The volume traces the exhibition and editorial history of the Mnemosyne Atlas, the grand project conceived by Aby Warburg as a picture-atlas devoted to the re-emergences of the classical tradition within Western culture. Left unfinished at the time of its author’s death, the Atlas survives through a series of photographs documenting 63 large-format panels, each composed as a visual montage of photographic reproductions, drawings, maps, book pages, postage stamps, newspaper clippings, and advertising inserts. The book offers a mapping—deliberately partial yet systematic—of more than thirty exhibitions and thirteen editions which, from the late 1970s to the present day, have sought to give visible form to Warburg’s project, transforming Mnemosyne from an unpublished book into an exhibition device. Each exhibition and each edition is examined here as an interpretative and authorial reading of Warburg’s work— as the outcome of a negotiation between philology and imagination, between documentary fidelity and curatorial freedom. Each exhibition is presented through an individual entry reconstructing its genesis, analysing the methodological choices adopted by the curators in their use of materials, exploring the dialogue with the exhibition space, examining the modes of reconstruction of the Atlas, and documenting its critical reception. Particular attention is paid to the display strategies—black and white or colour, 1:1 scale, reduced or enlarged formats—and to the critical paratexts, which reveal in filigree the multifaceted reception of Warburg’s thought. Far from being a simple catalogue, this book serves as a tool for navigating the critical fortune of a ghost-work—a project interrupted, yet no less alive, and still today capable of activating thought. The exhibition history of Mnemosyne thus emerges as a parallel discourse to the development of Warburg’s legacy, and as an invitation to confront a challenging question: Is it possible to exhibit Mnemosyne? Can Warburg’s “living thought” be put on display?
Exhibit Mnemosyne | Display Mnemosyne. Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas: An Exhibition History
Giulia Zanon
2025-01-01
Abstract
The volume traces the exhibition and editorial history of the Mnemosyne Atlas, the grand project conceived by Aby Warburg as a picture-atlas devoted to the re-emergences of the classical tradition within Western culture. Left unfinished at the time of its author’s death, the Atlas survives through a series of photographs documenting 63 large-format panels, each composed as a visual montage of photographic reproductions, drawings, maps, book pages, postage stamps, newspaper clippings, and advertising inserts. The book offers a mapping—deliberately partial yet systematic—of more than thirty exhibitions and thirteen editions which, from the late 1970s to the present day, have sought to give visible form to Warburg’s project, transforming Mnemosyne from an unpublished book into an exhibition device. Each exhibition and each edition is examined here as an interpretative and authorial reading of Warburg’s work— as the outcome of a negotiation between philology and imagination, between documentary fidelity and curatorial freedom. Each exhibition is presented through an individual entry reconstructing its genesis, analysing the methodological choices adopted by the curators in their use of materials, exploring the dialogue with the exhibition space, examining the modes of reconstruction of the Atlas, and documenting its critical reception. Particular attention is paid to the display strategies—black and white or colour, 1:1 scale, reduced or enlarged formats—and to the critical paratexts, which reveal in filigree the multifaceted reception of Warburg’s thought. Far from being a simple catalogue, this book serves as a tool for navigating the critical fortune of a ghost-work—a project interrupted, yet no less alive, and still today capable of activating thought. The exhibition history of Mnemosyne thus emerges as a parallel discourse to the development of Warburg’s legacy, and as an invitation to confront a challenging question: Is it possible to exhibit Mnemosyne? Can Warburg’s “living thought” be put on display?
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