Problems of Archiving Activist Art in Russian Museums

The article analyzes the problems that contemporary art historians and archivists face when working with activist art. Some of these problems are linked to the issues of archiving contemporary art in general, like the ephemerality and fragility of contemporary art, the difficulty of identifying objects worthy of archiving, the increasing digitalization of art, and others. Based on materials of Garage Archive Collection, the article also examines the problems inherent in the process of archiving activist art as a radical genre. The analysis allows the author to identify three groups of such problems (legal and technical, as well as problems of expert knowledge) and suggest potential ways to solve them.