As part of the Serpentine’s online programme, Hans Ulrich Obrist will be in conversation with Professor Bill Sherman, Director of the Warburg Institute discussing the new virtual tour of two major exhibitions devoted to Aby Warburg’s magnum opus, the Bilderatlas Mnemosyne.
The virtual tour, available to view on the Warburg Institute website, has been launched to provide a digital afterlife to two exhibitions dedicated to pioneering cultural historian Aby Warburg (1886-1929) and his unfinished magnum opus, the so-called Bilderatlas Mnemosyne—a visual map of cultural memory named after the Greek goddess of remembrance.
The Bilderatlas Mnemosyne is at once a map of ancient images and one of modernity’s foundational projects. Known only from the black-and-white photos taken before Warburg’s death, the Bilderatlas has become a legend for scholars, artists and curators.
The virtual tour consists of over 100 viewpoints created from over 1000 high-res photographs, alongside audio and video commentaries with directors, curators and experts.
Launch events
We are delighted to be involved in the launch of this virtual tour.
Artistic Director of the Serpentine, Hans Ulrich Obrist will be in conversation with Professor Bill Sherman, Director of the Warburg Institute, taking place on Thursday 26 November at 5.30pm GMT. German author, academic and film director Alexander Kluge will also be a part of this event.
Exhibition information
Aby Warburg: Bilderatlas Mnemosyne – the Original, curated by Roberto Ohrt and Axel Heil was a collaboration with the Warburg Institute, at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. The exhibition at HWK reconstituted the 63 panels of the Atlas for the first time from Warburg’s original, multi-coloured images, contained within the archives of the Warburg Institute.
An accompanying exhibition, Between Cosmos and Pathos: Berlin Works from Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas, was held at the Gemäldegalerie, and presented an unprecedented collection of 50 objects pictured in Warburg’s Atlas, gathered from 10 of Berlin’s state museums.
About the Warburg Institute
The Warburg Institute was founded in Hamburg by the historian of art and culture Aby Warburg (1866-1929), the scholarly scion of one of Europe’s great banking families. It was exiled to England in 1933—becoming the only institution forced to flee from Nazi Germany that survives intact in Britain. Today, as part of the University of London, it is one of the world’s premiere institutes for the study of images, ideas and society.
