Archive Fever: Photography between History and the Monument (2008) Available to Purchase

This essay introduced the exhibition Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art, curated by Okwui Enwezor in his capacity as adjunct curator at the International Center of Photography, New York, and shown there January 18–May 4, 2008. Taking up theories of the archive advanced by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Allan Sekula, and others, Enwezor explores the myriad ways (including as form, medium, and public memory) in which photographs operate as archives in the work of contemporary artists such as Gerhard Richter, Craigie Horsfield, Stan Douglas, Glenn Ligon, Thomas Ruff, Lorna Simpson, Zoe Leonard, and others.