Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Festival of Arcane Knowledge: This Sunday, May 5, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn

Cats being instructed in the art of mouse-catching by an owl, Oil on canvas, c. 1700, Lombard School
Cats being instructed in the art of mouse-catching by an owl, 
oil on canvas, c. 1700, Lombard School
This Sunday, May 5th, is our next Festival of Arcane Knowledge--our popular day-long festival of rogue scholarship packed with illustrated talks, screenings, tours, spectacles covering a wide variety of arcane subjects.

This year's iteration will feature lavishly illustrated talks on carnival haunted houses, sexuality and surrealist Leonor Fini, hysterical women and spiritualism, alchemy and art, imaginaries of the moon, and more. It will also feature a show and tell of gorgeous Latin American retablos by collector Deborah Dwyers; a screening of "Filmic Curiosities" by Midnight Archive's Ronni Thomas; and special tours of historic Green-Wood Cemetery (founded in 1838), The Morbid Anatomy Library and our new exhibition on Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. Speakers will include photographer and professor Lisa Kereszi, Museum of Sex curator Lissa Rivera, Medical Muses author Asti Hustvedt, author and journalist Mark Jacobson, artist and alchemist Brian Cotnoir. And we will end the day with a reception, rain or shine.

Following is the full lineup. Tickets are available here; admission is $45, discounted $5 for 10$/month Patreon Members. Directions to both entrances here.

This promises to be a really wonderful and stimulating day; hope very much to see you there!

Part 1 Schedule
Takes place at Fort Hamilton Gate House, Fort Hamilton Parkway and Micieli Place; directions here)
  • 12pm - Special tour of the Morbid Anatomy Library and our new exhibition “Heaven, Hell and Purgatory: Visions of the Afterlife in the Catholic Tradition” with head librarian and co-curator Laetitia Barbier and collector and major loaner Stephen Romano, of Stephen Romano Gallery
  • 1pm - End-to-end Walking tour of Green-Wood Cemetery with expert tour guide LJ Lindhurst. The tour will starting from the Fort Hamilton Gate House and leading through the Modern Chapel. (around 1 hour and 30 minutes)
Part 2 Schedule
Takes place at modern chapel one and two, inside main entrance, 5th Avenue and 25th Street; directions hereModern Chapel One
  • 2.30pm - Welcome Address
  • 2.45pm - “Haunted” by photographer Lisa Kereszi; an immersive journey through the ghost trains and haunted houses attractions of the Northeast.
  • 3.15pm - “Pale Horse Rider: The Birth of the 'Truth Movement' and Death of the American Dream," illustrated talk by author and journalist Mark Jacobson
  • 3.45pm - "Sacred Retablos of the Latin World," a lecture and show and tell with collector Deborah Dwyers featuring vintage and antique retablos, with a focus on the symbolic beauty and spiritual significance these and other folk art objects of Central and South America
  • 4.15pm - "Magical Medicine: a brief history of the art of healing by invoking supernatural forces" with Clifford Hartleigh Low
  • 4.45pm - "Leonor Fini: Theatre of Desire" an illustrated lecutre with Lissa Rivera, curator of The Museum of Sex
  • 5.15pm - "Investigating the Supernatural: Scientific Quests to Colonize Hysterical Women and Psychic Mediums" an illustrated lecture by Medical Muses author Asti Hustvedt
  • 5.45pm - "Alchemy and Surrealism," an illustrated lecture with artist and alchemist Brian Cotnoir, a survey of the Opus Magnus in the work of Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington, Jan Svankmajer and many other 20th artists
  • 6.15pm - Victorian Martians, an illustrated lecture with author Marc Hartzman about outer space inhabitants in the 19th century imagination
  • 6.45pm to 8pm - Reception with refreshments (Rain or Shine)
Modern Chapel Two
  • 2:30pm to 6pm - Ronni Thomas’s Midnight Cabinet of Filmic Curiosities
*** Please note: the program begins at Green-Wood Cemetery's Fort Hamilton Gate House, but will largely take place in the modern chapels near the main 25th Street entrance to the Cemetery. See schedule below for details.