현대 미술에 투영된 아카이브의 아포리아(aporia): 게하르트 리히터의 <아틀라스>

Abstract

This paper is to examine Gerhard Richter’s “Atlas” as an artistic symbol of the memory archive with the theme of aporia which is one of the characteristics of the modern art. “The Atlas” which is composed of 800 huge tafels reflects Richter’s perspective where we can recognize his psychological and work’s source. It is obtained through examining 10,000 pictures, and is also a unique document that shows the life of the artist. The contents of "the Atlas" have been added and expanded continuously, which make it said to be finished, but it still remains as a non-complete work. According to Derrida, the desire for an archive is an illness that reaches for the death and is a part of the desire of finding and possessing the beginning or origin of everything. Derrida realized through the archive fever in “Moses and Monotheism”, Freud’s desire of possessing the beginning of everything. This fever is to be seen in situations where death is urged. Therefore, the archive fever is a journey towards the death. The desire to make an archive comes from the inquiry of repeating something, and according to Freud, this desire for repetition can be seen as going towards death. When Derrida was studying Freud’s “Moses and Monotheism“, he did not overlook Freud’s archive fever. This has a connection to Richter’s archive fever in "the Atlas", reflected in the war and ideology due to the repetitive compulsion of trauma. Derrida said that the reason for Richter examining the same theme repetitively was the archive fever and is at the same time a movement towards the death. Consequently, trauma exists through the archive, and the archive continues through the trial of finding the beginning. Nothing can stop this except the death and that is why death is to be found at the end of the journey. This paper examines Richter’s memory archive in the three directions. First, I illustrate the repetitive compulsion shown in "the Atlas" and resulted from trauma in an aporaic way to concentrate only on the archive, and examine the aporaic narrative of the author. Second, I examine the various methods of different modern artists to express their “after death memory” when they overcame their trauma. Finally, I examine the aporaic method that is illustrated through the process of fusing and transforming photographs, which shows the objective truth with art. In other words, I examine the method that is exposed between the photographic truth and artistic creation.