Terms

Archive-like Art

Usually we think of art as something that helps us envisage new futures and open new horizons to present to society. This is an optimistic approach of art, one that has worked for almost two hundred years now; and it forms the basis of the modern and vanguard art programs. However, in recent decades there has emerged a certain disappointment with the future, and the notion of vanguard itself has come to an end.

Instead, it has been proposed that our understanding of art should shift, from the old, fashionable position of the avant-garde to a position of "arrière-garde". This is the place to adopt an attitude closer to resistance rather than anticipation, or a focus based more in cultural analysis rather than anachronistic transgression. 

It is when taking into consideration this turn to the arrière-garde that the question of the archive as a crucial point in contemporary artistic production springs up. On the one hand, the archive is taken as a source of cultural analysis from an institutional approach: the archive appears as the space where memories are kept and where the social rules, laws and protocols can be regulated. On the other hand, the archive appears as a space or freedom: in contrast to the library or the museum display, the archive embodies a higher level of heterogeneity throughout the body its content and in so doing allows more possibilities for the rearranging of historical narratives.  

  • Cultures d'Arxiu

    at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Barcelona, 2000

    Photograph: Lluís Bover. © Fundació Antoni Tàpies

    Available under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

  • Cultures d'Arxiu

    at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Barcelona, 2000

    Photograph: Lluís Bover. © Fundació Antoni Tàpies

    Available under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

  • re.act.feminism #2.

    A Performing Archive at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Barcelona, 2012

    Photograph: Lluís Bover. © Fundació Antoni Tàpies

    Available under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

  • re.act.feminism #2.

    A Performing Archive at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Barcelona, 2012

    Photograph: Lluís Bover. © Fundació Antoni Tàpies

    Available under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

  • re.act.feminism #2.

    A Performing Archive at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies. Barcelona, 2012

    Photograph: Lluís Bover. © Fundació Antoni Tàpies

    Available under a CC BY-NC-SA license.

“Discovering Art” is an educational portal where you can discover interesting facts about art and museums of art.

The online portal Discovering Art is the collaborative effort of four institutions:

Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Fundació Antoni Tàpies from Barcelona, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina and Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Koroška from Slovenj Gradec.

The portal is part of the European project Performing the Museum.

Creative Europe
PerMuse