William Villalongo

Re: History is an ongoing series of collages mined from the artist’s collection of old magazines and image references rummaged from used bookstores and flea markets. Subtitles such as Affinities and Jet cite the reference material used as the basis for this project. The series is inspired by the work of pioneering art historian Aby Warburg’s ambitious project Mnemosyne or “picture atlas,” which bought together some two thousand images from vastly different periods and cultures into thought provoking juxtapositions. The work allowed Warburg to postulate on connections between humans across time and space through relationships between disparate images. Re: History asks the viewer to engage deeply with the imagery, tapping into the intersections of colonial history, Black culture, nature, and aesthetic.