2019 – Conference : The Brain and Creativity
What is the essence of creativity? How can it be transmitted? Can AI do the same? A lecture about the creative instant, with Pierre Lemarquis, neurologist, and Derrick de Kerckhove, writer and specialist in cognitive intelligence. Auditorium Sophia-Antipolis, France.
What is the essence of creativity ? How can it be transmitted? Can AI do the same ? Listening to Mozart’s music, admiring Michelangelo’s fresco, or reading Shakespeare can transform our brains. This is the magic of aesthetic empathy, embodying the spirit of the creator, which transforms us. This lecture will plunge you into an exciting and topical debate on the creative instant, seen from a scientific perspective. What makes a work of art the work of an author and not the collective creation of all of the people who worked on it ? An artist who executes someone else’s work will definitely also engage his or her own creativity, if only through the choice of materials and colours and, in the case of a mosaic, through his or her own particular technique in producing the work.
Examining the famous theory of the ‘aura of an original work’, Derrick de Kerckhove also questioned the place of a digital artwork. It cannot exist other than in its ephemeral appearance on a screen, or in the multiplication of its reproductions, always recreated from its database and its program. Is a robot an artist like any other ? They can draw, paint, copy, but also invent. And create a work of art ? Will robots replace artists ?
Conference on the instant of creativity, with the participation of Pierre Lemarquis, neurologist and Derrick de Kerckhove, specialist in cognitive intelligence. Auditorium Sophia-Antipolis, France.
2015 - Imagination and creativity
Jorg Immendorff and Heidi Melano put together. What links the German painter with multiple sclerosis and the great mosaic artist of the 20th century ? Two different creative paths, two masterful interpretations of creative emotion. With the participation of Pierre Lemarquis, neurologist and Olivier Kaeppelin, exhibition curator and art critic. https://www.fondation-maeght.com/
Jorg Immendorff and Heidi Melano put together. What links the German painter with multiple sclerosis and the great mosaic artist of the 20th century ? Two different creative paths, two masterful interpretations of creative emotion.
Jorg Immendorff, who suffered from Charcot’s disease, could physically no longer paint and so experimented, with the help of assistants, with creating paintings by giving them instructions (“mental projection”).
Heidi Melano transformed the sketches and models of other artists into gigantic mosaics.
This begs the question, how did these artists manage to convey their emotions and the essence of their creativity ? One artist executing another’s work will definitely also engage his or her own creativity, if only through the choice of materials and colours and, in the case of a mosaic, through his or her own particular technique in producing the work.
Imagination, the cradle of talent, recycles what is stored in the memory, sometimes without even realizing it. All creation will therefore be a “re-creation”, in the manner of the artist, shaped by his or her own experiences. Memory and imagination are therefore at the very heart of the creative process.
The magnificent mosaics by Chagall, Léger, Braque and Folon, brought to life by Heidi Melano, and the later works by Jorg Immendorff are the culmination of all those who participated in the creative process of these extraordinary works.
With the participation of Pierre Lemarquis, neurologist, and Olivier Kaeppelin, exhibition curator and art critic.
2014 – Conference Art, Emotions and Neuroscience
Taking place at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Nice (MAMAC), the purpose of this conference was to evince an extraordinary journey, a dialogue between the world of Art, Psychology and Neuroscience, with the special participation of Pierre Lazar, philosopher.
This lecture evinces an extraordinary journey, a dialogue between the worlds of Art, Psychology and Neuroscience.
Continuing the discussions about Art and Philosophy, this talk was based on the themes of Art, Emotions and Neuroscience.
Inspired by ideas developed by Eric Kandel (Nobel Prize for Medicine) from his discoveries about how memory functions, in his book “The Age of Insight”, this lecture invites the audience to go on an extraordinary journey set at the crossroads of the world of Art, Psychology and Neuroscience, starting in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century, with Klimt, Kokoschka, Egon Schiele and the scientists who made the first discoveries in the fields of cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis and neuroscience…
Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Nice, (MAMAC).
2013 « Art and religion in Dunhuang »
Extraordinary trip to Dunhuang, in the Gobi desert in China, in the Mogao caves, an exceptional Buddhist site during a conference organised at the Museum of Asian Arts in Nice.
Dedicated to Dunhuang, at the crossroads of different civilizations on the mythical Silk Road, Annelise Palidoni, a sinologist, spoke about the art and evolution of the Buddhist caves of Mogao throughout different dynasties. Diana Landi gave insights into the work of the artist Chang Shuhong in protecting and safeguarding this remarkable site, which is classified as a World Heritage site.
Finally, Chang Shuhong’s son, the Chinese painter Chang Jiahuang, an expert in mural art in China, presented, for the first time, the caves that have been discovered in Tibet, on the Pi Yang site and his project for new caves in Dunhuang on the edge of the Gobi desert.
Museum of Asian Arts in Nice.
2013 « Art and Philosophy »
What will Art be like tomorrow ? What will philosophical thought be like ? With the participation of Pierre Lazar, philosopher, Diana Landi gave an analysis of Bernard Henry Lévy’s perspective, in his exhibition « Painting and Philosophy ». https://www.fondation-maeght.com/
What will Art be like tomorrow ? What will philosophical thought be like ? Do we learn anything by contemplating a work of art ? If so, what is the nature of this knowledge, and how do we acquire it ?
Although the answer to the two last questions is not obvious, most people would answer the first in the affirmative. The idea that Art can be a source of knowledge has not always been shared, especially among philosophers. It needs to be seen in the context of BHL’s approach to the exhibition he organized at the Maeght Foundation. The ambitious theme he develops through 126 works of art is akin to a war between Art and Philosophy, with the simple aim of discovering the truth !
With the participation of Pierre Lazar, philosopher and Diana Landi, artist