The archive: between history and exhibitions practices

Within a growing attention to the role of archives in artistic and curatorial practices and historical investigation, the outcomes of the conference Archivi esposti (Bari 2021) marked a return of the representative framework, as well as a point of arrival and perhaps a turning point in the reflection on the relationships between archive, history, memory and exhibition that have intertwined in multiple fields since the 1990s. We would like to start from this in order to cross those, sometimes, inseparable links between object, work, the definition of narrative paths and the archive as forms of the contemporary condition, drawing a map to suggest the themes that are especially central at this time.