Archive - the medium of writing.

Rewriting and exploring the history of art in the peripheral countries I describe the increasing role of archives as a metaphor and a real place in contemporary art and in the process of writing the narrative of the art history in the countries of periphery. The notion of periphery is used in relevance to the theory of the world – the system formed by Immanuel Wallerstein. The description of expansion of the archival way of thinking into the field of art is based on works by such theorists as: Daniel Roelstraete, Mark Godfrey and Hal Foster. There are two archive models from the Polish art history: “The Live Archive” of Foksal Gallery and the work of art made from its material – “Miejsce” (“Place”) by Rafał Jakubowicz and its consequences as well as the archive by two Polish artists: Zofia Kulik and Przemysław Kwiek, called “The Laboratory of Action, Documentation and Dissemination” and the work of art based on its content - “Z archiwum KwieKulik” (“From the Archive of KwieKulik”). I believe that artistic archives play very important role in the process of writing and interpreting the art history of peripheral countries, more important than in core countries, because the archives are one of the methods of emancipation and putting the peripheral narration into the global discourse on art history