Memory Burns

The OCAT Institute is a nonprofit research center dedicated to the history of art and its related discourses. It is also a member of the OCAT Museums. The Institute has three main areas of activity: publication, archives, and exhibition. The scope of its research incudes historic, modern, and contemporary Chinese art; more specifically, it includes the investigation of artists, artworks, schools of art production, exhibitions, art discourses, as well as art institutions, publications, and other aspects of art's overall ecology. It will establish a research archives and facilitate dialogue and exchange between China and abroad. In addition, it serves as an exhibition platform in Beijing.

The opening exhibition of the Institute is Memory Burns curated by the French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman. Responding to poignant questions that have occupied his thinking over the years, the exhibition is part of Didi-Huberman's ongoing investigation into the dynamics between image and time, and constitutes the organic continuation of Atlas: How to Carry the World on One's Back? (Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2010). The exhibition is a collaboration between the Festival Croisements 2015 and the Institute, and features 11 works from artists Harun Farocki, Pascal Convert, Arno Gisinger and the art historian Aby Warburg. In addition, Didi-Huberman is the inaugural lecturer of OCAT Institute Annual Lecture Series.

Georges Didi-Huberman (b. 1953) is a professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Born in Saint-Étienne in 1953, he completed his doctoral research at the EHESS under the supervision of Louis Marin. His main publications include: Devant l'image: Questions posées aux fins d'une histoire de l'art, L'image survivante: Histoire de l'art et temps des fantômes selon Aby Warburg, and Invention de l'hystérie: Charcot et l'iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière. Didi-Huberman has also organized many exhibitions, including L'Empreinte (Centre Pompidou, 1997), Fables du lieu (Studio National des Arts Contemporains Le Fresnoy, 2001), and Atlas: How to Carry the World on One's Back?