Ripensare l'archivio nell'arte contemporanea : Marcel Broodthaers, Hanne Darboven, Hans Haacke

The purpose of this research is considering in which specific moment the issue of the archive became relevant in art, and which roles, meanings and forms it gained in contemporary practice. The archival and taxonomic impulse that goes through the entire 20th century is not an exclusive feature neither of the first Avant-gardes nor of the recent art tendencies with their strategies of appropriation, renovation and montage. It has much deeper historical and philosophical roots that from Modernity go backwards in time in a perpetual and vertiginous desire of control and measuring of both the self and the general structure of the world. And it concerns must of all the technical and conceptual revolution that took place in the Sixties and Seventies. The intent of this dissertation is to outline a reading hypothesis of the contemporary revival of the archive through three exemplary case studies: Marcel Broodthaers (the archive as institutional critique), Hanne Darboven (the archive as personal cosmology), Hans Haacke (the archive as social and political commitment).