What constitutes art, and specifically fine art, can be difficult to define. Questions of what differentiates art from non-art and good from bad art arise. Answers to these questions have been debated in academic treatises, art galleries, coffee shops and taverns for centuries. In essence such responses are subjective. Each individual has an answer that may conform to the general tastes of the time or may be formed in reaction to commonly held, contemporary notions of art and aesthetics. Accordingly, the archivists reading this article will have their own concepts of aesthetics that have nothing to do with their understanding of their professional role as archivists, records managers, or information specialists. The archival profession as a whole has spent little time considering either the nature of art as it relates to the methodological practices of archiving, or if the two seemingly disparate areas share any mutual ground on which comparisons might be drawn. Thus, archivists who are professionally knowledgeable can only decide for themselves whether or not art and archives can ever converge, or whether they must remain mutually exclusive. This article will show one example where the two have converged, and offer a discussion of the nature of archives as art.

One view of art derived from Plato holds that the artist is inspired by the Muses (or, in later versions, by God, or by the inner impulses, or by the collective unconscious) to express that which is beyond appearances - inner feelings, eternal truths, or the essence of the age.(1) Another common idea regarding aesthetics is that the artist creates art for its own sake, and not for any moral, political, educational or religious purposes. But archives, at least as understood and defined by the profession, are not part of a creative process per se, but rather by-products of some other activity that may or may not be aesthetic in origin. The papers, letters, diaries, and other evidence of activity that may form part of the fonds of an artist or writer are formed in the same manner as are all archives: they are made or received by that person in the conduct of their personal or business affairs. They may be about their works of art and mirror aspects of the creative process, but they are not in and of themselves works of art. This distinction between an archives (created as a by-product of activity) and a work of art (the direct product of activity) is clear. There are, however, as suggested above, places where the boundaries between the two blur. One of the most interesting examples of this convergence is the Morris/Trasov Archive, which is housed at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at UBC.(2)

The Morris/Trasov Archive was conceived and compiled by artists Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov. It began in the early 1970s with the formation of the Image Bank, a repository of mail art projects received in collaboration and exchange with artists working in other cities and creative environments. Over time the image bank grew to encompass not just the collaborative network of images received from other artists, but also to reflect and include materials generated by Morris and Trasov individually, and material collected by them. In 1978 the bank was forced to change its name when a photographic agency in the United States, which had registered and copyrighted the name "Image Bank", initiated legal action against the artists. Lacking the funds to fight a protracted legal battle, the Image Bank changed its name to the Morris/Trasov Archive. The scope and content of the Archive as it expanded beyond its original purpose is impressive: it includes the individual fonds of Michael Morris and Vincent Trasov as well as their collective fonds. In addition, it also encompasses an extensive collection of books, periodicals and other published material, art in multiple forms and media, artists' books, moving image and sound recordings, collages, correspondence, ephemera, exhibition catalogues, found objects, mailings, magazines, zines, photographs in various formats, postcards, posters, drawings, prints, and more. All of these materials collected and created by Morris and Trasov form their archives.

An interesting aspect of this collection of material from an artistic as well as archival point of view is how the creators view it. In reference to the Image Bank, Michael Morris has stated that it was/is "not an elaborate filing system or an access or retrieval agency ... [but] a reflection of responses, attitudes and positions that have been part of the constant redefining of the creative process in our time."(3) This ideology also holds true for the larger Morris/Trasov Archive since it is viewed by its creators not just as a collection of material (or a static archives), but as an organic entity. In conversations with the author, Vincent Trasov has many times referred to the material as a "living archives."(4) Indeed, both he and Morris see the Archive as an ongoing work of art, and the process of "archiving" as a creative one. The archiving that Morris and Trasov engage in is inherent in their activity as artists, and they consciously identify themselves as not just the caretakers of their Archive, but active participants in its creation. The creative "muse" that produces and inspires works of art, is the same one that drives the creation of their Archive. This Archive, then, is not a by-product of other activities that Morris and Trasov engage in, but it is one of their primary foci. Its creation can be interpreted as an end in and of itself, and not as a means to achieve some other artistic or aesthetic goal; (although it has fuelled a number of other projects, these projects are the by-products and not the raison d'etre of the Archive). Scot Watson, the Belkin Art Gallery's Director, has expanded on this concept, noting that:

… "the Morris/Trasov Archive is not an ordinary archive, but something more slippery to define. The Archive itself contains earlier attempts to file and catalogue its holdings. Many of the files are not closed, but contain as yet unrealized potential for projects and exhibitions. The Archive, in a certain sense, is meant to be considered as a work of art, or perhaps more accurately, as a vehicle for artistic research, as a working model for research as art, art as research."(5)

The Morris/Trasov Archive thus embodies a unique approach to art, research, and the process of archiving that blurs the boundaries between contemporary and traditional ideas.

For the archivist, the question remains whether or not the Morris/Trasov Archive is an archives in the true sense just because its creators define it as such. Many in the archival profession might argue that it is a hybrid of sorts, consisting of the artists' fonds, their collections of objects and the works of other artists. From an archival perspective, it is thus useful to see what typically archival characteristics it holds in order to determine whether or not the Morris/Trasov Archive is what its creators assert it to be. I shall therefore examine whether the Morris/Trasov Archive is authentic, impartial, interrelated, natural, and unique in the manner that these terms are generally applied to an archives or a fonds.

Authenticity is conventionally defined as "the quality of archival documents to bear authentic testimony of the actions, processes, and procedures which brought them into being."(6) Upon examining the material in the Archive, it is clearly a reflection not only of the creative energy and output of its creators, but of the artistic milieu of which they were an integral part in the 1970s. The Archive documents, in part, the processes and procedures of a network of artists engaged in an exchange of not only correspondence, but ideas and themes which flourished in the avant-garde art movement of the 1970s. Morris and Trasov describe this period as one of "playful utopia", which is readily evident when material in the archive is consulted.(7) There is the Miss General Idea Pageant (of which Michael Morris won the crown in 1971), the Mr. Peanut Mayoralty campaign in which Vincent Trasov's alter ego sought office in Vancouver, and others. Although it may be stretching the definition of authenticity to denote "authentic testimony" of a movement in creative processes, in the case of the Morris/Trasov Archive such a loose definition of the term is applicable. The material in the Archive continues to bear testimony to the contemporary era that created it. In addition, it provides more than static evidence of its origins by its nature as an organic, fluid work of art that continues to grow and change with the input of its creators at the same time as it freezes a sense of the period from which it emerged.

In one sense, then, the Morris/Trasov Archive is authentic if one defines the term loosely, but not as it is strictly used by archivists. The definition of impartiality conceived by the profession, that archives derive from the fact and circumstance of their creation as a means of carrying out activities and not as ends in themselves, is also not applicable in this case.(8)

As already noted, the artists very consciously create the Archive with the intention of preserving both the material and the process of its accumulation. In this regard, the qualities of naturalness and inter-relatedness can also be applied only with a degree of relativity. The archives are spontaneously generated by the artists in a creative sense, but not in the way business documents would naturally be produced. Likewise, the contents of the archives relate to each other only in a more general sense. They are created and accumulated by Morris and Trasov, and therefore reflect their interests and show how the different projects originate and grow from one other. Their inter-relatedness stems from their bond with the creators of the Archive, and not from any naturally occurring process that would link one item to another when records are created secondary to the activities that generate them.

Finally, the archival characteristic of uniqueness is also present in the Morris/Trasov Archive. Again, however, it depends on how strictly one defines the criteria for uniqueness. For archivists, uniqueness relates both to the item (or document) itself, and its relationship to other records within the fonds in terms of authenticity, impartiality, naturalness and inter-relatedness. The inter-relatedness of items in the Morris/Trasov is fluid. The artists regularly draw items from the Archive and rearrange them in ways that bring new meanings and contextual affiliations to the relationships they previously held. The old meanings still exist, but they are layered alongside the new and the manner in which they are unique is constantly redefined.

As we have seen, the five characteristics that are applied by archivists to define a fonds do not apply to the Morris/Trasov Archive in any strict definition of the terms. In fact, their application to the Archive is one that requires subjective and relative interpretations rather than clear boundaries. When archivists look at what the artists have created they may see a collection or an active set of records which due to their continued use do not fall under the category of archives. Yet, the artists define their creation as an archives, and such philosophers as Derrida have noted that archiving is an action or act inherent in the historical/humanistic process.(9) Therefore, in response to the question posed at the beginning of this piece as to whether or not the Morris/Trasov Archive is a true archives according to the archival profession, the answer is "no". The answer to whether or not it is a true archives in a wider sense, depends on whether the individual posing the question is willing to reach beyond these strict archival definitions to embrace a more relativistic and creative approach to archiving.

1 QBP Dictionary of Ideas, Quality Paperback Book Club ed. of the Hutchinson Dictionary of Ideas, s.v. "art."

2 Another example of the convergence between art and archives is the Browser Artropolis show held in Vancouver in 1997. Browser combined the idea of archives and exhibitions, giving participating artists a grey Hollinger box which would contain their contribution to the show.

3 UBC Fine Arts Gallery, Hand of the Spirit: Documents of the Seventies from the Morris/Trasov Archive (Vancouver, BC:UBC Fine Arts Gallery, 1994), 6.

4 Vincent Trasov, conversations with author, Summer 2000.

5 Hand of the Spirit, 5.

6 "Select List of Archival Terminology," School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, University of British Columbia.

7 Hand of the Spirit, preface.

8 "Archival Terminology".

9 Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996)

(*) Krisztina Laszlo holds a joint position as the Archivist for the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the Museum of Anthropology. She graduated from the Master of Archival Studies program in 1999.

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© 2001 Archives Association of British Columbia