Art, Art History, and Psychoanalytic Insights

NYPSI’s 1039th Scientific Program Meeting:

“Art, Art History, and Psychoanalytic Insights”

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

8:00 – 10: 00 pm

Presenter: Laurie Wilson, Ph.D.

Discussant: Lois Oppenheim, Ph.D.

Two diverse approaches to writing a psychoanalytic biography of an artist will be described. A focus on unconscious fantasy as a means of unraveling enigmas in Alberto Giacometti’s life characterized the first approach. Close attention to the artist’s behavior and the stylistic development of a signature style were crucial in making sense of Louise Nevelson’s work and life.

No CME/ CE credits offered.

Dr. Laurie Wilson is a psychoanalyst, art historian, and art therapist.She received psychoanalytic training at The NYU Psychoanalytic Institute and is on the faculty at PANY affiliated with NYU School of Medicine. Dr. Wilson is the U.S. Chair of 8th Triennial Symposium on Psychoanalysis and the Arts, Florence 2020; and chairs the Committee on Arts  and Psychoanalysis at the  American Psychoanalytic Association. She was awarded Honorary Life Member of the American Art Therapy Association and is Professor Emerita at New York University. She has published over 40 papers in three fields and the books Alberto Giacometti: Myth, Magic and the Man (Yale, 2003) and Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow (Thames & Hudson, 2016.)

Dr. Lois Oppenheim is University Distinguished Scholar, Professor of French, and Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Montclair State University where she teaches courses in both literature and applied psychoanalysis.  She is Scholar Associate Member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society & Institute and Honorary Member of the William Alanson White Society.  Dr. Oppenheim has published over 100 papers and authored or edited fourteen books, the most recent being For Want of Ambiguity: Order and Chaos in Art, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience (co-authored with Dr. Ludovica Lumer) and Imagination from Fantasy to Delusion, awarded the 2013 Courage to Dream Prize from the American Psychoanalytic Association.  Other recent books include A Curious Intimacy: Art and Neuro-Psychoanalysis and The Painted Word: Samuel Beckett’s Dialogue With Art.