The archive as a democratic public art: An instituting practice

Abstract

The article explores the visual archive as a category of democratic public art. In different approaches of archival art, the significance of its public character is not always apparent and tangible. The archive is often identified with the collection and memory techniques, with techniques of formalization, of ciphering and with its classifying and storing function, which dissociates it from the principle that every archive performs by default. Within the democratic him in contemporary art, the archive is approached for its public, its political role. The approach of the archive as public art turns our attention to the significance of the multiplication of language games, of institutions, of life forms. In those terms, archival art can be considered as an instituting practice, producing new and unexpected articulations, within and beyond the field of art.