0114 Figurations of Memory in the Virtual Field of Art (History)

Abstract

The article discusses the location of memory and its relations with perception in contemporary art, as well as how memory takes part and resurfaces in artistic practice. I point to the impossibility of introducing a division between individual and collective memory and I refer to the notion of virtuality, which defines the immaterial visuality of memory coming into interaction with the perceived image that constitutes the expanded field of the process of construction and reception of an art work. In the second part of the text I provide a detailed analysis of means of visualising memory – the manifestations of its work that diversify the initial image – in the work of four artists: Zbigniew Libera, Gerhard Richter, Ken Aptekar and Izabella Gustowska. In conclusion, following Rosalind Krauss, I point to the necessity of redefining and "remembering" about the medium in contemporary art, with memory, in the context of the analysed works, as its founding element.