- Apr 15
- 11 min read
PHOTOFILE | ESSAY
CAROLINE FUCCI
TEMPORARY, YET PERMANENT
Archiving Periodic Exhibitions
Introduction
In the past few decades, a significant shift has occurred in the entanglement between visual culture, research, and the archive. Artists, curators, art historians, and critical theorists have devoted their attention to the concept of the archive and the term ‘archive’, from art writing and practice to curatorial strategies and museological approaches[1]. Dwelling upon the definition of the term ‘archive’, Jacques Derrida’s foundational 1995 publication ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression’ offers a comprehensive reflection on the nature and the history of the concept through the lens of the Freudian lexicon, exploring the function of the archive as a repository of knowledges, the theoretical underpinnings of the record, and the impact of new technologies on the production of memory[2]. For Michel Foucault, the archive can be understood as a ‘set of discourses actually pronounced’ which are mutable and unfixed, continually prone to transformation and devoid of neutrality[3].
The so-called ‘archival turn’ in contemporary art in the 1990s has been representative of this amplified interest in the archives, whereby contemporary artists have started to engage with archival processes more deeply, blurring the aesthetic boundaries between artwork and archive. In 2004, art critic and historian Hal Foster published ‘An Archival Impulse’, a pivotal essay that examines how artists explore archival sources, images, and materials, accounting for the emergence of what he calls ‘archival art’ and ‘archival artist’. The ‘archival artist’ is interested in a variety of practices echoing the actions of ‘sampling’ and ‘collecting’ materials, sifting through archival information while simultaneously feeding into this same repository and producing meaning. As a result, ‘archival art’ can be seen as an articulation or arrangement of information, typically assuming the form of installation, photography, and film[4].
In the context of curation and exhibition-making, Okwui Enwezor’s 2008 ‘Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art’ at the International Center of Photography in New York is a seminal example of an exhibition that approached the archive as a line of research and enquiry, expanding on themes of memory, identity, and history. Ute Meta Bauer’s ‘The Future Archive’ at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k.) in 2012 offered an augmented perspective on the intersection of historical archival materials and contemporary art practices.
However, the debate takes a different turn when the focus shifts to the process of archiving the making and staging of exhibitions, especially periodic exhibitions. Here I refer to the model of the art biennial, commonly defined as a large-scale, international, survey exhibition of contemporary art that takes place every two years or even at larger intervals, such as triennials and the quinquennial Documenta in Kassel. Terry Smith refers to biennials as ‘exhibitionary events’ when comparing them to other temporary exhibition formats held outside the confines of the museum[5]. The biennial holds a unique temporal configuration because its repeated occurrence creates a sense of ‘newness’ in contemporary art—imbuing it with a ‘contemporaneity’ that is inherent to the operating rules of the global contemporary art world—while pondering upon its history by either revisiting its past iterations or commenting on the institutional legacy of the hosting organisation[6].
In my doctoral research, conducted since 2022, I argue that biennials create knowledge and shape the history of contemporary art. Focusing on the representation and perception of contemporary art from Brazil, I approach several international biennial exhibitions held between the 1990s and 2010s from a historiographic perspective. To recount the histories of these exhibitions and locate a specific art historical narrative grounded in a nation-based framework, I resort to the available archival holdings of each of the studied biennials. During my incursions, however, I began to contemplate on the differences between archival practices and sites, the scope and history of the archiving institution, the challenges involved in archiving periodic exhibitions, and ultimately my own position as a researcher, uncovering numerous documents, records, and stories about these ‘exhibitionary events’.
Biennial Fever: São Paulo, Liverpool, and Venice
Almost mirroring the biennial’s components, my methodology could also be considered periodic in nature because I spend limited periods conducting research at the archival collections of the studied exhibitions. This often involves a great deal of planning, travelling, and adjusting to the working conditions of each institution, organisation or foundation responsible for managing and preserving the biennials’ archives[7]. The sequence São Paulo-Liverpool-Venice was supported by the chronological order of the biennial editions under analysis, starting with the 24th edition of the Bienal de São Paulo (BSP), which happened in 1998. Therefore, my first archival visit took me to the legendary Arquivo Histórico Wanda Svevo (Wanda Svevo Historical Archive) in São Paulo, part of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo (São Paulo Biennial Foundation), which has hosted the BSP since 1962[8]. The Archive was created in 1955, when the biennial was managed by the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo (MAM-SP), and it collects, stores, and preserves records dating back to 1948. Since then, it has accumulated hundreds of piles of documentation, spanning seven decades of exhibitions, events, and programmes divided into three main collections.
Widely known as the ‘Bienal da Antropofagia’, the 24th iteration of the BSP introduced a series of curatorial strategies that would later become central to successive exhibitions, being most recently canonised as a ‘historic exhibition’ in its own right. When I first consulted the digital database regarding this edition, more than 10,000 entries appeared. This amount was confirmed upon my arrival in São Paulo, with an expressive number of boxes and folders containing different types of archives, including internal correspondence—which showed an interesting clash of communication methods such as letters, faxes, telegrams, and emails, symptomatic of the late 1990s—, educational materials, press releases and leaflets, and newspaper pieces, to name but a few. Many of the related photographs have been digitised, providing a somewhat sufficient yet still incomplete ‘archival view’ of the exhibition, as suggested by art historian Anthony Gardner when reflecting on his own research in the archives of so-called southern biennials[9].
While the structure of the archival collection has been organised according to the past editions of the BSP and correlated events, listing and enumerating each of them in a sequence, the records documenting the organisation of each exhibition do not follow a particular chronological order. The records are divided into categories instead, such as institutional relations, planning, curatorial research, communication with the public, artwork selection and transportation, promotion, and funding, among many others. Thus, I was encouraged to immerse myself in the different fragments and components of the making of the exhibition, going from the backstage of administrative and logistical undertakings to the depths of the curatorial concept and research.
Back in the UK, I experienced something similar but different during my time at the archives of the Liverpool Biennial, whose majority of archival records is preserved by the Special Collections & Archives of the Liverpool John Moores University. The archival holdings were donated by the Liverpool Biennial to the university, being now part of its extensive archival collection. As my focus was the inaugural edition of the Liverpool Biennial, held in 1999, I ended up navigating through the archival materials documenting the inception of the biennial in 1998, observing the interwoven processes of staging a biennial for the first time alongside the creation of the institution hosting the exhibition. Although the Liverpool Biennial collection is currently uncatalogued, I could notice a clear chronological system guiding the archives, from the first iterations to later ones. However, the archives themselves pointed to specific themes rather than to a particular document category. Boxes and folders dedicated to the participation of artists and the selection of venues spanned different years, in a conflation of temporalities between the development of the first edition in the late 1990s and its reception throughout the 2000s. Due to confidentiality reasons and data protection regulations, a substantial portion of the internal correspondence between the curators, artists, and organisers was not available for consultation.
Then, in line with my chosen chronological methodology, it was time to delve into the archives of the centenary Venice Biennale, as I was focusing on two Biennale editions from the early 2000s, the 49th and the 50th, held in 2001 and 2003, respectively. Before heading to Italy, I knew that the Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee – ASAC (Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts – ASAC), which stores the documentary assets of the La Biennale di Venezia, was located in Porto Marghera in the mainland of Venice and not in the Biennale’s permanent buildings of the Giardini and the Arsenale. Since its creation in 1928, the ASAC has collected records from the Biennale’s early foundation in 1895, being based in different historical locations across Venice, such as the Palazzo Giustinian or Ca' Giustinian, where the Venice Biennale office is currently headquartered.
Recalling my previous research experience at the Wanda Svevo Historical Archive, the sheer volume of archival records available at the ASAC’s Historical Fund made for a memorable first impression, with archival holdings ranging from meeting minutes, preparatory acts, reports, and correspondence to exhibition maps, press releases, and photographic records. The chronological orientation of the archives was crystal clear, enabling me to follow the development of the main international exhibitions as they unfolded, marked by the appointment of a chief curator and the definition of a central curatorial axis and the diplomatic communication that typically occurs between the Biennale and the embassies and foreign bodies in charge of the national pavilions. The variety of clippings and press articles available at the ASAC’s Collection of Documents added an interesting dimension to the research. The Biennale—the oldest and most visited biennial worldwide—receives a considerable amount of attention from both national and international media outlets, and the ASAC has promptly captured each review, comment, and news stories.
Researching Biennials: Questions for the Archive [10]
While these archival visits have offered essential and useful information for research, I wondered how much of the archiving practices and methodologies have contributed to the historicization of the biennials in question. The gradual process of an exhibition ‘becoming history’ is undoubtedly influenced by the state of its archival holdings. Take, for example, the 24th BSP, along with its extensive available archival documentation and the exhibition studies publications that followed, which consolidated its status as ‘historic’. Yet, the usual conditions of archiving biennials are somewhat fragile, since entire teams of curators, artists, and collaborators are created and disassembled within the fleeting temporality of the ‘every-other-year’ cycle. Not to mention the common precarity of archival sites dedicated to preserving the memory of biennials, especially considering the existence of more than two hundred active biennials today, including those that are more decentralised, experimental, and underfunded. Besides, in a context where artists and curators communicate through private online messaging, many practices go undocumented and unarchived, with key information about an exhibition’s origins nowhere to be seen.
Art historian Sara Callahan compares the artistic practice of institutional critique to that performed by historians looking into archives, as archive theory and its mode of working are underpinned by a desire to expose ‘blind spots’ by critiquing the institution and its archiving methods or stored records[11]. In the case of biennials, perhaps a less ‘paranoid’ and ‘suspicious’ approach to their archives, to borrow the terms used by scholars Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Rita Felski[12], could be a suitable course of action moving forward. Whilst the archival collections of the biennials of São Paulo, Liverpool, and Venice are mostly well-structured and standardised, each operates in a unique manner, and the individual experiences of navigating through them have consequently informed the content of the research and the narrative surrounding each biennial. When going through the archives of biennials, I would suggest that rather than concentrating on the lacks, omissions, and exclusions, it might be more productive to interpret the materials in a slightly nuanced fashion, open to the available historical information and the multiple modes of storytelling produced by the exhibition. In the end, the historical permanence of the periodic exhibition lies precisely in its ever-expanding archives.
