Art and Magic
written by Kathryn Turley-Sonne, PhD
“We rightly speak of the magic of art and compare the artist with a magician. But this comparison is perhaps more important than it claims to be. Art, which certainly did not begin as art for art's sake, originally served tendencies which today have for the greater part ceased to exist. Among these we may suspect various magic intentions.”
-Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo (1913)
Psychic tours at the Guggenheim Museum in NYC signaled a clear connection between magic and art. The Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future exhibit in 2019 had more than 600,000 visitors and holds the record for the most attended exhibit in the museum’s history. The show also set records in catalog and membership sales. Pure magic!
Group X, No. 1 Altarpiece, 1915 by Hilma af Klint
Judith Noble, a scholar and art witch from England, echoes Freud's sentiments in her exploration of contemporary attitudes toward magic:
“The notion of making art as being akin to a magical act has probably been central to most cultures and periods of human history, with the ‘disenchantment’ of the last two centuries almost certainly being a rare exception.”
(Source: Fulgur)
Is enchantment making a comeback? Undoubtedly, the past decade has witnessed a surge in exhibitions dedicated to occult art and history, unlike any seen before.
Ecologist Timothy Morton makes an intriguing argument, viewing art as a form of magic. Drawing from the theory of object-oriented ontology (OOO), Morton posits:
“Art has an effect on me over which I am not in control. . . In other words, magic. . .. Magic implies the intertwining of causality and illusion . . . Art sprays out charisma causality despite us.”
(Source: Art Review)
He substantiates this argument with examples like the Rothko Chapel and the work of Olafur Eliasson. It's akin to "submitting to an energy field" and observing the tangible causal outcomes. Similar phenomena were observed at the af Klint exhibit, with art enthusiasts readily embracing Morton's notion of "charisma causality."
Playing Tarot by Leonora Carrington, 1955The 2022 Venice Biennale was a magical event after the COVID cancellations of so many art fairs. The pandemic clearly demonstrated that we can creatively experience art in a digital format – but it also revealed how much we value in-person interactions with art.
The Biennale was magical on many levels. Cecilia Alemani was the first Italian woman to curate the show in its 127-year history, 180 of the 213 featured artists had never shown at the biennale, and most of the artists were female and gender nonconforming. The umbrella theme for the biennale was taken from the Surrealist art witch Leonora Carrington and her children’s book "The Milk of Dreams." Alemani was inspired by her magical illustrations and paintings on the walls of her Mexico City home. They were all centered around transformation – thus, Alemani organized the show to mirror the ideas of transformation of the body, the individual, and technology, and bodies and the earth.
Alemani encouraged visitors to look for “enchantment” in the structure, the artists, and their work. Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington, and Louise Nevelson are just some of the art witches with pieces in the biennale.
As Carrington once said, we should best look to ‘the bewildering sea of enchantment’ to regain a sense of magic pervading our everyday lives.
But this is a challenge in a world filled with fear and divisiveness."
The ongoing concerns of the pandemic, the reality of the horrifying war in Ukraine, and the catastrophic consequences of climate change cause much anger, grief, melancholy, and an overwhelming sense of helplessness. At odds with these feelings is a desire for some sort of magic to give us hope – a search as Freud identified as “various magic intentions.” So, we must look for these enchantments that can lift us, such as a call for peace in Ukraine from pagans all over the world (you can find more information about this initiative here) to the magical art of the Ukrainian artist Natalia Fedoryshyn and her piece Witch Painting.
Witch Painting by Natalia Fedoryshyn
The Fountain of Exhaustion by Pavlo MakovThe Fountain of Exhaustion by Pavlo Makov, featured in the Ukrainian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, stands as another testament to the power of magic. The curators undertook a remarkable feat, evacuating the artwork from a bomb shelter in Kyiv and safely transporting it to Venice. Their unwavering resilience and determination allowed them to defy the Russian invasion and fulfill their mission of reclaiming Ukrainian art.
(Source: Artsy)
As I bring this blog post to a close, I turn to my tarot deck for inspiration, drawing the Ace of Wands. It symbolizes a promising direction, signaling the emergence of fresh ideas and spiritual beginnings. This reaffirms my belief that art is, indeed, a form of magic.
