Instructor: Bobby Abate
Used to unlock answers, the Tarot made its first appearance in Northern Italy during the 15th century. Evolving from a game, this means of divination and guidance has become a mode of creative expression and personal storytelling for many artists, including Leonora Carrington, Betye Saar, Salvador Dali, and Niki de Saint Phalle.
From the Fool's impulsiveness to the Magician's curiosity and the untamed creatures of the Moon, the Tarot can be an excellent prompt for new explorations in art making.
Led by visual artist and Tarot creator Bobby Abate, participants will be invited to begin the creation of a new deck, workshop an existing project, or make art inspired by Tarot's iconography and spiritual framework.
In 1993 a demolition of a house in Assisi yielded the discovery of a 48-card tarot deck created in Umbria around 1525. In this workshop, we will investigate and establish interconnections between the Tarot, our creations, and the artwork and architecture of this storied region where the Tarot sparked to life 500 years ago.
Bobby Abate is a multimedia artist from Brooklyn, New York. Screenings and exhibitions include The New York Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Guggenheim in Bilbao, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Cinematheque, and the ICA in London and Palm Beach. Film Comment Magazine named Bobby one of the top 25 emerging filmmakers for the 21st century. He was the 2020 recipient of the Princess Grace Artist Development Grant. In 2021, Bobby released the Outsider Tarot and guidebook, a 10 year project in which he researched, redesigned and reinterpreted each of the 78 cards of the classic Tarot in a modern and inclusive context. Bobby has presented the Outsider Tarot at the Whitney Museum of American Art and PARTICIPANT, INC in New York City. This work is also included among the tarot offerings at Artbook @: MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York.
