Research On The Use Of Archives In Contemporary Art

We live in an era of archives fanaticism.Every single thing and behavior in our life has a potential to point to archives.Human society has been transformed from the age of uncontrollable archive to the age of manageable archives.As today,everyone become able to consume and produce archives at any time and place.From the knotting skill of the primitive society to the engraving of Oracle,clay plates,papyrus and wax plates,from the archives made through printing to the audio,video recording of the modern age,and the latest digital documents and archives of today,the archives have gone through the shift from a hard-to-organized form to a form that can easily be sorted and searched by electronic recorder and search engine.The construction of knowledge for society and the collective and the shaping of personal memory and identity expose the ubiquitous eager for archives.With the exploration and study on the value of archives,its functions have been constantly enriched.Rather than a relatively objective document or certificate,archive has revealed its symbolic meanings.The employment of archives in art is known as"the practice of documents".As a method for art practice and exhibition,archives play an important role in contemporary art history.With a sense of mission,different creative subjects form a community of common destiny and use archives to give new definitions to contemporary art.At the same time,archives create more interaction and mutual influence between art-practice and exhibition.The art works in exhibition are documented and preserved as-archives in art history.In return,art exhibitions re-present the works that have already-become art archives.Artist uses art archives to do further artistic creations.The relations in between demand clarification and deeply discussion.How does archive as objective recording become a part of contemporary art?Does archive still have any hidden meanings waiting for discovery?How did archives fanaticism happen in the western world?And how will it affect the eastern world?How does the archival consciousness of the East and the West come into being and what are the differences?This essay will focus on the use of archives in contemporary art and analyze how texts,icons,images,and documents as archives enter the modem and contemporary art exhibition through artists,curators,and art museums.It aims to explore how people engaged in artistic activities as artists and curators used archives to question history and the present,how to construct the past in history through the reorganization of archives,and investigate the different sources of archival consciousness in China and the West and their different manifestations regarding the use of archives.