Instilling liveliness: archives of neo-avant-garde art as sites of activation

Abstract

Artists’ archives, typically a legacy trove rather than a site for public engagement, are not expected to encompass art. However, since the mid-twentieth century, factors like the ‘dematerialisation of art’, defiance against conventional art categorisations, and the prioritisation of the creative process over its outcomes, have all blurred the lines between artworks and their documentation. Consequently, a significant portion of art produced during the 1960s and 1970s still resides in archives, distributed in art objects and documents. By examining the archives of Ecart, an artistic collective that operated within the broader Fluxus network in 1970s Switzerland, this study proposes activation as an alternative strategy for caring for and securing the continuation of such art, which is often found scattered across various archival holdings. Ultimately, the research suggests activation as a way of expanding conservation beyond the exclusive domain of trained conservators, transforming it into a collective responsibility shared by diverse archive stakeholders.

Abstrakt

“Reinicjując witalność: Archiwa sztuki neoawangardowej jako miejsca jej aktywacji”

Oczekuje się, że archiwa artystów, zazwyczaj będące raczej zbiorem dokumentującym ich dorobek niż miejscem publicznego zaangażowania, nie zawierają sztuki jako takiej. Jednak od połowy XX wieku czynniki takie jak ‘dematerializacja sztuki’, sprzeciw wobec konwencjonalnych kategoryzacji sztuki i priorytetowe traktowanie procesu twórczego w stosunku do jego wyników, zatarły granice między dziełami sztuki, a ich dokumentacją. W rezultacie znaczna część prac powstałych w latach 60. i 70. nadal znajduje się w archiwach i jest rozdysponowana pomiędzy obiektami i dokumentami. Niniejsze studium, oparte na badaniach przeprowadzonych w archiwum Ecart, kolektywu artystycznego, który działał w Szwajcarii w ramach szerszej sieci Fluxus w latach siedemdziesiątych, proponuje aktywację jako alternatywną strategię opieki i gwarancję dalszego istnienie takiej sztuki, która często znajduje się rozproszona w różnych zbiorach archiwalnych. Ten artykuł postuluje aktywację jako sposób na rozszerzenie konserwacji poza wyłączną domenę wyszkolonych konserwatorów, przekształcając ją w zbiorową odpowiedzialność współdzieloną przez różnych użytkowników archiwów.

Resumen

“Infundiendo vitalidad: Los archivos de arte neo-vanguardista como lugares de activación”

No cabe esperar que los archivos de los artistas, que suelen ser un tesoro de legados más que un lugar de participación pública, incluyan arte. Sin embargo, desde mediados del siglo XX, factores como la ‘desmaterialización del arte’, el desafío a las categorizaciones artísticas convencionales y la priorización del proceso creativo sobre sus resultados, han difuminado las fronteras entre las obras de arte y su documentación. Por consiguiente, una parte significativa del arte producido durante las décadas de 1960 y 1970 aún reside en archivos, distribuida en objetos artísticos y documentos. Examinando los archivos de Ecart, un colectivo artístico que operaba dentro de la red Fluxus en la Suiza de los setenta, este estudio propone el proceso de activación como una estrategia alternativa para preservar y garantizar la continuidad de este tipo de arte, el cual a menudo se encuentra disperso entre diversos archivos. Finalmente, la investigación sugiere el proceso de activación como una forma de expandir la conservación más allá de la esfera exclusiva de los conservadores cualificados, transformándola en una responsabilidad colectiva compartida por diversas partes interesadas en los archivos.

الملخص

“غرس الحيوية: أرشيفات الفن الطليعي الجديد كمواقع للتنشيط ”

تعتبرالأرشيفات الخاصة بالفنانين، التي عادة ما تكون كنزًا للتراث عوضًا عن موقع للمشاركة العامة، و هي ليست متوقعة لتضمَّن الفن. ومع ذلك، منذ منتصف القرن العشرين، عوامل مثل 'تجريد الفن'، والتحدّي ضد التصنيفات الفنية التقليدية، وإعطاء الأولوية لعملية الإبداع على نتائجها؛ كل ذلك قد أدى إلى تشويش الحدود بين الأعمال الفنية وتوثيقها. ونتيجة لذلك، لا تزال نسبة كبيرة من الفن المنتج خلال الستينيات والسبعينيات موجودة في الأرشيفات، موزعة في أشكال الفن والوثائق. من خلال فحص أرشيفات إيكارت، وهي جماعة فنية عملت ضمن شبكة Fluxus الأوسع في سويسرا في السبعينيات. تقترح هذه الدراسة تفعيلًا كاستراتيجية بديلة لرعاية وتأمين استمرارية هذا الفن، والذي غالبًا ما يوجد منتشرًا عبر مجموعة متنوعة من مقتنيات الأرشيف. في النهاية، يقترح البحث التنشيط كوسيلة لتوسيع عملية الحفظ إلى ما هو أبعد من المجال الحصري للمرممين المدربين، وتحويله إلى مسؤولية جماعية يتقاسمها أصحاب المصلحة المتنوعين في مجالات مختلفة بالأرشيف .‏

Resumo

“Instilando vivacidade: Arquivos de arte neo-avant-garde como espaços de ativação”

Arquivos de artistas, tipicamente mais um tesouro herdado do que um local para envolvimento de público, não se espera que englobem arte. Entretanto, desde meados do século vinte, fatores como a ‘desmaterialização da arte’, o desafio às categorizações convencionais de arte e a priorização do processo criativo sobre seus resultados, todos têm embaçado as fronteiras entre obras de arte e a sua documentação. Consequentemente, uma porção significativa da arte produzida durante os anos sessenta e setenta ainda permanece em arquivos, distribuídos em objetos de arte e documentos. Ao examinar os arquivos do Ecart, um coletivo artístico que atuou no âmbito mais amplo da rede do Fluxus na Suíça dos anos setenta, este estudo propõe ativação como uma estratégia alternativa para cuidar e assegurar a continuidade de tal arte, que frequentemente é encontrada dispersa por vários fundos arquivísticos. Finalmente, a pesquisa sugere a ativação como uma forma de expandir a conservação além do domínio exclusivo de conservadores capacitados, transformando-a em uma responsabilidade coletiva compartilhada entre os diversos parceiros do meio arquivístico.

摘要

“注入生机：新前卫艺术档案作为激活场所”

艺术家档案通常被视为遗产的宝库，而非公众参与的场所，人们并不期望它包含艺术。然而，自二十世纪中叶以来，诸如"艺术的非物质化"、对传统艺术分类的蔑视，以及创作过程优先于创作成果等因素都在模糊艺术作品与其文献资料之间的界限。因此，上世纪六七十年代产生的艺术作品中有很大一部分仍然保存在档案中，分布在艺术品和文献资料里。本研究通过考察 Ecart（一个在 1970 年代瑞士更广泛的激浪派网络中运作的艺术团体）的档案，提出了激活作为一种替代策略，用以保护和确保此类艺术的延续，而这些作品往往散落在各种档案中。最后，研究建议将激活作为一种方式，将保护工作扩展到训练有素的保护人员的专属领域之外，将其转化为不同档案利益相关者共同承担的集体责任。

Keywords:

• Fluxus
• Ecart
• artists’ archives
• neo-avant-garde art
• activation
• conservation

Acknowledgements

The research for this article was conducted within the project ‘Activating Fluxus’, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and based at the Institute of Materiality in Arts and Culture at Bern Academy of the Arts, Bern University of Applied Sciences. I am indebted to Hanna Hölling and Jules Pelta Feldman who read this article in a draft form and offered invaluable suggestions for its improvement. My gratitude goes to Elizabeth Jobin and Lionel Bovier for providing insights into Ecart’s artistic practice and the specificity of its Archives. Special thanks are extended to John Armleder, whose efforts have been instrumental in ensuring the continued preservation and activation of Ecart Archives up to the present day. I also acknowledge the considerate input of the anonymous reviewers.

Notes

1 This article follows the pragmatic distinction between the notion of ‘the archive’ and of ‘an archives’ proposed in Michelle Caswell, ‘“The Archive” Is Not an Archives: Acknowledging the Intellectual Contributions of Archival Studies’, Reconstruction. Studies in Contemporary Culture 16, no. 1 (2016): 1–21.

2 For an overview of discourses related to archives of contemporary art see, for example, Beatrice Von Bismarck et al., eds, Interarchive: Archival Practices and Sites in the Contemporary Art Field (Cologne: Walther König, 2002); Judy Vaknin, Karyn Stuckey, and Victoria Lane, All This Stuff: Archiving the Artist (Faringdon: Libri Publishing, 2013). In 2014 the College Art Association (CAA) Annual Conference in Chicago hosted a session about artists’ archives before and after they move to institutions; see: Marcia Reed, ‘From the Archive to Art History’, Art Journal 76, no. 1 (2017): 121–8.

3 For an overview of the use of archival material for display within the context of modern and contemporary art see, for example, Nesli Gül Durukan and Kadriye Tezcan Akmehmet, ‘Uses of the Archive in Exhibition Practices of Contemporary Art Institutions’, Archives and Records 42, no. 2 (2021): 131–48.

4 This assertion is mainly pertaining to large collecting institutions, and in particular, to museums. For example, according to the description on Tate’s website, ‘an artist’s archive usually consists of documentation and “secondary material”. This includes material traditionally created alongside an artwork (…)’. Tate, ‘Art Term: Archive’, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/archive (accessed 30 March 2024).

5 Lucy Lippard and John Chandler, ‘The Dematerialization of Art’, Art International 12, no. 2 (1968): 31–6.

6 For a comprehensive examination of documentation as an artistic practice during the 1960s on an international scale, see, for example, Christian Berger and Jessica Santone, ‘Documentation as Art Practice in the 1960s’, Visual Resources 32, no. 3–4 (2016): 201–9.

7 The phenomenon of elevating artistic process over finished product in modern and contemporary was meticulously explained in Kim Grant, All About Process (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2017).

8 Hanna B. Hölling, ‘Activating Fluxus’ (unpublished project proposal, Swiss National Science Foundation, 2020).

9 Natilee Harren, Fluxus Forms: Scores, Multiples, and the Eternal Network (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2020).

10 For a typology of Fluxus scores see Julia Robinson, ‘Parsing Scores: Application in Fluxus’, Oncurating.org, no. 51 (2021): 51–63.

11 For a discussion around documentation as both process and system within Fluxus as a social network, see Jessica Santone, ‘Documentation as Group Activity: Performing the Fluxus Network’, Visual Resources 32, no. 3–4 (2016): 263–81.

12 The term ‘Intermedia’ was put forward by Dick Higgins, artist and publisher associated with Fluxus in the mid-1960s, to characterise artworks that blend elements of multiple artistic genres. For instance, Higgins points to poetry presented visually through text arrangement (visual poetry), poetry that becomes a sound when read (sound poetry), theatrical works incorporating music and painting (happenings), and other hybrid arts that intersect traditionally distinct disciplines. See, for example, Dick Higgins and Hannah B. Higgins, ‘Intermedia’, Leonardo 34, no. 1 (2001): 49–54. For an understanding of the dilemmas arising from categorising Fluxus works in relation to the challenges encountered during the processing of the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Archive of Fluxus art donated to MoMA in New York in 2008 see, for example, Julia Pelta Feldman, ‘Perpetual Fluxfest: Distinguishing Artists’ Records from Artworks in the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Archives’, in Artists’ Records in the Archives: Symposium Proceedings (New York, 2011), 31–4.

13 These practices are traditionally object-based, as I argue elsewhere: Aga Wielocha, ‘Collections of (An)Archives: Towards a New Perspective on Institutional Collecting of Contemporary Art and the Object of Conservation’, in Conservation of Contemporary Art, ed. Renée van de Vall and Vivian van Saaze, vol. 9 (Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2024), 259–79.

14 What has been called neo-avant-garde art, particularly Fluxus, with its unconventional mediums and formats, was at first primarily collected by enthusiastic individuals and some significant private collections of Fluxus art have now been integrated or transformed into institutions. Some notable examples of these include Archiv Sohm, Archivio Conz, Sammlung Andersh, Sammlung Feelisch, Sammlung Cremer, Sammlung Hahn, Luigi Bonotto Collection, and the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, among many others. For a comprehensive list of the public and private collections of Fluxus art, see: Activating Fluxus, ‘Collections and Archives’, https://activatingfluxus.com/collections-and-archives/ (accessed 6 June 2023).

15 The argument that many contemporary artworks consist of spatially and materially distributed gathering of elements that were conceived and might be perceived as one work has been explored in, for example, Peter Osborne, Anywhere or Not at All: Philosophy of Contemporary Art (London and New York: Verso, 2013); and Adam Geczy and Sean Lowry, ‘Where Is Art?’, in Where Is Art?: Space, Time, and Location in Contemporary Art (New York: Routledge, 2022), 4–34. The notion of identities of contemporary artworks being distributed between objects and documents and how this phenomenon affects the perpetuation of those artworks is explained further in Aga Wielocha, ‘Art Objects as Documents and the Distributed Identity of Contemporary Artworks’, ArtMatters International Journal of Technical Art History, Special Issue no.1 (2021): 106–13; Wielocha, ‘Collections of (An)Archives’, 202.

16 As described on the institution’s website, the activities performed by the Conservation Laboratory at National Archives Washington, DC ‘contribute to the prolonged usable life of records in their original format. The Conservation Lab repairs and stabilizes textual records (un-bound papers, bound volumes, and cartographic items) and photographic images […] and provides custom housings for these records as needed’. See: National Archives, ‘About Preservation’, https://www.archives.gov/open/plain-writing/examples/preservation-about-before.html (accessed 30 March 2024).

17 This article employs an expansive conception of performance art and follows the delineation that performance may encompass painting, sculpture, movement, character or role-creation, event staging, and production of experiences. For more detail on this definition see, for example, Gabriella Giannachi, ‘Performance at Tate: The Scholarly and Museological Context’, Tate Research Feature (December 2014), https://www.tate.org.uk/research/features/performance-scholarly-museological-context (accessed 14 June 2023). For the works analysed here, their collaborative and participatory qualities are regarded as the key performative elements.

18 Rebecca Schneider, ‘Performance Remains’, Performance Research 6, no. 2 (2001): 100–8; Rebecca Schneider, Performing Remains: Art and War in Times of Theatrical Reenactment (London and New York: Routledge, 2011).

19 Schneider, ‘Performance Remains’, 105.

20 See, for example, Aga Wielocha, ‘Collecting Archives of Objects and Stories: On the Lives and Futures of Contemporary Art at the Museum’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Amsterdam, 2021); Wielocha, ‘Art Objects as Documents’; Wielocha, ‘Collections of (An)Archives’.

21 The postcard was consulted in the Ecart Archives at MAMCO, Geneva, in the autumn of 2022.

22 See, for example, Hal Foster et al., ‘1962a’, in Art since 1900: Modernism, Antimodernism, Postmodernism (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007), 456–62.

23 For a more in-depth analysis of the connections between Fluxus and Ecart see, for example, Aga Wielocha, ‘Ecart as Fluxus: Get Inspired and Inspire’, Activating Fluxus project website, 2022, https://activatingfluxus.com/2022/09/09/ecart-as-fluxus-get-inspired-and-inspire/ (accessed 14 June 2023). For an account on Ecart’s connection with Fluxus see, for example, Ecart and John Armleder, ‘Suisse Romande et Fluxus’, in Fluxus International & Co. A Geneve (Geneva: Association Musee d’Art Moderne, 1980).

24 Matsuzawa’s interest in parapsychology led him to formulate his own theory of Psi, which derived from non-sensory cognitive abilities. He employed this idea in multiple works created mainly in the 1960s: Reiko Tomii, Radicalism in the Wilderness: International Contemporaneity and 1960s Art in Japan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2016).

25 Originally in French as ‘1 paire de lunettes, 1 morceau de teinture, 1 pierre verte, 1 taquet, 1 clou, 1 clou pour tableau’. Translated by the author.

26 According to Armleder, the boxes may have been destroyed as a result of a leaking roof in one of the storage spaces hosting the material that later become the Ecart Archives. Personal communication with the author, October 2022. In the Ecart Archives, the sole ‘return box’ identified originated from Tony Ward of Arc Publications—a UK poetry publisher established in 1969, and renowned for its focus on contemporary poetry. The box contains an assortment of items, including a tea bag, a small cigar box, a miniature replica of a church, a postage stamp and a few other enigmatic objects that proved challenging for this author to identify.

27 The overall concept of Troc de Boîtes is described in Lionel Bovier and Christophe Cherix, eds, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982 (London: Koenig Books, 2019), 72, 166.

28 Bovier and Cherix, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982, 122.

29 In a conversation with the author, Armleder admitted to being the type of impulsive collector who takes home sugar cubes from restaurants, comparing this practice with his collecting the remnants from the heyday of Ecart.

30 Lionel Bovier, ‘Ecart’ (undergraduate dissertation, University of Geneva, Faculty of Literature, Department of Art History, Geneva, 1995), cited in Bovier and Cherix, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982, 133.

31 The French title of the exhibition was L’irrésolution commune d’un engagement équivoque. For more information about the exhibition, see: MAMCO Geneva, ‘Exhibitions: Ecart’, https://www.mamco.ch/en/1212/ECART (accessed 14 June 2023). The exhibition was accompanied by the book in French with the same title authored by the curators; Lionel Bovier and Christophe Cherix, eds, L’irrésolution Commune d’un Engagement Équivoque—Ecart, Genève (1969–1982) (Genève: MAMCO and Cabinet des estampes, 1997). The second, English edition of this book was published in 2019 and is a main reference related to the Ecart trajectory included in this essay; Bovier and Cherix, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982.

32 Bovier and Cherix, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982, 123.

33 Bovier and Cherix, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982, 8.

34 ‘Ecart. Une archive collective, 1969–1982’ (September 2017–April 2019) was an art practice-based research project led by HEAD-Geneva in collaboration with MAMCO and financed by the strategic fund of the HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland. For more information about the project, see HEAD-Genève, ‘ECART’, https://www.hesge.ch/head/projet/ecart (accessed 14 June 2023). See also Bovier and Cherix, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982, 125.

35 MAMCO Geneve, Director’s Choice: Les Archives Ecart (Vimeo, 2022), https://vimeo.com/664169115?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=14050988 (accessed 3 April 2024).

36 One of the anticipated results of the project, as indicated in the invitation postcard, was the publication of ‘the record’ of the event. However, upon thorough examination of the documents in the Ecart Archives by the author, no evidence of such a publication was found.

37 As Fluxus artist Eric Andersen noted ‘[The term intermedia] was first conceived in the period 1958–62 and has constantly changed form ever since. It cannot by definition be categorised as a thing, only as methods. Inter Media rejects art and communication as production. Instead, it seeks by means of constant innovation to conduct fundamental research in human articulation. The oeuvre here is not a demarcated unit. The work is open and undergoing constant change because it includes the spectator’. Eric Andersen, ‘What Is … ?’, in The Fluxus Constellation, ed. Sandra Solimano (Genova: Neos Edizioni, 2002), 24.

38 A similar observation regarding traces in the archives of performance art can be found in Irene Müller, ‘Preserving the Ephemeral’, in Performing Documentation in the Conservation of Contemporary Art, ed. Lúcia Almeida Matos, Rita Macedo, and Gunnar Heydenreich (Lisbon: Instituto de História da Arte, 2015), 19.

39 In fact, one of those boxes has been acquired as an artwork by Musee d’art at d’historie de Genève (MAH) and it is listed on its collection website. See: MAH, ‘Troc de boîtes’, https://collections.geneve.ch/mah/oeuvre/troc-de-boites-ecart-geneve/e-95-0035 (accessed 14 June 2023). According to the information on the website, the box was donated by artists Jean-Luc Manz. It is unclear if the artist participated in Troc de Boîtes himself.

40 In the case of the Ecart Archives, all those possibilities are viable. Legally, the archives, although deposited at MAMCO, are still the propriety of Armleder, who keeps one of the keys to the door to the archive. The agreement with Armleder on depositing the Ecart Archives in the museum is based on the trust built over the years and it implies that the status of the archive will not change while the artist is still alive. One repercussion for the scope of institutional responsibility is that as the archives are legally not part of the MAMCO collection the museum is not obliged to complete its full inventory. This unique condition allows the stakeholders to experiment with how Ecart’s changing work is represented in the archives and to maintain an ongoing collaboration with Armleder to decide what materials to keep, how to preserve them and where to store them for future use. Personal communication, Lionel Bovier in conversation with the author, October 2022.

41 Cf. for example, Lydia Beerkens, ‘Side by Side: Old and New Standards in the Conservation of Modern Art. A Comparative Study on 20 Years of Modern Art Conservation Practice’, Studies in Conservation: Saving the Now, Preprints of the International Committee of Conservation (IIC) 2016 Los Angeles Congress 61, Supp. No. 2 (2016): 12–6.

42 It is important to mention that similar notions have been used before in conservation scholarship with, for example, active versus deactivated media employed in Hanna Hölling, Paik’s Virtual Archive: Time, Change, and Materiality in Media Art (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2017). The notion of activation in the context of the conservation of performance art includes Pip Laurenson and Vivian van Saaze, ‘Collecting Performance-Based Art: New Challenges and Shifting Perspectives’, in Performativity in the Gallery: Staging Interactive Encounters, ed. Outi Remes, Laura MacCulloch, and Marika Leino (Bern: Peter Lang, 2014), 27–41; Louise Lawson, Acatia Finbow, and Hélia Marçal, ‘Developing a Strategy for the Conservation of Performance-Based Artworks at Tate’, Journal of the Institute of Conservation 42, no. 2 (2019): 114–34; Helia Marçal and Louise Lawson, ‘Unfolding Interactions in the Preservation of Performance Art at Tate’, Transcending Boundaries: Integrated Approaches to Conservation. ICOM-CC 19th Triennial Conference Preprints, Beijing, 17–21 May 2021 (2021); Brian Castriota, ‘Object Trouble: Constructing and Performing Artwork Identity in the Museum’, ArtMatters International Journal of Technical Art History, Special Issue no.1 (2021): 1–10. In this context the notion of activation has been rigorously defined in Lawson, Finbow, and Marçal, ‘Developing a Strategy for the Conservation of Performance-Based Artworks at Tate’, 122.

43 Cf. for example, Daid Zerbib, ‘Performing, Participating: The Challenge of Activation’, Critique d’art, no. 52 (2019): 71–87; Catherine Wood, Performance in Contemporary Art (London: Tate Publishing, 2018).

44 Anna Schäffler, ‘Out of the Box: Preservation on Display’, in The Explicit Material: On the Intersections of Conservation, Art History and Human Sciences, ed. Hanna Hölling, Francesca G. Bewer, and Katharina Ammann (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2019), 167–85.

45 For a discussion on the impact of Derrida’s notion of the archiving see, for example, Tom Nesmith, ‘Seeing Archives: Postmodernism and the Changing Intellectual Place of Archives’, The American Archivist 65, no. 1 (2002): 24–41.

46 Jaques Derrida and Eric Prenowitz, ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression’, Diacritics 25, no. 2 (1995): 9. See also Caswell, ‘“The Archive” Is Not An Archives’.

47 Cf. Hanna B. Hölling, ‘Archival Turn. Towards New Ways of Conceptualising Changeable Artworks’, Acoustic Space 14, no. DATA DRIFT. Archiving Media and Data Art in the 21st Century (2015): 73–88.

48 See, for example, Cheryl Simon, ‘Introduction: Following the Archival Turn’, Visual Resources 18, no. 1 (2002): 101–7. The writings on this phenomenon have been compiled in Sara Callahan, Art + Archive: Understanding the Archival Turn in Contemporary Art (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022).

49 See Kathy Michelle Carbone, ‘Artists and Records: Moving History and Memory’, Archives and Records 38, no. 1 (2017): 100–18.

50 Hal Foster, ‘An Archival Impulse’, October 110, (Autumn 2004): 4.

51 Cf. for example, Carbone, ‘Artists and Records’. Charles Merewether, ed., The Archive (London: Whitechapel Gallery, 2006) offers an exploration of the diverse artistic practices that engage with the theoretical concept of the archive and delve into archival content. The survey includes notable artists such as Susan Hiller, Ilya Kabakov, Thomas Hirshhorn, Renée Green and The Atlas Group.

52 The term ‘expanded conservation’ has been in use within the field of conservation and beyond for approximately a decade with an early mention in Annet Dekker, ‘Enabling the Future, or How to Survive FOREVER: A Study of Networks, Processes and Ambiguity in Net Art and the Need for an Expanded Practice of Conservation’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 2014). The notion signifies that the scope of conservation has broadened, leading conservators and conservation theorists to incorporate a wider range of disciplinary perspectives. This expanded approach encompasses fields such as art history, anthropology, comparative literature, media theory, art and curatorial practice, philosophy, and others. See, for example, Caroline Fowler and Alexander Nagel, eds, The Expanded Field of Conservation (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2022).

53 Hervé Fischer, ed., Art et Communication Marginale: Tampons d’artistes/Art and Marginal Communication/Rubber Art, Stamp Activity/Kunst Und Randkommunikation: Künstlers Stempelmarken (Paris: Balland, 1974); Bovier and Cherix, Ecart Geneva, 1969–1982, 61.

54 Fischer's book was published during the peak of the phenomenon of mail art, when collecting and producing stamps was prevalent among those involved in the movement. Ecart, from its early stages, demonstrated a keen interest in stamps, with Ecart artists frequently creating their own. The selection of stamps by Ecart Group, Ecart Publications, Patrick Luccini, Carlos Garcia and John Armleder are featured in the second volume of the anthology: Hervé Fischer and Groupe Ecart, eds, Art & Comunication Marginale. Tampons d’artistes/Artist Rubber Stamps. Vol. 2 (Geneva: Ecart Publications et Mamco, 2019). For more information about the genre of artist stamps see: Elisabeth Jobin, ‘Le Livre d’artistes Mis En Réseau. Art et Communication Marginale Vol. II Par Le Groupe Ecart et Hervé Fischer’, Les Cahiers Du Mnam, no. 149 (2019): 84–103.

55 Jobin, ‘Le Livre d’artistes Mis En Réseau’, 84–103.

56 Before abandoning the project, Ecart team managed to print 310 out of 550 pages planned and announced in a newsletter to the subscribers. See: Jobin, ‘Le Livre d’artistes Mis En Réseau’, 87.

57 The determination of whether all the offset printed pages of the book were indeed included in the Ecart Archives is a nuanced matter that relies on locating the precise moment when Ecart’s legacy transitioned into an officially recognised archive. One could argue that these pages were excluded during the appraisal process carried out within the framework of the Ecart. Une archive collective, 1969–1982 project.

58 Exhibition Mail Art, MAMCO, Geneva, 12 September 2018–5 May 2019, curated by Lionel Bovier and Elisabeth Jobin.

59 Ecart Books, ‘Hervé Fischer & Groupe Ecart. Art & Communication Marginal/Artists Rubber-Stamps Vol_2’, https://ecart-books.ch/products/herve-fischer-groupe-ecart-art-communication-marginal-artists-rubber-stamps-vol_2 (accessed 14 June 2023).

60 Fischer and Groupe Ecart, Art & Comunication Marginale.

61 Jobin, ‘Le Livre d’artistes Mis En Réseau’, 84–103.

62 Or ‘the object of conservation’ in conservation parlance.

63 For an analysis of the notion of invisibility in the field of conservation see: Zoë Miller, ‘Practitioner (In)Visibility in the Conservation of Contemporary Art’, Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 60, no. 2–3 (2021): 197–209.

64 Hölling, ‘Archival Turn’, 73–88; Jonathan Kemp, ‘Conservators, Creativity, and Control’, Studies in Conservation, (13 August 2023), 1–14, doi:10.1080/00393630.2023.2241246.

65 These include editorial projects by Nicole Gravier, Anthony McCall, Taka Imura, Al Souza, Jochen Gerz, Massimo Nannucci and Raúl Marroquin, see Jobin, ‘Le Livre d’artistes Mis En Réseau’, 103.

66 In French ‘cultiver une irrésolution partielle’ (Jobin, ‘Le Livre d’artistes Mis En Réseau’, 96).

67 In recent decades, the concept of original or artist’s intent as a pivotal reference point in decision-making processes regarding the preservation of artworks has been subject to scrutiny and criticism by numerous scholars and practitioners. It has been observed that this notion is often employed in a broad sense, encompassing not only the initial ideas that guided the creation of an artwork but also the subsequent opinions expressed by artists over the course of time. See, for example, Glenn Wharton, ‘Artist Intention and the Conservation of Contemporary Art’, AIC Objects Specialty Group Postprints 22 (2015). Moreover, it has been noted that the term is frequently utilised as a convenient means to resolve the complexities of an artwork’s identity and to establish a singular, uncontested interpretation; see, for example, Paolo Martore, ‘The Contemporary Artwork between Meaning and Cultural Identity’, CeROArt, no. 4 (2009). The artist’s original intent has also been characterised as a concept that is fluid and subject to change by, for example, Rebecca Gordon and Erma Hermens, ‘The Artist’s Intent in Flux’, CeROArt (2013), https://ceroart.revues.org/3527 (accessed 14 June 2023). For an in-depth exploration of the historical development, various meanings and contemporary applications of the notion of intent in the realm of art, see also a comprehensive study conducted by Nina Quabeck, ‘The Artist’s Intent in Contemporary Art: Matter and Process in Transition’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2019).

68 See: François Mairesse, Dictionary of Museology (London: Routledge, 2023), 440–3. It is important to acknowledge, however, that this understanding of preservation is not the only one that circulates in the field.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Notes on contributors

Aga Wielocha

Aga Wielocha is a researcher, collection care professional and conservator specialising in modern and contemporary art. Her research interests revolve around the mechanisms and processes of institutional art collecting, with a focus on contemporary formats such as media art, art projects, participatory art and performance. Currently, she holds a postdoctoral position at the Bern Academy of the Arts, contributing to the research project ‘Activating Fluxus’. Previously, Aga worked at Hong Kong’s M+ Museum, where she devised efficient documentation strategies to support the care of expanding collections. Before that, she served as a conservator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and worked for many years in private practice.