부산대학교 도서관

The role of the curator has gradually shifted from someone concerned with conservation and care of objects, to a creative force behind thematic exhibitions. The curator thus becomes an auteur in his/her own right. The surge in archival references at the turn of the twenty-first century coincided in large part with the escalation of thematic exhibitions created by well-known curators. Additionally, many of the texts that launched and developed the idea of an archival moment in art practice were written by curators, and the very notion of the archive was theorised as a connective framework that, like curating, brings disparate parts into a whole. This chapter discusses the connection between the notion of curating and the notion of the archive, and considers both how the archival artist is often viewed as a curator, and how the curator is described as being more like an artist. The practice of restaging historical exhibitions and exhibiting well-known curators’ archival material is considered part of the archive art phenomenon and indicative of a desire to historicise and grant authority to curatorial practice. Critical and pragmatic concerns are also shown to be behind various curatorial practices – by artists and curators – as these often purport to exhibit previously hidden or under-represented material.
Art + archive: Understanding the archival turn in contemporary art examines the meaning and function of the notion of the archive in art writing and artistic practices c. 1995–2015. The book takes on one of the most persistent buzzwords in the international artworld, adding nuance and context to a much-discussed but under-analysed topic.The study’s first part outlines key texts about archive art, the interdisciplinary theories these build on, and the specific meaning the archive comes to have when it is brought into the artworld. The second part examines the archive art phenomenon in relation to materiality, research, critique, curating and temporality. Instead of approaching the archive as an already defined conceptual tool for analysing art, the book rethinks the so-called archival turn, showing how the archive is used to point to, theorise and make sense of a number of different conditions and concerns deemed to be urgent and important at the turn of the twenty-first century. These include the far-reaching implications of technological changes; the prevalence of different forms of critique of normative structures; changes to the view of the art object; and the increasing academicisation of artistic practices. This book shows that the archive is adaptable and elastic, but that it is also loaded with a great deal of theoretical baggage. It clarifies why, how and with what consequences the archive is referenced and mobilised by contemporary artists and art writers.