Mind the Gap Fissures and prospects of an impossible consensus. Archiving in Spain’s contemporary arena

Abstract

This paper examines the organic response to violence on which the photographic archive is assembled, distorted and embodied from the late 1970s to date in the Spanish contemporary arena. Archive is understood as a toolbox for reconstructing, not only the memories of the past but, following Jacques Derrida’s influential thesis, the responsibilities and promises of the future. Drawing on Slavoj Zizek’s notion of the “parallax view” and Chantal Mouffe’s definition of “antagonism” and “agonistic pluralism,” this essay argues that Spain’s contemporary art scene shares an approach to the photographic archive that relates to its capacity to affect and to have a counter-effect by the means of movement and alternation; in other words, by displacing the very same representations and devices that have fictitiously constructed the hegemonic historical consensus. By pinpointing the fissures that emerge from apparent incompatibilities, such as the pairing of culture/barbarism proposed by Walter Benjamin, the case studies presented in what follows bring to light often-anaesthetized historical narratives. Therefore, this paper suggests that these cases act as historical agents in disguise, putting to work experiences with history while questioning the referential value of the image: its representational paradox and rhetorical dependence.