From Walter Benjamin’s thinking on history, and the usage of archives by artists such as Sara Angelucci, Christian Boltanski, and Angela Grauerholz, we demonstrate that the archive is not a fixed whole, nor an essentially open object but a dynamic aggregate reconfigured at each use. In other terms, it is when a user and archives meet that the archive reveals an access to reality.
Keywords: Walter Benjamin; theory of history; dialectical image; artistic usage of archives.
