The Importance Of Archives In Art

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When asked how archives may contribute to enhancing the intellectual value of an artwork, the general consensus from analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that primary sources of artist archives are a valuable source of evidence to the art researcher. In addition to gaining insight into the working methods of the artist, the experts believed that background details, documents and objects in the archives, as “pieces of the puzzle” (Expert A) can also contribute to enhanced understanding of the artist and the artworks. Moreover, experts B and D highlighted that sketches, photographs and diary entries may speak to the provenance of an artwork and possibly used to authenticate an artwork. According to expert B, not only can you not…show more content…
Costs of digitizing images and implementing in computer systems concerned expert A whereas accessibility to high quality images, especially for texts such as letters or correspondences was essential, according to expert B. Furthermore, the degree to which archives contribute to art research depends upon the type of research. Although artist archives may deepen understanding of the artist and his artworks, Expert A claimed that archives may be of limited value to particular research, for example, research into conservation or artistic styles. Finally, emphasising the positive role of archives in art research, by displaying archival materials next to a work of art Expert B informs that “it gives people an understanding of how curators work, of how historians work, that they use this type of material to interpret the artworks”. On the other hand, expert B also underscores the difficulty of combining archives with artworks stating “But they’re all catalogues of different standards you see, so that’s why integration is so…show more content…
According to Expert D the intellectual value of archives resides in the ‘whole’ of the archives and she believed that maintaining archives as a complete unit preserves that value. However, she noted that rather than overwhelming the researcher with the whole collection, that presentation of individual objects along with a note of the collection in which the objects resides, would best assist the researcher. Similarly, Expert B felt it would be unnecessary to present an archival collection when presenting an object from the collection stating “But in terms of its presentation it could be taken out and shown separately”, concurring also that showing the collection name would be

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