Installation Art and the Practices of Archivalism

210 Pages·2016·2.589 MB·English

by  David Houston Jones

Installation Art and the
Practices of Archivalism
This is a deeply compelling book. David Houston Jones takes us into the
quick of archive fever, exploring a range of artworks which exist in or refer
to real archives, and allow reflection on our compulsion to archive and the
rethinking of memory that theories of the archive allow. In a turn to Pierre
Nora this book moves particularly to consider artists’ interest in remnants,
in material traces and the culture of remains. The illuminating series
of chapters, beautifully titled – ‘Intermedial’, ‘Testimonial’, ‘Relational’,
‘ Personal’, ‘ Sublime’ – offers a taxonomy of archivalist practice. The interpre-
tations yielded, of major artworks by Samuel Beckett, Christian Boltanski,
Mirosław Bałka, Atom Egoyan and others, are gripping, deft, melancholy
and disarming. In fine theoretical readings and measured discussions of the
individual projects David Jones shows here, so brilliantly, how archive art
engages major current questions of human memory and ethics.
—Emma Wilson, University of Cambridge, UK
On the leading edge of trauma and archival studies, this timely book engages
with the recent growth in visual projects that respond to the archive,
focusing in particular on installation art. It traces a line of argument from
practitioners who explicitly depict the archive (Samuel Beckett, Christian
Boltanski, Art & Language, Walid Raad) to those whose materials and prac-
tices are archival (Mirosław Bałka, Jean-Luc Godard, Silvia Kolbowski,
Boltanski, Atom Egoyan). Jones considers in particular the widespread
nostalgia for ‘archival’ media such as analogue photographs and film. He
analyses the innovative strategies by which such artefacts are incorporated,
examining five distinct types of archival practice: the intermedial, testimo-
nial, personal, relational and monumentalist.
David Houston Jones is Associate Professor of French Literature and Visual
Culture at the University of Exeter, UK.
Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies
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Edited by Larissa Hjorth, 16 Installation Art and the
Natalie King, and Mami Practices of Archivalism
Kataoka David Houston Jones
Installation Art and the
Practices of Archivalism
David Houston Jones
First published 2016
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© 2016 Taylor & Francis
The right of David Houston Jones to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jones, David Houston, 1972– author.
Title: Installation art and the practices of archivalism / By David Houston Jones.
Description: New York: Routledge, 2016. |
Series: Routledge advances in art and visual studies; 16 | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015048238
Subjects: LCSH: Installations (Art) | Memory (Philosophy)
Classification: LCC N6494.I56 J66 2016 | DDC 709.04/074—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048238
ISBN: 978-1-138-77742-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-77265-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
To P
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Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1 The Beckett Effect: The Intermedial Archive 17
2 The Archival Testimonial: Mirosław Bałka’s How It Is 47
3 The Relational Archive: Silvia Kolbowski and Eija-Liisa Ahtila 79
4 The Personal Archive: From Christian Boltanski to Lifelogging 112
5 The Archive and the Informational Sublime: Arnold Dreyblatt 146
Conclusion: The Ethical Archive 174
Bibliography 179
Index 193
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List of Figures
I.1 Arnold Dreyblatt, The Wunderblock, table, chair, TFT
display, computer, 2000. Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2000.
Photograph: Tom Gundelwein. 9
1.1 Atom Egoyan, Steenbeckett, 2002. Courtesy of
The Artangel Collection. Photograph: Thierry Bal. 22
1.2 Atom Egoyan, Steenbeckett, 2002. Courtesy of
The Artangel Collection. Photograph: Thierry Bal. 26
1.3 Coletivo Irmãos Guimarães, Breath More. Photograph:
Ismael Monticelli. 31
1.4 Coletivo Irmãos Guimarães, Breath Less. Photograph:
Ismael Monticelli. 32
1.5 Interactive torches and mixed reality video in
UNMAKEABLELOVE © Sarah Kenderdine & Jeffrey
Shaw 2008/2015. 35
1.6 Interactive torches in UNMAKEABLELOVE © Sarah
Kenderdine & Jeffrey Shaw 2008/2015. 40
2.1 Mirosław Bałka, How It Is, The Unilever Series,
Tate Modern, London, 13 October 2009–5 April 2010
© Mirosław Bałka. Courtesy © Tate Images and
White Cube. 47
2.2 Mirosław Bałka, How It Is, The Unilever Series,
Tate Modern, London, 13 October 2009–5 April 2010
© Mirosław Bałka. Courtesy © Tate Images and White Cube. 49
3.1 Silvia Kolbowski, After Hiroshima mon amour, 2008.
Video; twenty-two minutes. Installation view, Leonard &
Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal.
Photograph: Paul Litherland. 87
3.2 Silvia Kolbowski, After Hiroshima mon amour, 2008.
Video; twenty-two minutes. Installation view, Leonard &
Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University, Montreal.
Photograph: Paul Litherland. 90
3.3 Silvia Kolbowski, an inadequate history of conceptual art,
1998–99. Installation view, American Fine Arts, 1999.
Video still. 99