The Warburg Library and the Artist's Library: A Possible Development

Abstract

From the mid-1980s onwards, interest in Aby Warburg's work has resumed, with the appearance of several studies on the Kulturwissenschaftliche Bibliothek Warburg (KBW) and the Atlas Mnemosyne. During this period, it was detected, in the field of visual arts, the emergence of numerous works that use the Library as an artistic support. Provisionally called artist libraries, the term describes the library as a space for poetic construction and the productions of artists whose support is the library space, whether this is a real or fictional. This reflection seeks to understand the possible relationships between KBW and artist libraries. Works by Cláudio Parmigiani (Untitled, 2009) and Leila Danzinger´s Ato e Fato and Tevye, the milkman (from Série ASA, 2018), as well as Bildung (2014) will be analyzed within the described frame.