When does the Archival impulse collide with research-based art?

In Hal Foster's 2004 essay "The Archival Impulse", he defines archival art as a genre that “make[s] historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present. To this end [archival artists] elaborate on the found image, object, and favor the installation format.” When contemplating the archive it has many overlaps with research-based art, but where does research-based art derive from? During Constructivism artists were not solely labeled artists, they had evolved to being considered engineers, and designers. The influence of the history of the act of making art combined with the rise of the institutional critique during the sixties and the seventies. Inevitably the act of research became synonymous with art making. When thinking about research-based art, the ideologies of conceptual artists may seem like a familial link. The conceptual artist have leaned into the idea that the physical manifestation of their work is built on the foundation that the concept is the art. Look at Dora Garcia’s I See Words, I Hear Voices, 2015, The Power Plant, Toronto, a viewer looks at this and could think “What is this”, or is this exhibition design? Instead, Garcia uses these spaces as a means to investigate the relationship between the location, the audience, and the works, ultimately Garcia is creating interactions, and the true form of her artwork is occurring within the participation of viewers. Is Garcia’s work an archival impulse, are the items she rests on the table probing something beyond the words that are in the book or does this exhibition lean into a dialogue that thrives in academic spaces?

Now the idea of the archive continues to truly be an undeniable force when organizing structures within exhibitions. Archival art adds a surreal element to artists’ research-based practices. When thinking about the collision of these two concepts Mary Kelly’s postpartum documentation which was recorded over six years during her son’s life shows how research-based art and the archive can be two elements of a larger purpose. She presents an archive of her son’s journey through life, but the research-based elements come with documenting motherhood, a concept explored on the internet daily. What the viewer doesn't see is the emotional image that these six years have on Kelly or the language adaptation that her son goes through, yet Kelly is learning a new “skill”, the research is her journey through becoming a mother. This show isn’t simply about mother and son, but about a larger concept, it is about how identity is constructed, but research is simply the experience. We can think about Garcia and Kelly’s work about the work of Renee Green. In Import/Export Funk Office, Green is exploring how transcultural the impact of Hip-hop is, the space, reminiscent of a bleak office, is archival visually, yet we are presented with a time-lapse of materials. The purpose of this show exists in what has transpired between these materials. This understanding can only be done through knowing the history of the objects within Green’s exhibitions, the show produces an emotional impact. Archival work can question how our physical relationship with the object is not as significant as the emotional aspect. 

The Archive transcends the institutional influence of research based art, yet how would we understand the archive if we did not have the foundation of research-based art?