I have been quite intrigued by Okwui Enwezor's curatorial projects ever since documenta 11 in 2002 and his visit at the Whitney Study Program while I attended it (2003-04). And of course the current feisty exchange with Robert Storr in Artforum made me particularly curious as to Enwezor's latest project, an exhibition entitled "Archive Fever - Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art" at the International Center of Photography here in New York. "Archive Fever" seems to derive from Jacques Derrida's book by the same name in which the French philosopher takes up the subject of the archive, submitting it to one of his notorious deconstructive analyses. 
Coming down the stairs into ICP's basement gallery, I was startled by the curator's choice to board-up half the walls with plywood. I know that white gallery walls are not very fashionable in academic art circles, but to justify the look with imagining the archive as "a dim musty place full of drawers, filing cabinets, and shelves laden with old documents" seems a bit far fetched. In fact, most contemporary archives are probably highly lit, climate controlled, fireproof and clean institutional spaces. Even places like the expansive East German Stasi archives were probably never housed in raw plywood rooms. Whatever Enwezor's reasons were, the choice of presentation is rather distracting from showing how "artists have appropriated, interpreted, reconfigured and interrogated archival structures and materials." One of my favorite works in the exhibition was Fazal Sheikh's "Afghan Images", a series of black and white photographs depicting hands holding small photos of loved ones who were killed or disappeared, mostly during the Soviet-Afghanistan War. Accompanied by wall texts with the back stories, these images provide a glimpse into the complicated, complex and painful recent history of Afghanistan, especially in light of the simplistic and rather reactionary film "Wilson's War", which just hit the theaters.
I always love to see a film by Harun Farocki being included in an exhibition, even though I am not quite sure why one encounters his work lately more in visual art institutions and biennials rather than movie theaters and film festivals. "Videograms of a Revolution" is a fine piece of work about the end of Ceauşescu rule in Romania, but definitely not my favorite film by this underappreciated German filmmaker. Anri Sala's "Intervista" on the other hand, seems more successful in investigating the fault lines of recent Eastern European history. Sala found an old 16mm reel depicting his mother with then-Albanian-communist-leader Enver Hoxa. Anri Sala had little information about this event and the film's audio track was lost. So, Sala set out to document his investigation about the content and context of this film reel.
Other works in the show included a poignant series of staged photographs by Zoe Leonard, called "The Fae Richards Photo Archive", found images arranged by Tacita Dean ("Floh"), and Sherri Levine's notorious "After Walker Evans" photographs. All these works challenge authenticity and authorship, and question the meaning of images and their archives as valid historical inscriptions. And then there were the usual suspects. I am actually getting tired of encountering Struffskys in ever new contexts of various group exhibitions. But yes, "Archive Fever" also includes Thomas Ruff and two of his "Machines" photographs. I wonder why Enwezor didn't opt for the Bechers instead. I mean one won't find a more rigorous archive than their building typologies.
But the one thing I really would love to know from the curator is: What was the huge stack of white letter-size paper for? It was placed at the entry of the exhibition with a sign encouraging visitors "Take One". A blank sheet of paper? For notes? My personal archive? I just couldn't decipher the purpose. Perhaps I need to read some more Derrida. In any case, I would definitely recommend this exhibition to anyone academically minded and/or interested in the subject of the archive and documentary.
Upstairs was a separate and intriguing show by conceptual artist and photographer Barbara Bloom, called "The Collections of Barbara Bloom". Although, I have to admit, I knew very little about the artist beforehand, I was really happy to have encountered her work at the occasion. Bloom's various installations through which she is "questioning appearances, exploring the desire for possessions, and commenting on the act of collecting" were very informative. I really enjoyed "Framing", for example, a collection of salon-style hanged photographs (from between 1981 to 2006). Not only were the images and their grouping amazing, but each photograph was framed differently, applying effectively various conceptual strategies. I will certainly try to seek out more information about the artist and hope to see more of her works in future shows. And if you haven't encountered Barbara Bloom's work before either, here is a great chance at the ICP to see some really interesting conceptual art.
