This seminar is conceived as a practicum for developing critical approaches to the use and interpretation of archival materials, with special emphasis on the way in which archives have been deployed to construct and reconstruct the idea of Latin American art in the 20^th and 21^st centuries. Departing from recent developments such as digital meta-archive projects, the display of historical archives within contemporary art exhibitions, and the construction of new documentation centers based on individual artists and critics, we will consider specific case studies alongside theoretical texts that explore how archives constitute institutional authority, how they produce their objects of study, as well as how we can narrate absences within them.