Chat #37 - Claire Gilman
"Artists are drawn to tarot"
Claire Gilman is Acquavella Curator and Department Head of Modern and Contemporary Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, where she recently organized Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions (June 26 - October 4, 2026) and Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings (June 27, 2025 - January 4, 2026).
Gilman holds a PhD from Columbia University. She has taught art history and critical theory at Columbia University; the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College; the Corcoran College of Art and Design; The Museum of Modern Art; and the School of Visual Arts. She has also lectured on modern and contemporary art throughout the United States and internationally.
Her writing has appeared in Art Journal, BOMB, The Brooklyn Rail, CAA Reviews, Documents, Frieze, and October, and she has contributed numerous essays to art books and museum exhibition catalogues. Her book Drawing in the Present Tense, co-authored with Roger Malbert, was recently published by Thames & Hudson.
Discover more about the Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions exhibition here: https://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/tarot
12/08/2026, 20:06 - Finbarre: Welcome to Tarot DMs, with Finbarre. In the far-flung past it is said that tarot began in the courts of Renaissance Italy as a game, a luxury object. The cards did not stay there. Across six centuries, artists, occultists, writers and readers have continued to take their symbols and make them mean something new.
My guest today is Claire Gilman, Acquavella Curator and Department Head of Modern and Contemporary Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. Claire curated the Modern Visions section of Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, an exhibition tracing tarot from its Renaissance origins to its continuing influence on modern and contemporary art.
The exhibition is at the Morgan Library & Museum from June 26 to October 4, 2026.
Claire, hello! How the devil are you today?
12/08/2026, 20:07 - Claire Gilman: I’m pretty well today - I think. So far! Thank you for having me on Tarot DMs!
12/08/2026, 20:08 - Finbarre: Before I draw forth my deck of Rider-Waite-Smith cards and show you your first card, tell me Claire - what is it like where you are at the moment?
12/08/2026, 20:09 - Claire Gilman: Well I’m not sure it’s as hot as it is in the UK but I am also grateful for my desk fan.
12/08/2026, 20:10 - Finbarre: I think it is around 80F here - the way I usually tell the temperature is by measuring how long my cat is and doubling the number. Beigli, my ginger familiar is sprawled out behind me so we’re in good company. How is the exhibition going so far?
12/08/2026, 20:11 - Claire Gilman: 😍 The exhibition is going very well! It is packed every day. And the first printing of our catalogue sold out so that is very exciting.
12/08/2026, 20:12 - Finbarre: My ears pricked up at this. Catalogue? Do you have a link?
12/08/2026, 20:13 - Claire Gilman: Yes let me find it
12/08/2026, 20:13 - Finbarre: Somehow I have discovered a late-in-life obsession with collecting decks and this would make the perfect inspiration for even more.
12/08/2026, 20:13 - Claire Gilman: Here you go! https://shop.themorgan.org/products/tarot-renaissance-symbols-modern-visions
12/08/2026, 20:15 - Finbarre:
Oh, I did NOT need to see that. Clearly I don’t have enough gilded cardboard in my life but this is giving me ideas. Thank you for this! So, to start things off we’ll take a look at the Anchor card. this is the one that all guests receive, and this month it’s an interesting one. You have...
12/08/2026, 20:16 - Finbarre:
12/08/2026, 20:16 - Claire Gilman: Oooh. That’s an intense card no?
12/08/2026, 20:19 - Finbarre: I really like this card. On the face of it, a card of spiritual wisdom - so given the exhibition that’s a perfect place to start, but my conspiracy theory is that Pamela Colman Smith snuck in some rather subversive symbolism, like I would swear that the central figure is Pope Joan, possibly a nod to the suffragette struggle at the time. It has mischief in there I reckon. What vibes do you get?
12/08/2026, 20:21 - Claire Gilman: Agreed. I really love the fact that this is a female figure - not all hierophants are - and that she is presiding over these two men identifiable only by their bald heads. It’s very empowering.
12/08/2026, 20:22 - Finbarre: My first tarot question then has to be... how important do you think tradition is to tarot?
12/08/2026, 20:24 - Claire Gilman: I think tradition is very important to Tarot but this doesn’t mean that tradition has to be followed blindly. I think that artists are drawn to tarot because it has this art historical lineage so in working with the imagery artists - and readers - are part of something. But at the same time tarot is open ended in its very nature and so it is natural that artists and readers feel empowered to adapt its symbolism to speak to contemporary issues and communities. I think as a visual form tarot is quite unique in this way.
12/08/2026, 20:26 - Claire Gilman: For instance we commissioned a project from the British artist Chris Ofili for the show and he linked tarot, and the way in which the arcana are adapted and repurposed to Trinidadian carnival which also uses adaptable characters.
12/08/2026, 20:27 - Finbarre: Name rings a bell... wait. Didn’t he win the Turner Prize if memory serves?
12/08/2026, 20:28 - Claire Gilman: Yes he did! Quite a few years ago I think.
12/08/2026, 20:28 - Finbarre: His work is GORGEOUS, Magic in its own right, frankly
12/08/2026, 20:29 - Claire Gilman: It really is. I wanted to invite someone whose work is engaged with spiritual themes but who hasn’t worked specifically with tarot before.
12/08/2026, 20:29 - Finbarre: On that, do you think there’s a point where an artist can change tarot so much that it stops being tarot?
12/08/2026, 20:30 - Claire Gilman: That’s a good question. Yes I think there must be but I’m not sure I could define it in the abstract. If the person thinks of it as tarot then maybe it is?
12/08/2026, 20:32 - Claire Gilman: We have a work in the show by the artist Dorothy Iannone which is an ode to her partner Dieter Roth and she calls it a Ta(rot) pack but the meaning of all the cards is her own.
12/08/2026, 20:32 - Claire Gilman: But I do think most tarot decks follow certain conventions. Like the number of cards and division between major and minor arcana.
12/08/2026, 20:34 - Finbarre: I can’t think of a more romantic gift, especially if Dorothy and Dieter are sharing some kind of private system that is woven through the deck. I would blush if I peeped in that!
12/08/2026, 20:34 - Claire Gilman: You definitely would. The deck is very naughty!!
12/08/2026, 20:36 - Finbarre: I see. Moving SWIFTLY on (although now I’m curious) to the Wild card. This is your card that I will pick purely by chance so reach out from across the Atlantic and write “stop” when the moment feels right. I’ll shuffle these 76 cards until you do.
12/08/2026, 20:37 - Claire Gilman: STOP
12/08/2026, 20:38 - Finbarre: Hello, I haven’t seen this card for a long time...
12/08/2026, 20:38 - Claire Gilman: Interesting …
12/08/2026, 20:38 - Finbarre:
12/08/2026, 20:38 - Claire Gilman: Oooh. I don’t know much about the eight of swords.
12/08/2026, 20:39 - Finbarre: The card of constriction.
12/08/2026, 20:42 - Claire Gilman: I suppose it is about reminding us that we make our own realities.
12/08/2026, 20:42 - Claire Gilman: But I wouldn’t say I identify with this card
12/08/2026, 20:43 - Finbarre: Exactly! How about this: every curator works within constraints - loans, conservation, space, budgets (lack of) and changing priorities. Can those restrictions actually sharpen an exhibition, in the same way that tarot’s fixed structure can focus the artist’s imagination
12/08/2026, 20:44 - Claire Gilman: That is really good and very true!! I agree completely.
12/08/2026, 20:45 - Finbarre: Does a tarot exhibition come with inherent challenges? More so than any other artwork?
12/08/2026, 20:47 - Claire Gilman: No I wouldn’t say so, except for the fact that it is such a rich and complex history so telling the story is challenging. And the story will be only one story - although of course that’s true of anything. But certainly I feel we could have organized this exhibition three times over with different works and artists.
12/08/2026, 20:49 - Finbarre: If you do, I will need to find my way over to the US! Is there a strand of tarot history you would have loved to build around?
12/08/2026, 20:51 - Claire Gilman: I think I would be interested in getting more deeply into tarot in different cultures. The show takes a fairly western point of view although it does incorporate a few artists from other regions. I also wish we could have included more contemporary tarot decks. But we focused more on artists incorporating tarot imagery into their work rather than tarot artists per se. If that makes sense.
12/08/2026, 20:53 - Finbarre: Very much, my gateway to tarot cards was through the goth album covers and 2000AD comics I had as a kid. Even in those pop culture media they still have power!
12/08/2026, 20:53 - Claire Gilman: Oh that’s very cool!
12/08/2026, 20:54 - Finbarre: Your last card is from another Claire - Claire Sarmiento from Barkbyte Interactive from my last Tarot DMs chat and she picked this just for you
12/08/2026, 20:54 - Finbarre:
12/08/2026, 20:55 - Claire Gilman: I love that card. It seems a good antidote to the eight of swords!
12/08/2026, 20:56 - Finbarre: Very much so, plus travelling in STYLE. OK, your last question is.... you are taking visitors across roughly six centuries of history. How do you stop the journey from becoming a succession of disconnected objects?
12/08/2026, 20:59 - Claire Gilman: Well the show is not a continuous history. It’s really focused on two historical moments. Tarots origins in the Renaissance and its development in the 20th and 21st centuries. And then the modern visions section is further divided into four historical moments - the British occult revival, Surrealism, the US in the 60s and 70s and the contemporary moment. So in a way it’s focusing on different periods of heightened interest in the occult. Each section can be considered on its own or in dialogue. So it’s OK if you don’t take in the full history!
12/08/2026, 21:01 - Finbarre: That makes sense. Less like a timeline and more like a series of moments when tarot and the occult became especially culturally charged. I like the idea that visitors can move between those moments and notice the connections happening across them, without needing to follow one continuous historical path.
12/08/2026, 21:01 - Claire Gilman: Exactly. Although there are many correspondences. But they aren’t necessarily linear. Like tarot itself!
12/08/2026, 21:02 - Finbarre: Do you have your own tarot deck to hand to shape the fate of the next guest on Tarot DMs?
12/08/2026, 21:03 - Claire Gilman: I do! The Thoth Tarot!
12/08/2026, 21:04 - Finbarre: A deck that most certainly does not mess about. I have seen some of the original plates from that deck last year and they gave me goosebumps! Claire, draw your card.
12/08/2026, 21:05 - Claire Gilman: It’s a tough one
12/08/2026, 21:05 - Claire Gilman: But beautiful
12/08/2026, 21:06 - Claire Gilman:
12/08/2026, 21:07 - Finbarre: I stand by my original comment. WOW.
12/08/2026, 21:07 - Claire Gilman: Agreed.
12/08/2026, 21:07 - Claire Gilman: That is a gorgeous card
12/08/2026, 21:08 - Finbarre: Very much so and interestingly a card of sleeplessness which is so apt for this weather! Claire, thank you so much for joining me and talking about the marvellous exhibition you’re involved with.
12/08/2026, 21:09 - Claire Gilman: Thank you for having me. I had a great time!
12/08/2026, 21:10 - Finbarre: We followed the cards through art, history and the many ways tarot continues to be reimagined over and over again.
Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions is at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York until October 4, 2026.
Website: https://www.themorgan.org
Location: The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/oCEySNUA1hWoBQcBA
Admission: $25 for adults; $13 for students with current ID
Special access: Free on Fridays from 5:00–8:00 p.m. Advance online reservations are required.