I like to think of artists' aesthetics. The way various creatives, separated by time or space or medium, unknowingly observe a meeting of the mind. Their artworks — although distinct and unique — keep a similar flavour, a faint scent of déjà vu. And you could be walking down the steps of a museum, at an edgy exhibition opening, or scrolling through an artist's page; you would find a resemblance. 

 

Today I thought about archive fever, fetish-like and nostalgic. Words like Fragments, Memory, and Identity come and come again in exhibition titles, art gallery newsletters, and events. Family photos, faded travel documents, dusty objects and cassette tapes can be supports, mediums and sources of inspiration for cultural practitioners. 

 

The archive as an aesthetic code has a specific texture. Something visceral emanates from the dust slowly accumulating on forgotten objects and yellowed paper: a craving for touch or memory. Anna Gonzalez Noguchi's sculptural work possesses a tactile element that plays on this taste for archives. The Spanish, Greek and English artist based between Athens and London dives headfirst into reutilising documentation. In her BEDDED IN ['98-'08], a glass frame enrobes what appears to be folded hand towels, and a photograph slipped in a zip-lock bag. There are three pictures of a bright pink flower imprinted on the bag. The date at the bottom right corner ('98.6.16) and the penned 2008 barring one of the flowers ground the photographs' existence, their materiality. The glass frame is tinted in grey, as is the zip-lock bag. Everything is compressed and nicely packed in a simulacrum for a medicine cabinet. It is challenging to describe her work as anything other than objects carefully brought together. Nothing is glued, sewn, or stapled. There is no struggle, no tension.. No, the objects displayed below the glass frame are just there, naturally resting. But I yearn to touch the surface; cut the work open to plunge my hand into the plush towels emprisoned in their case. Or feel the plastic ridges of the zip-lock. Gonzalez Noguchi's work positions memory as a vividly palpable emotion. 

 

For archive fever, the most apparent explanation should be nostalgia. However, works that borrow this "aesthetic" highlight how documents are crucial in understanding one's identity and alienation. I look at vintage photographs of strangers, and their history somewhat becomes mine. The strangers become my strangers. At once anonymous and incredibly intimate.