach (which is by no means limited to the United States, even though this study is) has broadly chilling effects, which can still be felt today from the newsstand to the academy. This book seeks to change that in some small way by taking cues from contemporary artists who have quarried the archives, art, and visual and material cultures of historic gay and lesbian leather communities. They have been on the frontlines of research, and in my mind are greatly, if not wholly, responsible for the incipient recuperation of historic leather aesthetics we are witnessing
, 1978), 168–195: 174. See also, Derrida, ‘The Theatre of Cruelty and the Closure of Representation,’ in Writing and Difference, 232–250. 4 English translations of Artaud’s work were often placed on the walls adjacent to the artwork. 5 In her interview with Jo Anna Isaak, Spero discusses the papers she used for Codex Artaud: ‘I used these archival art papers that were around the studio and glued them together. They are all different types of paper. The first and fourth piece are the same, the second is French vellum, a tracing paper.’ See ‘Jo Anna Isaak in
‘rainbow nation’ 153 the contextual frame or implications around the exhibition’s various venues, which were very much within the domain of state-sanctioned archives: art galleries, museums and the Castle.18 Nevertheless, the Project Media Report concluded that the significant press coverage played ‘a critical role in bringing new audiences to the host institutions and in raising awareness of the significance of the manuscripts and the part played by the South African government in their preservation’ (Heritage Agency, 2009: 5). This conclusion is important when one
) Primary-phase modernisation and city-building (mid nineteenth to late twentieth century) Societal dimensions and dynamics Politico-cultural Nationalist monocultural ideology, identity promotion and public culture Civilisational worldview Nature-mastery and progress Secondary-phase modernisation and urban regeneration (late twentieth to early tenty-first century) Societal dimensions and dynamics Urban places, spaces and institutions Buildings and zones for e.g. Schooling Exhibition and archive (art galleries, museums, libraries); mass public assemblies and parades