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Mining the Archive

Issue 19:1 | March 1999

Guest editor Zara Stanhope. Reflects a range of recent artistic and curatorial responses to particular collections as well as considerations of the nature of archival material and knowledge in the broader sense.

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In this issue

Polemic: Object and Text

"So the question raised for art theory is this....Is a physical autographic sculpture - a Brancusi woodcarving for example - only an 'instantiation'(albeit rather a privileged one) of some imperceptible, intentional object that is the 'real' sculpture? Are sculptures more literally than metaphorically - 'poetry in stone'? Are they in a word 'texts' whose proper reading (as we are told) had best be undertaken in French?"

Donald Brook
Four Shoes Many Signs

Four artist's projects initiated by the National Gallery of Victoria engage contemporary art practices and the role of the museum and public galleries as mediators between the collections and the viewers. Impacts on policies regarding the moral rights of artists.

Jason Smith
Artists and Collections: a working partnership

The notion of the artist working with the museum collection is not new. Historically, artists have drawn inspiration from museums and their diverse collections - archaeological, ethnographic, medical, botanical and zoological- as a basis for academic studies and finished works.

Rachel Kent
Is there an Artist in the Museum?

Examines two multi-site exhibitions Archives and the Everyday, Canberra Contemporary Art Space September/October 1997 curated by Trevor Smith: and Collected, Photographer's Gallery London June 1997 curated by Neil Cummings. The museological urge in artists has for some time been a part of contemporary practice...leading to the new museology.

Merryn Gates
The TMAG Commissions 1998
Here at the end of the twentieth century, the world is having to come to terms with the socio-political, economic and environmental legacies of nineteenth century imperialism. Contemporary art participates in this post colonial discourse: issues of ancestry and inheritance, relations between indigenous and settler peoples, national and imperial mythology, mapping and borders, migration and language, ecology and exploitation - these are increasingly familiar themes.
David Hansen
Fabricating Archives: Six New Zealand Artists confuse the system
In New Zealand, conceptual and post conceptual artists from the 1970s to the present have incorporated various references to the archive; its contents, classificatory systems and its institutional adjuncts, the library, the art gallery and the museum.
Christina Barton
Wunderkammern: Actual and Virtual
The notion of the Wunderkammern is discussed in the work of Shiralee Saul (an on-line hypertextual essay for the World Wide Web WWW) and Luke Roberts ( a series of exhibitions from 1990 onwards).
Beth Jackson
Market Mark-Art: Forgotten Fruit
In the final stages of the demolition of the old Adelaide fruit and vegetable markets, Margaret Dodd and Jennifer Hughes collaborate to produce an installation which caught the echoes of the history displayed in situ at the markets.
Noel Purdon
Photosynthesis: Two approaches
The photograph as a source and subject for photographic practice iteself is characteristic of the work of a great many artists today. Tracey Moffatt and Margaret Dawson's works are considered. Each draws on photographs which precede their own, but work in markedly different ways.
Clare Williamson
Debra Phillips: List
'List' examines Phillips recent investigations into issues of memory, history and renown, and the structuring of such through systems of language representation and communication. The work traverses the worlds of royalty, theatre, film, science, politics, literature and fashion. The images range across a period of 150 years.
Blair French
Elizabeth Gertsakis: Tampering with the Archive
Elizabeth Gertsakis has excavated her family histories and Greek/Slavic heritage as part of understanding difference as a critical space of knowing. It is not an attempt to 'position' or 'locate' herself in Anglo Australian culture or in the art world, but to understand the mechanisms that produce dominant cultural histories and resultant exclusions.
Brett Jones
Psychology of Retrieval: Personal and Fictional Archives
How can (traumatic) memories be excavated? Many visual artists use records and material objects as documentation with which to resurrect their past experience and those of their families. Often using literary means, visual artists who archive their past employ text as well as images in poetic and haunting ways. Quotation and citation form the kernel of this pychology of retrieval and act of preservation.
Natalie King
Parallax Error
Working within the context of the Percy Grainger (1882-1961) collection, artists Louise Weaver and Carolyn Eskdale created an installationwithin the architecture and material culture of the building. In 1998 composer and sound artist Ros Bandt created an installation for the Museum's courtyard.
Naomi Cass
History and Memory
History and meaning are very much at the centre of an important exhibition in WA of Aboriginal art. Many of the artists draw on personal or family memory, while others use documentary evidence of the past. Parallel to these individual histories is the history of government policy and its impact on groups and individuals.
Philippa O'Brien
Time Traveller: An Interview with Kim Donaldson
Explores three exhibitions by Kim Donaldson. 'From the Lecture: A reminder of life', 'From the Museum: Supplementary files' and 'It's about time'. These exhibitions reflect the artist's continuing obsession with time, absence and mortality.
Susie Shears
Archives After the Seventies and After
Brown and Green are well known for their meticulously produced paintings, often involving the layering and juxtaposition of competing forms and histories. They continue to paint though photography has now assumed a major position in their practice. These photographs function as archives without narrative: scrambled mythology.
Tom Nicholson
Going Over Old Ground
The artist discusses the research for her exhibition entitled 'The Private Eye- a foreigner's power of observation'. Held in regional Victoria 1998.
Vicki McConville
A Dream of Earthly Organisation
Not only are artists fascinated with images and objects - it has been estimated that half the adult world population has been a collector at some point in their life. A number of different projects have been instigated by artists considering what it means to collect and archive.
Zara Stanhope
Vault: A Collaborative Installation Cluster
Ian North and Helen Fuller 12 November - 6 December 1998 Experimental Art Foundation
Lisa Harms
The Fleurieu Biennale 1998
McLaren Vale Fleurieu Peninsula 6 - 29 November 1998
Michael Newall
Underbelly
November 22 to December 20 Cosmopolitan Cinema and Shopping Arcade
Samara Mitchell
Recollections of Memory: Akio Makigawa
Jewellery by Carlier Makigawa Galerie Dusseldorf October 1998
David Bromfield
Juliet Stone Paintings and Pastels
Juliet Stone paintings and pastels Gomboc Gallery Perth 1-22 November 1998
Philippa O'Brien
Artrave
NAVA Riddoch Unley Museum