Uwe Fleckner Book order

In September 1895, Aby Warburg embarked on a journey to the United States, unknowingly setting the stage for a pivotal moment in art history. Although his American sojourn lasted only a few months and his time in Pueblo communities just weeks, his findings culminated in a landmark 1923 lecture on the “Snake Ritual.” This story and picture book chronicles his exploration, showcasing selected photographs, ethnological drawings, and various documents that illustrate his encounters with diverse figures—from chiefs to missionaries. It highlights his records of dances, ritual objects, and artworks rich in symbolic meaning. These documents reflect a significant shift in Warburg’s scholarly perspective, paving the way for the cross-border cultural comparative methodology for which he is now renowned. Warburg (1866–1929) is credited with founding modern pictorial science, focusing on the afterlife of antiquity in the Renaissance, a theme captured in his iconic pictorial atlas, Mnemosyne. His American journey exemplifies his early inclination to look beyond Western culture to investigate the connections between myths, images, and rites. Uwe Fleckner, a leading expert on Warburg, has been a professor of art history at the University of Hamburg since 2004 and has contributed extensively to the field through his publications and editorial work.

Features essays that explore the theme of enchantment in images from the perspectives of anthropology and media history. In this book, essays address the mediality, materiality, and conditions of production and reception of images considered magical or animate, while at the same time presenting the genre functions of powerful works of art.

On December 13, 1933, the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg left its home in Hamburg and went into exile in London, salvaging the books andimage collection of its founder Aby Warburg. The scholarly arrival of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek in the intellectual life of the British metropolis, which, in 1944, finally resulted in the integration of the Warburg Institute in the University of London, started an ongoing process of intellectual exchange between German and English research traditions that is still going on today. Essays by internationally renowned scholars, among them many witnesses to the Warburg Institute's intellectual work of the early years, are dedicated to how the intellectual approach of the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek contributed to the English scholar community. The publication also examines how the move to London affected the research of the K. B. W. and how it made the Warburg Institute one of the world's most important humanities research facilities.

Das Porträt ist seit seinen Anfängen und bis in die Kunst der unmittelbaren Gegenwart hinein als eine Kunstform der Widersprüche zu charakterisieren: Vor die Aufgabe gestellt, mit dem individuellen Menschen und seiner Charakterisierung einen strikt vorgegebenen Gegenstand zu erfassen und zugleich ein Kunstwerk eigenen Rechts zu gestalten, sehen sich sämtliche Bildnisformen einem ästhetischen Konflikt ausgesetzt, dessen Lösungen denkbar stark zwischen naturnaher Wiedergabe und weitgehend abstrakter Werkerfindung oszillieren. Der vorliegende Band widmet sich der Gattung des Porträts medienübergreifend und in seiner gesamten thematischen Bandbreite: Von der Erkundung des Individuums im Bildnis über die politische Funktion der Gattung, von der Stilisierung des Menschen zu Maske, Rolle und Typus bis hin zu den Inszenierungsstrategien des Künstlers im Selbstporträt reichen die gattungstheoretisch angelegten Fallbeispiele internationaler Autoren.

Fragmented and morbid, yet full of an inspiring, adolescent sensitivity, Douglas Kolk's drawings and collages feature seductive, abject figures who seem to be at odds with themselves and the world around them. Influenced by Pop art and contemporary media images, Kolk's delicate, confessional works have titles like A Boy Named Deth, A Girl Named Sic, and Hi Sunflower! and deal intensively with popular youth culture. Perhaps the artist's personal history lends some born in Newark, New Jersey in 1963, Kolk grew up in a senior citizens' home led by his father, a Baptist preacher. After studying graphic design, he worked as an assistant to Robert Longo, and then as the curator of a corporate art collection. In the mid-90s, increasing artistic success brought enough pressure to cause Kolk to stop working for a while. He recently resumed drawing, and has had solo shows at Team and David Zwirner galleries in New York.