Documenting and materialising art: conceptual approaches of documentation for the materialisation of art information

A focus on documentation is essential to help better understand art and its information, particularly in terms of art’s materiality and art information’s materialisation. Documentation — that is, documents and practices with them, or so-called documentary practices — provides the material basis for art and, in turn, materialises the information presented, displayed or intended by the artwork, or piece of art.

Indeed, most kinds of art exist as some kind of document, such as a film, painting or sculpture. Art’s information, moreover, is materialised, and thereby transformed, into an artwork, or piece of art, by and through documentation. Documentation is therefore a crucial component of the field and practice of art because of its important roles in materialising artistic concepts into particular kinds of documents that are considered, treated, practiced and interacted with as art.

This article presents a conceptual exploration of documentation so as to help illuminate its importance for art’s materiality and art information’s materialisation. Drawing upon the work of Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Michael Buckland, Bernd Frohmann, Marc Kosciejew, Niels Lund, Tim Gorichanaz, and Kiersten Latham, Diana Coole and Samantha Frost, this article aims to introduce and begin to bring together the disciplines and practices of documentation and art by providing useful conceptual approaches in which to better understand their material realities. This article also responds to Ann-Sophie Lehmann’s call for more and greater material literacy of and for the (art) world, by contributing to the start of a conversation about documentation and materialisation generally and about art and its information specifically.