Artist's Book Yearbook 2003-2005 - Book Arts - University of the ...

ARCHIVE: a race against the instant?
Chris Taylor
In March 2001 a Regional Arts Lottery Project,
Contemporary Artists Books & Related Events, 1
was established providing the opportunity to
develop a number of research interests related
to artist’s book production. These included the
Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair as a focus for
discussion, exchange and dissemination; a
series of public workshops highlighting the
processes and production values involved in
the making of such objects; SYMPOSIA, three
round-table events exploring book-related areas
of collecting, audio/visual and interpolation;
IMAGE and TEXT, two separate publications
exploring the book format/the format of the
page and, finally, ARCHIVE, a collection of
artists’ books, catalogues and documentation.
ARCHIVE is a collection, a history, an
exhibition, a resource. The collection
comprises 55 artists’ books, (57 if you include
the three individual items contained within
IMPACT’s Correspondence), purchased primarily
from participants at the 2001 and 2002
Contemporary Artists’ Book Fairs. 2 It includes a
cross selection of artists’ publications produced,
exhibited and available during that specific
period.
The term ‘archive’ can be problematic as a way
of labelling a collection of contemporary art
works. ‘Archive’ can suggest a past history,
rather than a reflection of the contemporary.
In the first of the three SYMPOSIA 3 events held
at the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds in 2003,
Clive Phillpot questioned the application of the
term ‘archive’ to artists books.
"It seems to me that for some reason the idea
of 'archives' got attached to artist's book
collections. I don't really understand why. I'll
read you a definition of archives that might
perhaps make you understand why I have a
problem with this:
Archives - Definition 1. Public records of selected
materials kept in a recognised archival repository.
And 2. The accumulation of original records
assembled in the course of activities of a person or
91
persons or of a public or private institution, etc. etc.
(Librarian’s Glossary)
“So archives, some people say, are the memory
of an organisation, or in some cases something
to do with the life of a person. Yet, in popular
parlance, the word 'archive' is often applied to
collections of things, an archive of bird's eggs
or something, and it seems to be inappropriate.
So, I'll just say that I do have problems with the
word ‘archive’ attached to artists’ books but it's
one of those things like the phrase "artist's
books" itself, which won't go away, and that's
not very satisfactory either.
However, this archive is not only a history, but a
snapshot of contemporary practice in which
the genre of artists’ books is explored,
discussed and disseminated to both dedicated
and new audiences. ARCHIVE is a living history,
an accessible and tangible resource made
available as a portable exhibition. As Victoria
Worsely, Archivist at the Henry Moore Institute
noted,
“Archives are often seen as dark spaces,
stereotypically located in the basement, and this
space signifies a burial or entombment of
things past. In archival theory, all information
produced fits into what is called the ‘life cycle
of the record’. When it is created and being
used by its creator, it is termed a ‘current
record’. When its active life is over, but it is still
used occasionally, it becomes ‘semi-current’ as a
record that isn’t needed all of the time but may
occasionally be referred to. And only when it
has no use in the present by its creator and is
determined as valuable enough to keep for
posterity does it take on the attributes of an
archival record. Archives, because they
normally begin at the end, are therefore
inextricably linked with the notion of death.” 4
Usually, collections of whatever type are
acquired and grow until every item that could
possibly belong within them have been
collected, the collector loses interest or the
collector dies. ARCHIVE never had the luxury
of endless funds, but was defined from the very
beginning by a set budget, a decision to
incorporate a diverse range of production
techniques and, most importantly, to highlight
the array of conceptual experimentation