Jennifer Jackson
In her 1992 publication Atget’s Seven Albums, Molly Nesbit opens with an introduction subtitled The Document. She compellingly defines the document by situating its relationship to photography, the archive, and visual art. Nesbit’s tremendously important identification of the intersection between art and the archive is where I will situate the focus of this paper. Through this intersection, I will demonstrate a rereading of the status of the document by considering the extended relationship between art and the archive. In particular, I will look at the status of the document as artwork and the ways in which contemporary art of the 21st century comes to stand in for the document. I will establish this point by examining the ready-made subject of archival structures as well as the overlapping spheres of the document and art. I will perform a rereading of the status of the document by tracing its trajectory from the discourse of empirical facticity to a more complex dimension of mnemonic production. This rereading will consider the document and memory as resources available for extraction and activation. Throughout, I will set specific limits for this research by positioning previous scholarship in relation to a selection of films and performances by artists Deanna Bowen, Felix Kalmenson, Divya Mehra, Krista Belle Stewart, and Casey Wei. Within these limits, I will examine the politics of these artists’ works with attention to formalism and historicity.
To all of the artists who shared their stories: Your words stay with me.
I extend my gratitude to the faculty and staff members who have provided guidance throughout the course of my graduate program at the University of British Columbia (UBC). To my colleagues in and beyond the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, I owe a
great deal of thanks, especially to Amy Kazymerchyk, Lucien Durey, and Susanna Browne.
Special thanks are warmly directed towards Dr. John O’Brian, Dr. Joseph Monteyne, Dr. Erin Silver, Dr. Saygin Salgirli, Dr. Ignacio Adriasola, and Scott Watson, Director of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Specifically, I am extremely grateful for the support and guidance of Dr. Jaleh Mansoor and especially the time and consideration of Dr. Catherine Soussloff. I would also like to thank professor Walid Raad at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art for furthering my ideas about art and the archive, and for over a decade of continuing to inspire what it means to historicize. I am grateful to my close friend and mentor
Helga Pakasaar, Curator at Polygon Gallery, and my comrade Jesse McKee, Head of Strategy at 221A. I thank the artists Deanna Bowen, Felix Kalmenson, Divya Mehra, Krista Belle Stewart, and Casey Wei who have shared their work with me for this project.
I am also grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, for the Canadian Graduate Scholarship (Masters Program) that I was awarded in 2017, and to the University of British Columbia, Faculty of Arts Graduate Award, and the Audain Foundation Graduate Fellowship for funding support in 2016.
And finally, I owe particular thanks to my family, specifically my sister Lindsy Olah for her listening ear, my parents Judy and Edgar Jackson for their enthusiasm, and my partner Austin
Taylor for his continual encouragement.