Visual Arts Publications
Archive and Affect in Contemporary Photography
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-2009
Volume
2
Issue
3
Journal
Photography and Culture
First Page
241
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.2752/175145109X12532077132239
Last Page
252
Abstract
This article concentrates on two contemporary photographers, Greg Staats and Arnaud Maggs, whose work generates an affective response by engaging in an archival practice. Drawing on Jill Bennett's analysis of affect in contemporary art, including her discussion of the way work can be transactive, Bassnett considers how the work of these artists addresses viewers, and how different archival practices unsettle conventional viewing relationships. In the case of Staats, affect is activated by his engagement with archival sources. Staats draws on family history and Iroquoian traditions to address individual and cultural loss in a process that translates what Bennett calls “sense memory” into “common memory” through art discourse. With Maggs, it is the artist's archiving of cultural ephemera that engenders an affective response. The objects Maggs photographs have been taken out of their cultural and historical contexts and relocated within the discourse of art. Through an analysis of the way selected works produce affect, Bassnett argues that these approaches to photography as an archival practice offer ways of negotiating individual and cultural loss.
Citation of this paper:
TY - JOUR T1 - Archive and Affect in Contemporary Photography
AU - Bassnett, Sarah
Y1 - 2009/11/01
PY - 2009
DA - 2009/11/01
N1 - doi: 10.2752/175145109X12532077132239
DO - 10.2752/175145109X12532077132239
T2 - Photography and Culture
JF - Photography and Culture
JO - null SP - 241
EP - 251
VL - 2
IS - 3
PB - Routledge
SN - 1751-4517
M3 - doi: 10.2752/175145109X12532077132239
UR - https://doi-org.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/10.2752/175145109X12532077132239
ER - 0
Notes
Article published in the journal Photography and Culture.