Games, Gamblers, and Cartomancers

The New Cardsharps

The Vernon House 45 Clarke St. Newport, RI
1 July - 21 October 2023

Images courtesy of Tom Powel Imaging

GAMES, GAMBLERS & CARTOMANCERS: The New Cardsharps brings together seventeen contemporary artists who have revisited the storied art historical trope of card play. Card playing is rooted in Newport’s history—historically as well as contemporarily card playing has been and remains part of the social fabric. Newporter Edith Wharton’s protagonist Lily Bart in House of Mirth describes her gambling debts incurred at the high society bridge tables. To this day, three times a week bridge games, and canastas are the norm. As with all of Art&Newport’s projects, the curators have sought to highlight the enduring social customs of the town while simultaneously injecting local history and tradition with contemporary artistic interpretations and intervention.

Card games cut across cultures and social classes—the practice of using cards for entertainment, gambling, divination, and education goes back centuries. The first known reference to card playing appears in Chinese literature of the 10th century. In Europe, card play emerged in Italy and Spain in the 1370s and is believed to be a product of the cultural diffusion engendered by trade between the Muslim world and Europeans. The first trump-card games may have originated in Germany in the 1420s with a game known as Karnöffel. Originally a trump card game, Tarot was developed in tandem in Italy during the 15th century and has evolved from a parlor game into its contemporary use as a popular form of divination. Each of the artists in GAMES, GAMBLERS & CARTOMANCERS has created work that engages with the iconography, rituals, and practices of card play.

GAMES, GAMBLERS & CARTOMANCERS has been organized by Dodie Kazanjian and Alison M. Gingeras in close collaboration with the staff of the Newport Restoration Foundation.

Exhibited artists
Tina Barney, Cecily Brown, Francesco Clemente, Elizabeth Colomba, John Currin, Austin Eddy, Hadi Falapishi, Shara Hughes, Rashid Johnson, Sanya Kantarovsky, Karen Kilimnik, Sean Landers, Tala Madani, Rob Pruitt, Walter Robinson, Katja Seib, Katie Stout

About Vernon House
The Vernon House, a colonial-era house museum, is opening its doors to the public for the first time with this exhibition. Owned by Newport Restoration Foundation, the Vernon House is a distinguished architectural gem, built in two phases in 1709 and 1760. Its domestic architecture provides the perfect ambiance for this exploration of card players–as it is unfurnished, each room provides a venue for the artists’ works.