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Art Collection Archives: The Art Institute of Chicago and the Barjeel Art Foundation

The term ‘archive’ refers to a ‘collection of records, preserved and made available for research’ consisting of primary and secondary materials.[1] With increasing awareness of social justice and inclusivity, the terminology ‘archive’ and its purpose have been the subject of debate in recent years. Archivists enable the public to review the information relevant to materials based on the records and evidence. On the other hand, they also entail the possibility of legitimising the construction of specific narratives in conceptualising our memories and historical perceptions.[2] Given this nature, we have to remain conscious of archival systems and the power relations behind the structures.


As a student pursuing Japanese Studies based outside Japan, interested in the visual resonance between Japanese-Arabic calligraphic abstraction, the quality and accessibility of relevant primary resources are essential for my research. Nevertheless, since the concept of ‘Calligraphic Abstraction’ and its geo-cultural scope is still vague and broad, few thematic-based archival platforms contain and contextualise the corresponding body of works in one database. This post will examine the different characters in two art archiving platforms, briefly touching on the regional highlights of each that could relate to my thesis.



The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC)

The Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) (Fig. 1) was formed in 1879 as a museum and school for the fine arts. Its permanent collection has approximately 300,000 items across vast geographical and chronological categories.[3] The Collection of the AIC is held under ‘the highest ethical standards and practices’[4] and discloses archival information under the three subcategories: ‘Artworks’, ‘Writings’, and ‘Resources’ on its website. All catalogued works are publicly available online with standardised information, including credit lines and, in some cases, descriptions to enhance the viewers’ understanding of the work.



For instance, Dragon Knows Dragon (Ryū wa Ryū wo Shiru) (1969) by Shiryū Morira (森田 子龍) (1912–1998) (Fig. 2) on the website is accompanied by the following explanatory texts to guide viewers’ interests in this item:


‘Morita’s vigorous style often results in nearly abstract forms that no longer appear to be words. In this work, the character for dragon becomes more expressive of the actual animal with a long, sinewy tail flying through the air’.[5]



In comparison, the Barjeel Art Foundation (Fig. 3), initially established by an Emirati art patron and collector, Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi, takes a slightly different approach in providing an online archive of the art collection. Encompassing over 1,000 works, the foundation presents modern and contemporary Arab art to ‘foster critical dialogue around contemporary art practices with a focus on artists with Arab heritage internationally’[6]. Unlike the AIC’s system, the amount and quality of available data about items stay minimum; reference numbers or descriptions are unavailable. Instead, each collection is linked to the pages where introductory texts about the artist are included in contrast to the AIC which does not issue biographies in the corresponding pages.



The page of the work, Without You or Me or the Nostalgic Hallucination (1986) by Rachid Koraïchi (Fig. 4), for example, only discloses the records of ‘Artist (Name)’, ‘Country (of the Artist)’, ‘Title’, ‘Exhibition (that the work was displayed)’ and ‘Medium’. However, his artist page offers more details on his biography and activities, noting his practice’s connection to various calligraphic traditions, including the ‘influences from Chinese ideograms to pre-Islamic Berber and Tuareg art forms’.[7]


While the AIC archive, founded as an educational institution, emphasises museum objects for wider audiences, the Barjeel Foundation archive highlights artists rather than items under a solid philosophy to empower Arab art scenes. Museum archives are often created in a didactic formation of the institution, based on the available collection in line with curatorial and scholarly research. Private or collector-based archival resources may tend to leave room to issue and articulate academic records; however, they can potentially include marginal works that are not highly regarded by academia and museum curators today and could encourage new discussions for the years to come.


I would also like to look at other archives considering how current art historiographies or institutional aims could filter out to include or exclude certain discourses contributing to the narrative creation by ‘archiving’.





Reference:

[2] Joan M. Schwartz and Terry Cook, ‘Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory’, Archival Science 2, no. 1-2 (2002), https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02435628, 1.

[3] The Art Institute of Chicago, ‘Collection Information’, The Art Institute of Chicago, https://www.artic.edu/collection-information.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid, ‘Dragon Knows Dragon (Ryu Wa Ryu Wo Shiru)’, The Art Institute of Chicago (Arts of Asia), accessed April 18, 2023, https://www.artic.edu/artworks/62558/dragon-knows-dragon-ryu-wa-ryu-wo-shiru.

[6] The Barjeel Art Foundation, ‘Contact and About’, Barjeel Art Foundation, 2010,



Related Links:

・The Collection, the Art Institute of Chicago: https://www.artic.edu/collection

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