Lorentz Dietrichson Lecture 2019: Margaret Iversen

We are happy to announce that Margaret Iversen will give the 2019 Lorentz Dietricshon Lecture on the topic "Psychoanalysis and Art: A New Theory of Objects."

Although Freud was dubious about avant-garde art, his writing gave significance to the found object or bit of detritus. In effect, he invented a new theory of objects which was developed by the Surrealist poet André Breton and by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Other psychoanalysts, including Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott and Marion Milner, took Freud’s understanding of the object in quite different directions. This lecture provides an overview of three main theories - the found object, the part-object, and the transitional object - and relates them to three corresponding moments in the history of modern and contemporary art.

Margaret Iversen is Professor Emerita at the University of Essex and Honorary Researh Fellow at The Courtauld Institute of Art. She is currently working on…