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The first accessible reader on magic’s generative relationship with contemporary art practice.
From the hexing of presidents to a renewed interest in herbalism and atavistic forms of self-care, magic has furnished the contemporary imagination with mysterious and often disorienting bodies of arcane thought and practice. This volume brings together writings by artists, magicians, historians, and theorists that illuminate the vibrant correspondences animating contemporary art’s varied encounters with magical culture, inspiring a reconsideration of the relationship between the symbolic and the pragmatic.
Dispensing with simple narratives of reenchantment, Magic illustrates the intricate ways in which we have to some extent always been captivated by the allure of the numinous. It demonstrates how magical culture’s tendencies toward secrecy, occlusion, and encryption might provide contemporary artists with strategies of remedial communality, a renewed faith in the invocational power of personal testimony, and a poetics of practice that could boldly question our political circumstances, from the crisis of climate collapse to the strictures of socially sanctioned techniques of medical and psychiatric care.
Tracing its various emergences through the shadows of modernity, the circuitries of ritual media, and declarations of psychic self-defence, Magic deciphers the evolution of a “magical-critical” thinking that productively complicates, contradicts and expands the boundaries of our increasingly weird present.
From the hexing of presidents to a renewed interest in herbalism and atavistic forms of self-care, magic has furnished the contemporary imagination with mysterious and often disorienting bodies of arcane thought and practice. This volume brings together writings by artists, magicians, historians, and theorists that illuminate the vibrant correspondences animating contemporary art’s varied encounters with magical culture, inspiring a reconsideration of the relationship between the symbolic and the pragmatic.
Dispensing with simple narratives of reenchantment, Magic illustrates the intricate ways in which we have to some extent always been captivated by the allure of the numinous. It demonstrates how magical culture’s tendencies toward secrecy, occlusion, and encryption might provide contemporary artists with strategies of remedial communality, a renewed faith in the invocational power of personal testimony, and a poetics of practice that could boldly question our political circumstances, from the crisis of climate collapse to the strictures of socially sanctioned techniques of medical and psychiatric care.
Tracing its various emergences through the shadows of modernity, the circuitries of ritual media, and declarations of psychic self-defence, Magic deciphers the evolution of a “magical-critical” thinking that productively complicates, contradicts and expands the boundaries of our increasingly weird present.
- GenresNonfictionArt
240 pages, Paperback
Published December 14, 2021
15 people are currently reading
134 people want to read
About the author
Jamie Sutcliffe
5 books6 followersJamie Sutcliffe is a writer, curator, lecturer, and co-director of Strange Attractor Press.
His work explores artistic encounters with science fictive fabulation, the politics of gaming, animation and its multiple entanglements with developments in the life sciences, haunted media, and the persistence of myth, all understood as technologies of selfhood.
He is the editor of Documents Of Contemporary Art: Magic, published by The Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press.
WEEB THEORY, a collection of theoretical resources for artists encountering the intermedial fan cultures of anime, co-edited with artist Petra Szemán and published by Banner Repeater.
And Strange Attractor Journal 5, co-edited with Mark Pilkington, published by Strange Attractor Press.
His essays, reviews, and interviews have been published by Art Monthly, Frieze, The White Review, Rhizome, Art Review, The Quietus, Art Agenda, EROS Journal, Bricks From The Kiln, and IsThisIt, amongst others, while catalogue essays and exhibition texts have been written for the New Museum, New York, Goldsmiths CCA, London, the Austrian Cultural Forum, London, Primary, Nottingham, Huddersfield Gallery, Southwark Park Galleries, and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester alongside other venues.
He has been a Visiting Lecturer at The Royal College of Art, New York University, Goldsmiths, The Rijksakademie, Camberwell College of Art, Birmingham School of Art, Sheffield School of Art, Nordland Kunst-Og Filmhøgskole, and is currently Associate Lecturer at UAL: Chelsea College of Art and Associate Lecturer in Critical Theory at the University of Northampton.
His curatorial projects include The Psychopathic Now! at Flat Time House, London, The Shadow Moses Incident at Primary, Nottingham, and Trouble In Outer Heaven: Portable Ops Plus, an exhibition exploring the clandestine politics of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series at Southwark Park Galleries, London. The Advantages Of Being Boneless And Incomplete, co-curated with Petra Szemán, opened at Banner Repeater London, in January 2023.
He has presented talks, chaired symposia and performed texts at various venues including Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, The V&A, Wysing Art Centre, Jerwood Space, Somerset House, Sadie Coles HQ, Camden Art Centre, The Photographer’s Gallery, Focal Point, IMT Gallery, Site Gallery, The Tetley, Bosse & Baum, Tyneside Cinema and Humber Street Gallery, and been a regular contributor to the Art Monthly Talk Show on Resonance FM.
His work explores artistic encounters with science fictive fabulation, the politics of gaming, animation and its multiple entanglements with developments in the life sciences, haunted media, and the persistence of myth, all understood as technologies of selfhood.
He is the editor of Documents Of Contemporary Art: Magic, published by The Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press.
WEEB THEORY, a collection of theoretical resources for artists encountering the intermedial fan cultures of anime, co-edited with artist Petra Szemán and published by Banner Repeater.
And Strange Attractor Journal 5, co-edited with Mark Pilkington, published by Strange Attractor Press.
His essays, reviews, and interviews have been published by Art Monthly, Frieze, The White Review, Rhizome, Art Review, The Quietus, Art Agenda, EROS Journal, Bricks From The Kiln, and IsThisIt, amongst others, while catalogue essays and exhibition texts have been written for the New Museum, New York, Goldsmiths CCA, London, the Austrian Cultural Forum, London, Primary, Nottingham, Huddersfield Gallery, Southwark Park Galleries, and Castlefield Gallery, Manchester alongside other venues.
He has been a Visiting Lecturer at The Royal College of Art, New York University, Goldsmiths, The Rijksakademie, Camberwell College of Art, Birmingham School of Art, Sheffield School of Art, Nordland Kunst-Og Filmhøgskole, and is currently Associate Lecturer at UAL: Chelsea College of Art and Associate Lecturer in Critical Theory at the University of Northampton.
His curatorial projects include The Psychopathic Now! at Flat Time House, London, The Shadow Moses Incident at Primary, Nottingham, and Trouble In Outer Heaven: Portable Ops Plus, an exhibition exploring the clandestine politics of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series at Southwark Park Galleries, London. The Advantages Of Being Boneless And Incomplete, co-curated with Petra Szemán, opened at Banner Repeater London, in January 2023.
He has presented talks, chaired symposia and performed texts at various venues including Tate Britain, Whitechapel Gallery, The V&A, Wysing Art Centre, Jerwood Space, Somerset House, Sadie Coles HQ, Camden Art Centre, The Photographer’s Gallery, Focal Point, IMT Gallery, Site Gallery, The Tetley, Bosse & Baum, Tyneside Cinema and Humber Street Gallery, and been a regular contributor to the Art Monthly Talk Show on Resonance FM.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 7, 2025
4.5.
A brilliant constellation of untanglings of enchantment, possibilities, resistance and appropriation in contemporary art's invocation of magic. I've long been drawn to artists who use magic as part of their practice, yet frustrated that I couldn't parse it much beyond the surface reading of 'witchy feminist vibes'. This collection used poetry, political theory, zines, auto fiction, lectures, art history, and hexes to illuminate the various powers - good and evil - at play when we cast spells.
Very much enjoyed the discussions of indigenous magic in relation to capitalist productions of magic, magic and communism, and the political structures of covens.
Strongly recommend, a brilliant work of editing that really opened doors for me.
A brilliant constellation of untanglings of enchantment, possibilities, resistance and appropriation in contemporary art's invocation of magic. I've long been drawn to artists who use magic as part of their practice, yet frustrated that I couldn't parse it much beyond the surface reading of 'witchy feminist vibes'. This collection used poetry, political theory, zines, auto fiction, lectures, art history, and hexes to illuminate the various powers - good and evil - at play when we cast spells.
Very much enjoyed the discussions of indigenous magic in relation to capitalist productions of magic, magic and communism, and the political structures of covens.
Strongly recommend, a brilliant work of editing that really opened doors for me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review