Babel Polyphony: On Tarot, language and forgotten iconography

Join professional Tarot reader and teacher Laetitia Barbier for a lecture delving into the language and iconography of tarot during her Art of Tarot residency at ArtYard.

Italian author Italo Calvino relates in his 1973 novel, The Castle of Crossed Destinies, the tale of a group of travelers who, having lost their voice, re-articulate their life stories with the help of Tarot cards, using the 15th Century Visconti-Sforza deck. Morphed into a new visual dialect with 78 words of vocabulary, Calvino's novel beautifully exemplifies how Tarot’s evocative power transcends speech and helps us formulate new ways to communicate who we are. Although Tarot was invented as a card game during the Renaissance, we tend to associate it with divination and as an introspective tool. Yet, if cards are meant to be read, one can wonder what language it is that they ultimately speak. Like any other form of communication with a 600-year history span, the way we understand the Major Arcana has evolved, being reinvented from one generation to the next.

In this talk, Laetitia Barbier will examine Tarot as a visual culture in motion, by looking at it through the lens of art history, iconology, and pop culture. If images barely change, what we read in them does. By looking at the example of the Hanged Man, we’ll be conjuring the accidental scholarship of Hannibal Lecter, crime and punishment in Renaissance Italy, Saint Sebastian — and, why not, Hello Kitty! — to show how Tarot’s subjectivity ultimately helps us find our unique voice and reclaim our own narrative.

This lecture takes place in ArtYard's McDonnell Theater.

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