For Immediate Release
February 24, 2025
CLARK ART INSTITUTE RESEARCH AND ACADEMIC PROGRAM PRESENTS LECTURE BY ANNIE BOURNEUF
ON ABY WARBURG’S MNEMOSYNE
Williamstown, Massachusetts—On Tuesday, March 18, the Clark Art Institute’s Research and Academic Program presents a talk by Annie Bourneuf (School of the Art Institute of Chicago / Clark Professor 2024–25), who investigates one of the most enigmatic passages in the German-Jewish art historian Aby Warburg’s picture-atlas Mnemosyne, his attempted summation in arrays of images of his work on the afterlife of antiquity, centered on Renaissance Europe and nearing completion when he died in 1929. This free event takes place at 5:30 pm in the Manton Research Center auditorium.
Mnemosyne ends with two panels revolving around the Lateran Accords of that year, which established a new relationship of reciprocal support between the Catholic Church and Mussolini’s Fascist regime. Warburg himself stayed out late to witness the massive celebrations of the agreement, which he described as “the re-paganization of Rome,” and later combined press photographs of this and related events with reproductions of paintings by Botticelli and Raphael on the theme of the Eucharist, defamatory woodcuts depicting Jews desecrating the Host, a staged photograph of seppuku, and newspaper photographs of athletes, among other items, to make the two last panels. How might Warburg have understood the accords? What do these combinations of images do? More broadly, how can we understand the possibilities and perils of this foundational art historian’s attempt to bring his scholarly work to bear on the images and gestures formed by and in part forming the mass politics of his present?
Free. Accessible seats available; for information, call 413 458 0524. A 5 pm reception in the Manton Research Center reading room precedes the event. For more information, visit clarkart.edu/events. Admission to the Clark is free January through March 2025.
The next Research and Academic Program lecture is presented by Svitlana Tymkiv (City Museum of Lviv, Ukraine / Futures Fellow) and examines how issues of national identity in Ukraine have become particularly relevant in the country since the outbreak of the full-scale war. That event takes place on Tuesday, April 8 at 5:30 pm in the Manton Research Center auditorium.
ABOUT THE CLARK
The Clark Art Institute, located in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, is one of a small number of institutions globally that is both an art museum and a center for research, critical discussion, and higher education in the visual arts. Opened in 1955, the Clark houses exceptional European and American paintings and sculpture, extensive collections of master prints and drawings, English silver, and early photography. Acting as convener through its Research and Academic Program, the Clark gathers an international community of scholars to participate in a lively program of conferences, colloquia, and workshops on topics of vital importance to the visual arts. The Clark library, consisting of nearly 300,000 volumes, is one of the nation’s premier art history libraries. The Clark also houses and co-sponsors the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art.
The Clark, which has a three-star rating in the Michelin Green Guide, is located at 225 South Street in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Its 140-acre campus includes miles of hiking and walking trails through woodlands and meadows, providing an exceptional experience of art in nature. Galleries are open 10 am to 5 pm, Tuesday through Sunday from September through June and daily in July and August. Admission is free to all from January through March and is $20 from March through December; admission is free year-round for Clark members, all visitors age 21 and under, and students with a valid student ID. Free admission is also available through several programs, including First Sundays Free; a local library pass program; and EBT Card to Culture. For information on these programs and more, visit clarkart.edu or call 413 458 2303.
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