[Deja Vu by Joel Biroco, on display at the Salon]
The first Strange Attractor Salon event takes place this Thursday, 14 January at Viktor Wynd Fine Art, 11 Mare St, London E8 4RP. Doors open at 6pm and admission is £5.
Mind, Art and Magic: Visions of Inhabited Worlds
with Phil Baker, Blue Firth, Gavin Semple, Robert Wallis
In which we consider questions about art and magick and discuss magical art of the past, present and future. Are art and magic inseparable? Can we categorise different forms of magical art? Was Picasso a magician? Was Aleister Crowley an artist? How is magical art different to religious art? Is all art a magical act? What about non-visual magical art?
The panel will speak for 45 minutes followed by an open discussion with the audience and some of the artists displaying at the Salon.
Tickets for all the events are selling now so if you plan to attend please book ahead or call the gallery on (0)20 7998 3617 to ensure a place.
Phil Baker is the author of The Devil is a Gentleman: The Life and Times of Dennis Wheatley , William S Burroughs and the forthcoming Austin Osman Spare: The Life and Legend of London’s Lost Artist .
Artist Blue Firth has a long-standing interest in the nature of local communities and how their histories are recorded through vernacular crafts and practices. Through research of local history and customs, she seeks out arcane and often neglected information with which she aims to rediscover the forgotten character of a place. She is currently studying at the Royal Academy.
Gavin Semple is a writer, artist and musician with a deep understanding of magical practice. He is the author of Zos Kia: An Introductory Essay on the Art and Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare (Fulgur 1995) and other texts on Spare, and is a co-founder of magical publishing house Fulgur.
Robert Wallis is Associate Professor of Visual Culture at Richmond University in London and a Research Fellow in Archaeology of Southampton University. He is the author of a number books on shamanism, ‘sacred sites’ and heathen magic, including Shamans/neo-Shamans: Ecstasy, Alternative Archaeologies and Contemporary Pagans, Galdrbok: Practical Heathen Runecraft, Shamanism and Magic (with Nathan Johnson) and Sacred Sites, Contested Rites/Rights: Pagan Engagements with Archaeological Monuments (with Jenny Blain).
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What is art? What is magic? Is it possible to create art without using magic? If art is the act of creation, an act of giving birth to ideas or visions, the act of bringing the immaterial into the material world…the only question is, does the material world really need any more objects? That is what I continually ask myself. Finally, someone forces me to create art by offering me a sum of money, and there I am back again, the morning rituals, the invocations, the skirting of the work with sidelong glances, the procrastination, then the attack. When is it ever done? Is there no end for the world’s need of new images, and to what end? Is it from these new, never before seen juxtapositions of line and color, that people create the forward reality? If so, then the weight of the world rests on the backs of all artists.