KENT FINE ART Photography

In 2012, along with Adams’ completion of his 42 minute video Malraux’s Shoes, he was simultaneously referencing his own extensive library and archive documenting the intellectual climate of the 1960s. Entitled Tagging the Archive, this suite of 24 text pieces are montaged over revolutionary ephemera from the 60s as well as book covers such as Abbie Hoffman’s Steal this Book (1971), Franz Erhard Walther’s Objekte, benutzen (1968), Jean Luc Godard’s Le Petit Soldat, Claude Levi Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques, Henry Miller’s Black Spring, and others. This was Adams’ opportunity to formulate a critical dialogue filled with ambiguous clues. Juxtaposed against forerunners such as Broodthaer’s Departement des Aigles (1968-72), or Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas (1866-1929), or Malraux’s Le Musee Imaginaire, or Richard Prince’s extensive personal library of vintage pulp...