Archives Symposium

Symposium 2008: Contemporary Art and the Archive

Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Smithsonian's Archives of American Art and the Ph.D. Program in Art History at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY) are sponsoring a one-day symposium, "Contemporary Art and the Archive." The symposium will be held at CUNY on Saturday, November 15, 2008.

In the field of contemporary art, the archive has become an increasingly important point of departure for practicing artists, critics, curators, and historians. The efflorescence of archives in the modern period has left a material record of cultural production to which artists have responded in a variety of modes, ranging from reverence to contempt.

At the same time, new media and technologies have challenged conventional notions of the archive, leading curators to ask, among other questions: What does it mean to make an archive for an artist whose works were not tangible things but rather "happenings" or other transitory events? What are the technical challenges involved in creating an archive of video or electronic works when the long-term preservation of those media is completely untested? Finally, what is the place of "archival" research in the historical study of contemporary art?

Check back soon for more details and sign-up information.