Search

Both the exhibition Aby Warburg: "Mnemosyne Atlas. Rekonstruktion – Kommentar – Aktualisierung", curated by Roberto Ohrt and Axel Heil at the ZKM in Karlsruhe, and the two-day colloquium organised in conjunction to the show have been an opportunity to read the “reconstruction, commentary and revision” of the Bilderatlas as a reenactment, and to reconsider the polarities original/copy, past/future, visual montage/epistemic meanings in Warburg’s method, at the crossroad between artistic practice and scientific research. In this respect, the article focuses on the role of Mnemosyne as a medium that stands in an open, generative dialogue with the contemporary obsession for revisiting the past, not in a nostalgic way, but by exploring its potentiality in the present and future.

An extract from the book Archivi impossibili. Un'ossessione dell'arte contemporanea, written by Cristina Baldacci and published by Johan & Levi Editore.