The significance of the archive in modernity and in contemporary art; writings by Sigmund Freud, Michel Foucault, Hal Foster, and others, and essays on the archival practice of such artists as Gerhard Richter, Christian Boltanski, Renée Green, and The Atlas Group.

In the modern era, the archive--official or personal--has become the most significant means by which historical knowledge and memory are collected, stored, and recovered. The archive has thus emerged as a key site of inquiry in such fields as anthropology, critical theory, history, and, especially, recent art. Traces and testimonies of such events as World War II and ensuing conflicts, the emergence of the postcolonial era, and the fall of communism have each provoked a reconsideration of the authority given the archive--no longer viewed as a neutral, transparent site of record but as a contested subject and medium in itself.

This volume surveys the full diversity of our transformed theoretical and critical notions of the archive--as idea and as physical presence--from Freud's mystic writing pad to Derrida's archive fever; from Christian Boltanski's first autobiographical explorations of archival material in the 1960s to the practice of artists as various as Susan Hiller, Ilya Kabakov, Thomas Hirshhorn, Renée Green, and The Atlas Group in the present.

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Michel Foucault (1926-84) is widely considered to be one of the most influential academic voices of the twentieth century and has proven influential across disciplines.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) was one of the twentieth century's most important artists and cultural icons.

Giorgio Agamben is one of the leading figures in Italian philosophy. He is the author of Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life; Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive; Profanations; The Signature of All Things: On Method (the last three published by Zone Books), and other books.

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), an enormously influential philosopher, theoretician, critic, and deconstructionist, is the author of Of Grammatology, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, Aporias, and many other books.

Benjamin H. D. Buchloh is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Modern Art in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University and an editor of October magazine. He is the author of Neo-Avantgarde and Culture Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 to 1975 (MIT Press) and other books.

Margarita Tupitsyn, an independent scholar and curator, is the author of Moscow Vanguard Art 1922-1992. Her curatorial projects include the Russian Pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennial and Rodchenko and Popova: Defining Constructivism (Tate Modern, London, MNCARS, Madrid, 2009-2010).

Thomas Hirschhorn (b. 1957) is a Swiss artist known for large sculptures and ambitious projects, often constructed of everyday, makeshift materials.

Charles Merewether is an art historian and writer on contemporary and postwar art who has taught at universities in the United States, Central and South America, and Australia. Collections Curator at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles from 1994 to 2004, he is Artistic Director and Curator for the 2006 Sydney Biennale.

Hal Foster is Townsend Martin '17 Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and the author of Prosthetic Gods (MIT Press) and other books.

Charles Merewether is an art historian and writer on contemporary and postwar art who has taught at universities in the United States, Central and South America, and Australia. Collections Curator at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles from 1994 to 2004, he is Artistic Director and Curator for the 2006 Sydney Biennale.