Symbols & Archetypes: Two Millennia of Recurring Visions in Art, the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts GalleryÔÇÖs exhibition, made headlines (and a cover page) during its fall 2019 run. Art & Antiques┬áprofiled the exhibition in a five-page feature titled ÔÇ£Ageless ImagesÔÇ£;┬áThe Nashville Scene┬ásaid our trans-collection exhibition ÔÇ£leads the seasonÔÇÖs must-see art showsÔÇØ in its Fall Guide; and┬áthe Tennessean┬ápublished a piece that included a fantastic quote from Volney GayÔÇöemeritus professor of Psychiatry, Religious Studies and AnthropologyÔÇöwho advised on the exhibition.
Burnaway, The Voice of Art in the South reviewed the exhibition as ÔÇ£a meditative, slightly spooky trip into the collective unconsciousÔǪ displaying artifacts and artworks including ancient Chinese currency, alchemical texts, a selection of tarot card decks and proto-surrealist illustrations, twentieth-century lithographs by Marc Chagall,┬á Salvador Dali, and Pablo Picasso, and works by more contemporary artists including the Tennessee-based painters David Onri Anderson and Rubens Ghenov.ÔÇØ Read the full review.
The exhibition examined artworks and artifacts from different eras, cultures, and disciplines, all through the lens of the archetypal themes that they share. This gallery presentation took as its point of departure Carl JungÔÇÖs 1912 publication┬áSymbols of Transformation, which frames the unconscious as a collective psyche, and the instinctive force driving visions to reappear time and again throughout human historyÔÇöin dreams, religions, folklore and art from across the world. Organized into four categoriesÔÇöCelestial Events, Major Arcana, Serpents & Slayers, and Sacred GeometriesÔÇöthe exhibition explored artworks made over the span of two thousand years, to include: Chinese currency from the Zhou Dynasty (1046ÔÇô256 BCE); fifth-century illuminated manuscripts; alchemical texts from sixteenth-century Germany; early European tarot cards, proto-surrealist illustration by nineteenth-century French caricaturist J.J. Grandeville; collaged self-portraits by avant-garde French photographer Claude Cahun; twentieth-century lithographs by Marc Chagall and Salvador Dal├¡; and Vanderbilt Television News Archives from the Apollo moon landing. Alongside historical works were those by twenty-first century artists whose imagery delves into the collective unconscious: Martin Puryear (b. 1941, USA), Rubens Ghenov (b. 1975, Brazil), Sharona Eliassaf (b. 1980, Israel), and Nashville-based David Onri Anderson (b. 1993, USA) among them.
A lecture by Curator Rachel Lavenda focused on the history of Tarot using items from The George Clulow–United States Playing Card Company Gaming Collection in Vanderbilt’s Special Collections Library.