Issue 35 February 2024

Issue 34 November 2023

Issue 33 August 2023

Issue 32 June 2023

Issue 31 February 2023

Issue 30 November 2022

Issue 29 August 2022

Issue 28 May 2022

Issue 27 February 2022

Issue 26 November 2021

Issue 25 August 2021

Issue 24 May 2021

Issue 23 February 2021

Issue 22 November 2020

Issue 21 August 2020

Issue 20 May 2020

Issue 19 February 2020

Letter from the Editor –Lindsay Preston Zappas
Parasites in Love –Travis Diehl
To Crush Absolute On Patrick Staff and
Destroying the Institution
–Jonathan Griffin
Victoria Fu:
Camera Obscured
–Cat Kron
Resurgence of Resistance How Pattern & Decoration's Popularity
Can Help Reshape the Canon
–Catherine Wagley
Trace, Place, Politics Julie Mehretu's Coded Abstractions
–Jessica Simmons
Exquisite L.A.: Featuring: Friedrich Kunath,
Tristan Unrau, and Nevine Mahmoud
–Claressinka Anderson & Joe Pugliese
Reviews April Street
at Vielmetter Los Angeles
–Aaron Horst

Chiraag Bhakta
at Human Resources
–Julie Weitz

Don’t Think: Tom, Joe
and Rick Potts

at POTTS
–Matt Stromberg

Sarah McMenimen
at Garden
–Michael Wright

The Medea Insurrection
at the Wende Museum
–Jennifer Remenchik

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Mike Kelley
at Hauser & Wirth
–Angella d’Avignon
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Issue 18 November 2019

Letter from the Editor –Lindsay Preston Zappas
The Briar and the Tar Nayland Blake at the ICA LA
and Matthew Marks Gallery
–Travis Diehl
Putting Aesthetics
to Hope
Tracking Photography’s Role
in Feminist Communities
– Catherine Wagley
Instagram STARtists
and Bad Painting
– Anna Elise Johnson
Interview with Jamillah James – Lindsay Preston Zappas
Working Artists Featuring Catherine Fairbanks,
Paul Pescador, and Rachel Mason
Text: Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos: Jeff McLane
Reviews Children of the Sun
at LADIES’ ROOM
– Jessica Simmons

Derek Paul Jack Boyle
at SMART OBJECTS
–Aaron Horst

Karl Holmqvist
at House of Gaga, Los Angeles
–Lee Purvey

Katja Seib
at Château Shatto
–Ashton Cooper

Jeanette Mundt
at Overduin & Co.
–Matt Stromberg
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Issue 17 August 2019

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Green Chip David Hammons
at Hauser & Wirth
–Travis Diehl
Whatever Gets You
Through the Night
The Artists of Dilexi
and Wartime Trauma
–Jonathan Griffin
Generous Collectors How the Grinsteins
Supported Artists
–Catherine Wagley
Interview with
Donna Huanca
–Lindsy Preston Zappas
Working Artist Featuring Ragen Moss, Justen LeRoy,
and Bari Ziperstein
Text: Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos: Jeff McLane
Reviews Sarah Lucas
at the Hammer Museum
–Yxta Maya Murray

George Herms and Terence Koh
at Morán Morán
–Matt Stromberg

Hannah Hur
at Bel Ami
–Michael Wright

Sebastian Hernandez
at NAVEL
–Julie Weitz

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Alex Israel
at Greene Naftali
–Rosa Tyhurst

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Issue 16 May 2019

Trulee Hall's Untamed Magic Catherine Wagley
Ingredients for a Braver Art Scene Ceci Moss
I Shit on Your Graves Travis Diehl
Interview with Ruby Neri Jonathan Griffin
Carolee Schneemann and the Art of Saying Yes! Chelsea Beck
Exquisite L.A. Claressinka Anderson
Joe Pugliese
Reviews Ry Rocklen
at Honor Fraser
–Cat Kron

Rob Thom
at M+B
–Lindsay Preston Zappas

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age
of Black Power, 1963-1983
at The Broad
–Matt Stromberg

Anna Sew Hoy & Diedrick Brackens
at Various Small Fires
–Aaron Horst

Julia Haft-Candell & Suzan Frecon
at Parrasch Heijnen
–Jessica Simmons

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Shahryar Nashat
at Swiss Institute
–Christie Hayden
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Issue 15 February 2019

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Letter to the Editor
Men on Women
Geena Brown
Eyes Without a Voice
Julian Rosefeldt's Manifesto
Christina Catherine Martinez
Seven Minute Dream Machine
Jordan Wolfson's (Female figure)
Travis Diehl
Laughing in Private
Vanessa Place's Rape Jokes
Catherine Wagley
Interview with
Rosha Yaghmai
Laura Brown
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring: Patrick Martinez,
Ramiro Gomez, and John Valadez
Claressinka Anderson
Joe Pugliese
Reviews Outliers and American
Vanguard Art at LACMA
–Jonathan Griffin

Sperm Cult
at LAXART
–Matt Stromberg

Kahlil Joseph
at MOCA PDC
–Jessica Simmons

Ingrid Luche
at Ghebaly Gallery
–Lindsay Preston Zappas

Matt Paweski
at Park View / Paul Soto
–John Zane Zappas

Trenton Doyle Hancock
at Shulamit Nazarian
–Colony Little

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Catherine Opie
at Lehmann Maupin
–Angella d'Avignon
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Issue 14 November 2018

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Celeste Dupuy-Spencer and Figurative Religion Catherine Wagley
Lynch in Traffic Travis Diehl
The Remixed Symbology of Nina Chanel Abney Lindsay Preston Zappas
Interview with Kulapat Yantrasast Christie Hayden
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring: Sandra de la Loza, Gloria Galvez, and Steve Wong
Claressinka Anderson
Photos: Joe Pugliese
Reviews Raúl de Nieves
at Freedman Fitzpatrick
-Aaron Horst

Gertrud Parker
at Parker Gallery
-Ashton Cooper

Robert Yarber
at Nicodim Gallery
-Jonathan Griffin

Nikita Gale
at Commonwealth & Council
-Simone Krug

Lari Pittman
at Regen Projects
-Matt Stromberg

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Eckhaus Latta
at the Whitney Museum
of American Art
-Angella d'Avignon
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Issue 13 August 2018

Letter From the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Letter to the Editor Julie Weitz with Angella d'Avignon
Don't Make
Everything Boring
Catherine Wagley
The Collaborative Art
World of Norm Laich
Matt Stromberg
Oddly Satisfying Art Travis Diehl
Made in L.A. 2018 Reviews Claire de Dobay Rifelj
Jennifer Remenchik
Aaron Horst
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring: Anna Sew Hoy, Guadalupe Rosales, and Shizu Saldamando
Claressinka Anderson
Photos: Joe Pugliese
Reviews It's Snowing in LA
at AA|LA
–Matthew Lax

Fiona Conner
at the MAK Center
–Thomas Duncan

Show 2
at The Gallery @ Michael's
–Simone Krug

Deborah Roberts
at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles
–Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi

Mimi Lauter
at Blum & Poe
–Jessica Simmons

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Math Bass
at Mary Boone
–Ashton Cooper

(L.A. in N.Y.)
Condo New York
–Laura Brown
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Issue 12 May 2018

Poetic Energies and
Radical Celebrations:
Senga Nengudi and Maren Hassinger
Simone Krug
Interior States of the Art Travis Diehl
Perennial Bloom:
Florals in Feminism
and Across L.A.
Angella d'Avignon
The Mess We're In Catherine Wagley
Interview with Christina Quarles Ashton Cooper
Object Project
Featuring Suné Woods, Michelle Dizon,
and Yong Soon Min
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos: Jeff McLane
Reviews Meleko Mokgosi
at The Fowler Museum at UCLA
-Jessica Simmons

Chris Kraus
at Chateau Shatto
- Aaron Horst

Ben Sanders
at Ochi Projects
- Matt Stromberg

iris yirei hsu
at the Women's Center
for Creative Work
- Hana Cohn

Harald Szeemann
at the Getty Research Institute
- Olivian Cha

Ali Prosch
at Bed and Breakfast
- Jennifer Remenchik

Reena Spaulings
at Matthew Marks
- Thomas Duncan
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Issue 11 February 2018

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Museum as Selfie Station Matt Stromberg
Accessible as Humanly as Possible Catherine Wagley
On Laura Owens on Laura Owens Travis Diehl
Interview with Puppies Puppies Jonathan Griffin
Object Project Lindsay Preston Zappas, Jeff McLane
Reviews Dulce Dientes
at Rainbow in Spanish
- Aaron Horst

Adrián Villas Rojas
at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA
- Lindsay Preston Zappas

Nevine Mahmoud
at M+B
- Angella D'Avignon

Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960- 1985
at the Hammer Museum
- Thomas Duncan

Hannah Greely and William T. Wiley
at Parker Gallery
- Keith J. Varadi

David Hockney
at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (L.A. in N.Y.)
- Ashton Cooper

Edgar Arceneaux
at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (L.A. in S.F.)
- Hana Cohn
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Issue 10 November 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Barely Living with Art:
The Labor of Domestic
Spaces in Los Angeles
Eli Diner
She Wanted Adventure:
Dwan, Butler, Mizuno, Copley
Catherine Wagley
The Languages of
All-Women Exhibitions
Lindsay Preston Zappas
L.A. Povera Travis Diehl
On Eclipses:
When Language
and Photography Fail
Jessica Simmons
Interview with
Hamza Walker
Julie Wietz
Object Project
Featuring: Rosha Yaghmai,
Dianna Molzan, and Patrick Jackson
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos by Jeff McLane
Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA
Reviews
Regen Projects
Ibid Gallery
One National Gay & Lesbian Archives and MOCA PDC
The Mistake Room
Luis De Jesus Gallery
the University Art Gallery at CSULB
the Autry Museum
Reviews Cheyenne Julien
at Smart Objects

Paul Mpagi Sepuya
at team bungalow

Ravi Jackson
at Richard Telles

Tactility of Line
at Elevator Mondays

Trigger: Gender as a Tool as a Weapon
at the New Museum
(L.A. in N.Y.)
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Issue 9 August 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Women on the Plinth Catherine Wagley
Us & Them, Now & Then:
Reconstituting Group Material
Travis Diehl
The Offerings of EJ Hill
Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi
Interview with Jenni Sorkin Carmen Winant
Object Project
Featuring: Rebecca Morris,
Linda Stark, Alex Olson
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Photos by Jeff McClane
Reviews Mark Bradford
at the Venice Biennale

Broken Language
at Shulamit Nazarian

Artists of Color
at the Underground Museum

Anthony Lepore & Michael Henry Hayden
at Del Vaz Projects

Home
at LACMA

Analia Saban at
Sprueth Magers
Letter to the Editor Lady Parts, Lady Arts
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Issue 8 May 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Kanye Westworld Travis Diehl
@richardhawkins01 Thomas Duncan
Support Structures:
Alice Könitz and LAMOA
Catherine Wagley
Interview with
Penny Slinger
Eliza Swann
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
taisha paggett
Ashley Hunt
Young Chung
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews Alessandro Pessoli
at Marc Foxx

Jennie Jieun Lee
at The Pit

Trisha Baga
at 356 Mission

Jimmie Durham
at The Hammer

Parallel City
at Ms. Barbers

Jason Rhodes
at Hauser & Wirth
Letter to the Editor
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Issue 7 February 2017

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Generous
Structures
Catherine Wagley
Put on a Happy Face:
On Dynasty Handbag
Travis Diehl
The Limits of Animality:
Simone Forti at ISCP
(L.A. in N.Y.)
Ikechukwu Casmir Onyewuenyi
More Wound Than Ruin:
Evaluating the
"Human Condition"
Jessica Simmons
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
Brenna Youngblood
Todd Gray
Rafa Esparza
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews Creature
at The Broad

Sam Pulitzer & Peter Wachtler
at House of Gaga // Reena Spaulings Fine Art

Karl Haendel
at Susanne Vielmetter

Wolfgang Tillmans
at Regen Projects

Ma
at Chateau Shatto

The Rat Bastard Protective Association
at the Landing
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Issue 6 November 2016

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Kenneth Tam
's Basement
Travis Diehl
The Female
Cool School
Catherine Wagley
The Rise
of the L.A.
Art Witch
Amanda Yates Garcia
Interview with
Mernet Larsen
Julie Weitz
Agnes Martin
at LACMA
Jessica Simmons
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
Analia Saban
Ry Rocklen
Sarah Cain
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews
Made in L.A. 2016
at The Hammer Museum

Doug Aitken
at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA

Mertzbau
at Tif Sigfrids

Jean-Pascal Flavian and Mika Tajima
at Kayne Griffin Corcoran

Mark A. Rodruigez
at Park View

The Weeping Line
Organized by Alter Space
at Four Six One Nine
(S.F. in L.A.)
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Issue 5 August 2016

Letter form the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Non-Fiction
at The Underground Museum
Catherine Wagley
The Art of Birth Carmen Winant
Escape from Bunker Hill
John Knight
at REDCAT
Travis Diehl
Ed Boreal Speaks Benjamin Lord
Art Advice (from Men) Sarah Weber
Routine Pleasures
at the MAK Center
Jonathan Griffin
Exquisite L.A.
Featuring:
Fay Ray
John Baldessari
Claire Kennedy
Intro by Claressinka Anderson
Portraits by Joe Pugliese
Reviews Revolution in the Making
at Hauser Wirth & Schimmel

Carl Cheng
at Cherry and Martin

Joan Snyder
at Parrasch Heijnen Gallery

Elanor Antin
at Diane Rosenstein

Performing the Grid
at Ben Maltz Gallery
at Otis College of Art & Design

Laura Owens
at The Wattis Institute
(L.A. in S.F.)
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Issue 4 May 2016

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Moon, laub, and Love Catherine Wagley
Walk Artisanal Jonathan Griffin
Reconsidering
Marva Marrow's
Inside the L.A. Artist
Anthony Pearson
Mystery Science Thater:
Diana Thater
at LACMA
Aaron Horst
Informal Feminisms Federica Bueti and Jan Verwoert
Marva Marrow Photographs
Lita Albuquerque
Interiors and Interiority:
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Char Jansen
Reviews L.A. Art Fairs

Material Art Fair, Mexico City

Rain Room
at LACMA

Evan Holloway
at David Kordansky Gallery

Histories of a Vanishing Present: A Prologue
at The Mistake Room

Carter Mull
at fused space
(L.A. in S.F.)

Awol Erizku
at FLAG Art Foundation
(L.A. in N.Y.)
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Issue 3 February 2016

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Le Louvre, Las Vegas Evan Moffitt
iPhones, Flesh,
and the Word:
F.B.I.
at Arturo Bandini
Lindsay Preston Zappas
Women Talking About Barney Catherine Wagley
Lingua Ignota:
Faith Wilding
at The Armory Center
for the Arts
and LOUDHAILER
Benjamin Lord
A Conversation
with Amalia Ulman
Char Jansen
How We Practice Carmen Winant
Share Your Piece
of the Puzzle
Federica Bueti
Amanda Ross-Ho Photographs
Erik Frydenborg
Reviews Honeydew
at Michael Thibault

Fred Tomaselli
at California State University, Fullerton

Trisha Donnelly
at Matthew Marks Gallery

Bradford Kessler
at ASHES/ASHES
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Issue 2 November 2015

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
Hot Tears Carmen Winant
Slow View:
Molly Larkey
Anna Breininger and Kate Whitlock
Americanicity's Paintings:
Orion Martin
at Favorite Goods
Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal
Layers of Leimert Park Catherine Wagley
Junkspace Junk Food:
Parker Ito
at Kaldi, Smart Objects,
White Cube, and
Château Shatto
Evan Moffitt
Melrose Hustle Keith Vaughn
Max Maslansky Photographs
Monica Majoli
at the Tom of Finland Foundation
White Lee, Black Lee:
William Pope.L’s "Reenactor"
Travis Diehl
Dora Budor Interview Char Jensen
Reviews Mary Ried Kelley
at The Hammer Museum

Tongues Untied
at MOCA Pacific Design Center

No Joke
at Tanya Leighton
(L.A. in Berlin)
Snap Reviews Martin Basher at Anat Ebgi
Body Parts I-V at ASHES ASHES
Eve Fowler at Mier Gallery
Matt Siegle at Park View
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Issue 1 August 2015

Letter from the Editor Lindsay Preston Zappas
MEAT PHYSICS/
Metaphysical L.A.
Travis Diehl
Art for Art’s Sake:
L.A. in the 1990s
Anthony Pearson
A Dialogue in Two
Synchronous Atmospheres
Erik Morse
with Alexandra Grant
SOGTFO
at François Ghebaly
Jonathan Griffin
#studio #visit
with #devin #kenny
@barnettcohen
Mateo Tannatt
Photographs
Jibade-Khalil Huffman
Slow View:
Discussion on One Work
Anna Breininger
with Julian Rogers
Reviews Pierre Huyghe
at LACMA

Mernet Larsen
at Various Small Fires

John Currin
at Gagosian, Beverly Hills

Pat O'Niell
at Cherry and Martin

A New Rhythm
at Park View

Unwatchable Scenes and
Other Unreliable Images...
at Public Fiction

Charles Gaines
at The Hammer Museum

Henry Taylor
at Blum & Poe/ Untitled
(L.A. in N.Y.)
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Central
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The Rise of the L.A.
Art Witch

Candice Lin, Recipe for Spontaneous Generation: Baby Mice (2015). Fabric, dried wheat, baby mice, alcohol, glass jar, airlock, copper pipe. 26 x 4 x 4 inches. Image courtesy the artist and Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer.

Candice Lin, Recipe for Spontaneous Generation: Baby Mice (2015). Fabric, dried wheat, baby mice, alcohol, glass jar, airlock, copper pipe. 26 x 4 x 4 inches. Image courtesy the artist and Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer.

The etymology of the word magic comes from the Greek magoi, referring to people the Greeks saw as astrology-touting, talisman-bearing foreigners from the East. 1 By its very definition, magic has always referred to outsiders, others, and those whose practices and beliefs run contrary to Western orthodoxy. It follows then that witchcraft, as a form of magic most commonly associated with medieval hags or sorcerers from “the dark continent,” also implies a practice that operates against the hegemonic authorities of the West. More and more frequently, we’re seeing contemporary artists utilize the methodologies of witchcraft in their practice, largely because, by its very nature, witchcraft is a political and creative act commanding power back into the hands of people who have historically been banished from the inner circles of cultural authority.

Many methodologies used
 in witchcraft and other magical practices overlap those of art-making. Take for instance, the fashioning of talismans and amulets. For the maker, the aim is to transform an ordinary object into a physical catalyst to bring about a desired result: love, abundance, protection, etc. To create a talisman or amulet, the witch subjects the object to a series of manipulations with the intention of attaching meaning by praying over it, anointing it, inscribing sigils into it, piercing it with pins, binding it with cords, and so on. The work of the artist is also to manipulate objects with the intention of attaching meaning through a similar kind of alchemy, bringing things together to create more than the sum of their parts. For both artist and witch, the function
 of their labor is to encourage objects to communicate something beyond their actual form. Today’s art world is so commercially driven however, that even objects made with the loftiest intentions are quickly transmuted into vehicles for capital as soon as they enter the magically charged field of the marketplace.

In a recent essay titled “The Broad: Class Hatred, Concentrated,” 2 an anonymous author using the pseudonym Demogorgon argues essentially that the contemporary art object is used as talisman to expiate the sins of capitalist accumulation. Drawing heavily from Marx, the article describes how capital is “dead labor” hidden and transformed, thus rendering invisible its system of violent social relations. Demogorgon accuses the Broad Museum of being a shrine to class hatred, saying that within its walls, “art takes upon 
itself the guilt of those who [cause] suffering and who think that art will discharge it. But it does not.” The author argues then, that when art is used by the wealthy as an uncrossing spell against the curses cast by suffering laborers, it fails.

But what about when art is used for magical purposes, not by “capitalist overlords”, but by the artists themselves? Given that many of the art witches practicing in Los Angeles today are women, people of color, and/or LGBTQ, for them an interest in systems of power, who has it, and how that power operates is of particular consequence.

This past April, Christie Roberts Berkowitz curated an event at Human Resources called the Brujaja, bringing together artists of all mediums for a night of sorcery and performance. Rafa Esparza demonstrated both 
the physical risks inherent in deep spiritual commitment, and perhaps also the harm suffered through cultural appropriation, in wearing a headdress of sage and letting it burn to ash on the crown of his head. Sarah Gail Armstrong read a series of fierce poems, one of which took to task white witches who refuse to recognize the African origins of their Western Mystery traditions. The evening included many other performances including my own piece, a ceremonial working called Capitalism Exorcism.

Earlier this year, the Women’s Center for Creative Work (WCCW) held a series of workshops, performances and residencies titled Magic Spring. It’s no coincidence that many of the participating artists chose to focus on systems of power directly, with projects addressing patriarchy, institutionalized racism, the destruction of the ecosystem and the profit-driven medical establishment.

Working contra to Western medicine 3 and the system of dependency and debt it can generate, several of Magic Spring’s contributing artists performed workshops 4 based on DIY alternative healing practices such as Taleen Kali’s “Femme Punk Yoga: Magical Healing Powers of the Divine Feminine.” Another program 
in the series, “Let the Earth Help You Hold It” was an herbalism workshop open to everyone but specifically focused on supporting women of color. Conducted by Melanie Griffin, a queer black artist, the workshop demonstrated how, “we can use [plants] to help nourish and support us as we move through the stress we experience living with systemic oppression and trauma.”5

Witchcraft and its relationship to medicine have a long and often ignominious legacy. According to critical theorist and witch icon, Silvia Federici, during the inquisitions of medieval Europe, folk healers were often persecuted. These witches cum female healers “were expropriated from a patrimony of empirical knowledge, regarding herbs and healing remedies, that they had accumulated and transmitted from generation to generation. This,” she continues, “was the rise of professional medicine, which erected in front of the ‘lower classes’ a wall of unchallengeable scientific knowledge, unaffordable and alien, despite its curative pretenses.” 6 Fundamentally, the question of power, who holds it, and how it is exercised, finds its answer through the body. The medical establishment erects a wall of scientific obfuscation around
 the processes of the body that many art witches are working to dismantle.

screen-shot-2016-11-30-at-10-30-46-am

Rafa Esparza, i just came to do brujeria on the artworld (2016) (performance still). Image courtesy of the artist.

Rafa Esparza, i just came to do brujeria on the artworld (2016) (performance still). Image courtesy of the artist.

 

Witches are agents of disturbance within the symbolic order. Art witches know this, and many use the discomfort around the word to their advantage to advance their cause. As part of another performance event at Human Resources last spring (called Yes Femmes), Johanna Hedva crawled across the floor in her performance Sick Witch. Her black wig was draped across her face like she’d just crawled out of the television in the Japanese horror film The Ring. Utilizing horror film tropes and the power of the witch as an icon of agitation, Hedva’s work is an act of defiance against a system that asserts that a person’s value can be measured mainly through their ability to accumulate more capital and direct it up the cultural food chain.

In her widely lauded essay, “Sick Woman Theory,” Hedva argues that, “The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to care for yourself. To take on the historically feminized and therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, and caring. To take seriously each other’s vulnerability, fragility, and precarity, and to support it, honor it, empower it; to protect each other, to enact and practice community. A radical kinship, an interdependent sociality, a politics of care.” 7 Again and again in surveys of the practices of art witches of Los Angeles and beyond, we see an explicitly stated allegiance to care for the body, and for the earth to whom it belongs.

There’s a myth about the “discovery” of the Americas that when Cortez showed up in his big ships
 off the coast of Mexico, because 
the natives had never seen such things before, they ignored them, as
if the ships were ghosts. It seems an unlikely story to me. But the story reminds me of how power is operating in our world today: except in negative image. Today, we’re trained to only see the big ships. We recognize power as it moves through banks, through the State, is showered upon celebrities, or comes speeding out the barrel of a police gun. But we often don’t recognize the softer forms of power, the ones that surround us, like the sea beneath Cortez’s ships.

Fundamentally, magic is about power, and both art and witchcraft still have it, although the form may be different than most of us have been taught to recognize. When Starhawk, a founding mother of contemporary witchcraft, said that “Magic is a shift in perception,” being able to recognize power in its unsanctioned forms was part of what she meant.

Magic has existed in every post-industrial culture as a feature that demarcates through relief. Early anthropologists were tasked with designating magic as “a conceptual field—shared with such notions as shamanism, fetishism, witchcraft, the occult, totem, mana and taboo—that was predominantly made to define an antithesis of modernity: a production of illusion and delusion that was thought to recede and disappear as rationalization and secularization spread throughout society.” 8 A major project of the Enlightenment was
 the attempt to create an intellectual monoculture of positivism and scientific rationalism. Social and applied scientists developed epistemological tools to let them see what was rational and real and true.

Scientific—and thus infallible—tools, developed within the hegemonic infrastructures of the patriarchal imperialist West, verified that nature is a machine possessing no spirit and is therefore available for every type 
of exploitation imaginable. Working under the auspices of this hegemony, tools like the nuclear centrifuge, for instance, were invented by scientists to separate isotopes of uranium. Witches too use tools, like athames (ceremonial swords), to separate truth from falsehood and make distinctions of value. Artworks and athames may not be able to separate isotopes, but neither can a centrifuge distinguish the value of keeping uranium in the mountain.

Perhaps not unlike witches, social scientists also developed tools of divination to determine which kinds of epistemologies were effective. Working under the auspices of imperialist capitalist patriarchy these soothsayers shook their Scientific 8-Balls 
to determine whether the indigenous, brown, female, queer, or just generally “abnormal” magic-practicing peoples of the world had value, epistemological or otherwise. Given the context, it’s unsurprising the divination tools of imperialist patriarchy decreed, “All signs point to no.”

Neither art nor science can be conducted outside the hegemony’s metanarratives of value. Artists might want to make work that questions and challenges the oppressive value systems of the hegemony, but they still have to find ways to survive within a system that frequently requires their capitulation. Even the liminal figure of the art witch cannot operate outside the orbit of capitalism’s great gas giant. As the ideology and aesthetics of witchcraft increase in popularity, so too does the likelihood of its being interpolated by the status quo—the threatening, rebellious figure of the witch used to hawk tote bags, crystal jewelry, and bougie craft fairs in Topanga Canyon. But as any experienced witch knows, practicing magic always involves a degree of risk.

Witches are travelers between the worlds. While art witches clearly do exist within the “consensus reality” of advanced capitalism, they also live in and are creating a new reality based on the primacy of the imagination, care for each other and for the earth that sustains us. If magic is the practice of transforming reality according to one’s will, then clearly the magic of the Los Angeles art witch is working.

Amanda Yates Gracia, Spell to Devour the Patriarchy (2016) (performance still). Image courtesy of Women's Center for Creative Work.

Amanda Yates Garcia, Spell to Devour the Patriarchy (2016) (performance still). Image courtesy of Women’s Center for Creative Work.

This essay was originally published in Carla issue 6.

  1. Davies, Owen. Magic: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.
  2. Demogorgon. “The Broad: Class Hatred, Concentrated.”  Ediciones Chafa, May 24, 2016.
  3. For another artist working to elaborate the themes of witchcraft, medicine, and anti-colonial theory see the work of Candice Lin. The show Sycorax’s Garden at the 18th Street Arts center in 2015 is of particular relevance.
  4. Many Art Witches use the workshop as a performance model: workshops are educational, collaborative and participatory.
  5. Griffin, Melanie. “Let the Earth Help You Hold It.” N.p. Web.
  6. Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2014. Print.
  7. Hedva, Johanna. “Sick Woman Theory.” Mask Magazine, January 2016. Web.
  8. Pels, Peter. Magic and Modernity: Interfaces of Revelation and Concealment. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2003. Print.