Hal Foster's 'An Archival Impulse' Revisited in the Age of Digital Amnesia
Over twenty years since Hal Foster's 'An Archival Impulse' (2004) was released, his concepts are reexamined in light of rapid digital forgetfulness, where algorithmic processes produce a flattened sense of time. Foster posited that artists acting as archivists bring hidden histories to the forefront. In contrast to digital archives, the artist's collection is tangible and incomplete, necessitating human insight. The discussion highlights three influential figures: Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn (b. 16 May 1957), who constructs kiosks and monuments from reclaimed materials in working-class neighborhoods; British-German artist Tacita Dean (b. 12 November 1965), who captures the remnants of modernity on 16mm film; and Sam Durant (b. 1961), who contrasts modernist aesthetics with the traumas of 1960s protests. The article concludes that engaging with these fragments serves as a political stand against uniformity.
Key facts
- Hal Foster published 'An Archival Impulse' in 2004, and the article revisits it more than twenty years later.
- Foster identified Thomas Hirschhorn, Tacita Dean and Sam Durant as three principal pioneers of archival art.
- Thomas Hirschhorn was born in Bern on 16 May 1957 and uses materials including commercial cardboard, packing tape and aluminium foil.
- Hirschhorn's 'Too Too – Much Much' (2010) was his first major project in a Belgian museum, at the Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens.
- Tacita Dean was born in Canterbury on 12 November 1965 and works in 16mm analogue film and photography.
- The Sound Mirrors were built between 1928 and 1930 near Dungeness, in Clallam County, Washington, and at two other sites along the Kent coast, before being abandoned in favour of radar.
- Sam Durant was born in Seattle in 1961; his 'Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington, D.C.' (2005) joined the LACMA collection in 2013.
- Durant's installation proposes relocating 30 monuments to a stretch of the National Mall and features scale replicas of massacre memorials.
Entities
Artists
- Hal Foster
- Thomas Hirschhorn
- Tacita Dean
- Sam Durant
- Spinoza
- Gilles Deleuze
- Georges Bataille
- Robert Smithson
- Andrea Musto
- Aki Sasamoto
- Claude Monet
Institutions
- Paula Cooper Gallery
- Galerie Chantal Crousel
- Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art
- LACMA
- National Mall
- Kent State University
- Pirelli HangarBicocca
- Tate Modern
- Anthropic
- Connexxion
- Artuu
Locations
- Bern
- Switzerland
- Canterbury
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- Kent
- Dungeness
- Clallam County
- Washington
- United States
- Seattle
- Los Angeles
- Milan
- Italy
- Savona
- Woodstock
- Altamont