Archiving: Theory and Practice, Art-Omma.org

Archiving: Theory and Practice edited by Nayia Yiakoumaki

The notion of the archive and archiving and the response of artists to the methodologies instructed by these notions are the principal concerns of a current research which focuses upon the institutional archives and their curatorial potential. For this issue of Art-Omma I made a call for essays to authors whom their engagement with art is from different standpoints. All the authors have dealt with the notion of the archive and have investigated this area either through theoretic work, art practices or curatorial projects.

TEXTS:

Hal Foster's text Archives of Modern Art focuses on sketching the significant shifts in the dominant archival relations that obtained among modern art practice, art museum, and art history in the West circa 1850 to 1950. (.pdf)

Nayia Yiakoumaki's In An Archive Fever is an examination of the archive as a rigidity in flux considering the great interest of curators and artists in institutional archives taking as impetus Derrida's Archive Fever.

Andrew Renton's and Kitty Scott's Bankside Browser emerges from the first Browser project held in Vancouver in 1997 and anticipates a place and an archive which has yet to accrue to it.

Anna Harding's POTENTIAL: ongoing archivelooks at the processes of sorting and organising information opened to scrutiny by artists. She investigates it in practice with a curatorial initiative POTENTIAL: ongoing archive which took place at the John Hansard Gallery Southampton.

Elpida Karaba'sThoughts on an archive project considers the curatorial possibilities of archives and looks at the role of the curator as the creator of systems of networking established by 'living' archives. She takes as a case study Charta project an archive of artists living and working in the Balkans.

Naomi Salaman's The Taxonomic Effectis drawn from her work as an artist for the project Nothing is Hidden and examines the implications of the taxonomical ordering of 19th century museums and the systems applied for the organisation of their collections, in a manner that veils the shameful and the indecent.
N.Y



Notes on contributors

Hal Foster is Townsend Martin '17 Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University.
Ella Gibbs
is an artist based in London. Gibbs combines a broad collaborative and research approach in her work, providing platforms for a range of activities from live events to archiving. She often invites audiences to inform the process and outcome of work. She was a co founder of Belt, a live project space in East London that embraced a wide range of disciplines from science to music, technology and the arts over four years.

Anna Harding is an independent curator, writer and educator. She was Programme Director of the MA Creative Curating at Goldsmiths College 1995-2003 and formerly Curator/Director of Kettle's Yard in Cambridge and Exhibitions Organiser at Camerawork in London. She has written and edited various publications including Curating: The Contemporary Art Museum and Beyond, Art and Design 1997.

Elpida Karaba is an independent curator and teaches Art Theory in Vakalo School, Athens. She studied Philoshopy at the University of Athens. She did her Master degree at City University, London in Arts Theory and Criticism. She continued her research at Goldsmiths College at the Department of Creative Curating.

Andrew Renton is Director of the Curatorial Programme, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Kitty Scott is Curator of Contemporary Art at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

Naomi Salaman is an artist currently researching at Goldsmiths College, Department of Fine Arts. She has realised a number of curatorial projects and publications. Projects include: The Academies a research project documenting the Art Academies in Europe and Changed Press Marks a limited edition artwork on microfilm.

Nayia Yiakoumaki is an artist and curator. She is currently researching at Goldsmiths College at the Department of Creative Curating. Recent projects include A-Topia at the Goethe Institute, Athens and FeedBack at the Whitechapel Gallery, London.