Four online lectures with Giovanna Brambilla

Being guided by an expert when admiring works of art is undoubtedly a formative experience that trains the eye. But once we have trained or engaged in this practice, perhaps it is time to take a bold leap and go back to the sources, to see how some great artists in history investigated the mechanisms of seeing.

What do we look at when we gaze at a work of art? Have you ever thought that observing a painting, a photograph, or a film means gaining insight to the artist’s visual heritage and the implications of the society they lived in?

Spanning from France to Italy, the United States, and Romania, four must-read texts will guide us in understanding the processes that gave rise to the great works of art that we are so fascinated by.

The lectures briefly introduce the author and their method of analyzing works of art, before engaging in an in-depth examination of the selected text, providing the tools for participants to conduct their own investigations.

How to join

A History of the Western Gaze, with Régis Debray

November 11, 7 pm

Online on Zoom

This first lecture is free and open to all. Booking is required.

Intellectual and author, philosopher of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, Debray is the “great master” from which we will start our study of the gaze and the image, highlighting the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Born out of the fear of death and the need to represent what is absent, images can generate symbolic meanings, through a rigorously traced course that intertwines social, religious, and ideological changes, from icons to digital imagery.

The Recipe for Success of Works of Art, with Carlo Ginzburg

November 18, 7 pm

Online on Zoom

How quickly do we become familiar with images that have become symbols, without ever thinking about their seductive power? Starting from the figure of Lord Kitchener and the manifesto that portrays him calling the British to arms, we will move on to Hellenism and Byzantine art, the Renaissance, and the propaganda and aesthetics of dictatorships to understand and decipher those mechanisms that ensure the fame of a work of art, beyond the talent of the artist.

The Treachery of Photography, with Susan Sontag

November 25, 7 pm

Online on Zoom

At a time when photographs proliferate, and the sheer quantity of images produced seems to elude questions on the meanings that this artform can convey, a text published fifty years ago still provides a crucial method for understanding them. Photographs are predatory, documentary, and testimonials acts whose relationships with reality are never as transparent as they seem.

Images as traps for our gaze, with Victor I. Stoichita

December 2, 7 pm

Online on Zoom

The circle closes: like Debray, Stoichita traces a history of the gaze. But this time, as we move from late nineteenth-century paintings to the noir films of Alfred Hitchcock, images reveal themselves to be traps for our gaze, capable of intercepting our desires and transforming the careful viewer from a passionate art lover to an alert detective.

How to join
  • The online lectures are in Italian and last 1 hour. Participants will receive a Zoom link.
  • The first lecture is free and open to all.
  • La prima lezione è gratuita e aperta a tutti.
  • The following three lessons are open to members only.
  • Donation required of 50€ for the full lecture series, 40€ for teachers providing proof of employment at a school or institution, 15€ for Young Pass members. It is not possible to register for a single lecture.
  • È possibile iscriversi anche a corso iniziato e richiedere la registrazione delle lezioni precedenti.

Register now

Giovanna Brambilla is an art historian and an expert in cultural heritage education and mediation. Her main focus is the relationship between museums and the public, particularly accessibility and inclusion. After graduating from university, she worked for a year as a volunteer researcher at the British Museum, London, before completing postgraduate courses in General and Museum Education at Roma Tre University, in Communication and Intercultural Mediation at the University of Bergamo, in Art History at the University of Milan (with a scholarship), and in Communication in School Settings at the University of Siena. From 1996 to 2022 she was the head of the Education Department at GAMeC, the Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo. She is currently self-employed and works with the Direzione regionale Musei Lombardia as the Head of Local Projects and Audience Development. She is also a member of the Knowledge Community of the Cultural Welfare Center, Turin, focusing on museums, hospitality, and wellbeing. Her most recent publications include, ldiqua. Immagini per chi resta (2023), Mettere al mondo il mondo: Immagini per una rinascita (2021), and Inferni: Parole e immagini di un’umanità al confine (2020).