Warburg Institute exhibition explores tarot's evolution from Renaissance game to occult medium and political tool.

'Tarot: Origins & Afterlives' is currently on display at the Warburg Institute in London, examining the evolution of tarot from a 15th-century card game to a tool for the occult and modern politics. Among the highlights are the Visconti-Sforza deck, considered the oldest known tarot cards from Milan, and Aby Warburg's tarot panel from his Bilderatlas Mnemosyne. Warburg, an autodidact in art history, formulated the Nachlebe Antike theory to trace the recurrence of archetypal images over time. In the 18th century, tarot took on mystical meanings when Antoine Court de Gébelin, a French freemason, connected the cards to the legendary Book of Thoth. The exhibition also showcases the 1909 Rider Waite deck by Pamela Colman Smith, influenced by the Sola Busca deck, along with Frieda Harris's Thoth Tarot deck created for Aleister Crowley in the late 1930s-1940s. Modern decks by artists such as INVASORIX and Suzanne Treister highlight figures like Audre Lorde and Sarah Ahmed, emphasizing intersectional politics. This exhibit illustrates how Renaissance artifacts resurface as vessels of magical insight and modern political discourse, reflecting Warburg's idea of art history's eternal returns.