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Brian Butler: I have always considered magick to be an art and my study of the occult inspired my vision as an artist. I also feel that the imagery of ceremonial magick is visually striking and has the potential to impact an audience in a powerful way. The idea of a public evocation appeals to me on several levels. Technically, art is a work of creation, but for me it often feels like a manifestation of something that already exists on another plane of awareness, which provides another cognate for me with occult practice. A public ritual performance offers me a forum where I can bring a spiritual manifestation down to a superficial level that the average person can perceive.Are there precedents for what you are doing, or do you believe it to be unique? What do you think the connection with ritual portends for the future of art and performance?
In the context of the art world, this connection is a new one—it hasn't really been explored. Certainly there have always been artists interested in the occult, and who allowed that to inspire their work—it even became a kind of subgenre in early Modernism, but it was often hidden under the formal content of the work, as in the case of Piet Mondrian, for instance. But the overt connection, with the performance of ritual magick as art, is something new. I think it is a step towards a more intimate relationship between artist and audience—I am reminded of something that Marina Abramovic elucidated to me about the occult in the context of performance, that the future will be one of a non-objective world without art in the sense that we have it now. She foresees us attaining a mental state and level of consciousness enabling us to transmit thoughts to other people. "There will not be sculptures, or paintings, or installations," she once said, "there will just be the artist standing in front of a public, which is developed enough to receive a message or energy." I think the fusion of art and ritual is a step toward that kind of connectivity and that kind of intimacy.
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Yes, due to sensationalism in the media, elements of Crowley’s work have been coopted and become a part of pop culture in a very low brow, horror film type of way. And to me that has nothing to do with the essence of what Crowley was or what he did. The recontextualization of the rituals as fine art helps to salvage them from that level of pop culture and allow an assessment of their own sophisticated aesthetics and cultural value.***As the tableau unfolded, Butler pointed his sword at the triangle and called for protection against evil. Gathering his power and reaching a state of exultation, he approached the triangle and began to chant. As the spirit of Bartzabel was summoned, there was a scream of agony from the bound figure—he represented a material basis, the object from which the immaterial would take form. His body writhed in rebellion against the preternatural experience it was undergoing. Moving forward, Butler interrogated the specter inhabiting the man and swore it to an oath of obedience.Many within the crowd were wrapped in reverent attention as Butler solemnly tended his altar, but others were furtive. Fusing art and ritual in a gallery setting creates an uneasy marriage for those who fail to comprehend the solemnity of such ceremonies, and consider the events instead as a kind of spectator sport. These people will fail to recognize the subtle and highly nuanced nature of Butler's rituals. For The Bartzabel Working, for instance, the red robed figures were placed against the deep black background, where they took on an abstract quality. Moving but seeming something other than fully human, they created the sense of a liminal space. Light and staging were likewise carefully contrived, creating patterns of shadow, which reinforced Butler's gestures. These swatches of dark and light congealed and dissipated to create the sense of an alternate, ambiguous presence emanating from Butler as officiant, and consuming those participating in the ritual.
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Rodney Orpheus: I think Crowley would have loved it. We're talking about a guy who sold tickets to public performances of "The Rites of Eleusis" after all, so this is exactly in line with Crowley's own modus operandi. It's the first time I've heard of this being performed publicly, period. Crowley's original wasn't public, it was a private working.Do you think Brian is helping to spark a new wave of interest in Crowley in particular, and occultism in general? There was, after all, a ridiculously large crowd, maybe 1000 people for his Barztabel evocation.
I'm very pleasantly surprised and impressed to hear this. I do think that many, many people hold an interest in these things and are capable (and eager) of comprehending it. I very much applaud Brian's approach.
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As they say, "haters gonna hate." You're always going to have people criticizing this stuff, from one side or another. Often this criticism is justified—most attempts to put on real magickal rituals in public fall flat on their faces, mainly because the performers just aren't capable of pulling it off; either because they are great occultists and terrible showmen, or the other way around. There are very few people who have skill in both disciplines.
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Courtesy via ForYourArt
6020 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Opening January 22ndBlended
Seeline Gallery
8687 Melrose Avenue
Suite B274
West Hollywood, CA 90069
January 17 to March 8Sanctified: Spirituality in Contemporary Art
Vincent Price Museum
East Los Angeles College
1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez
Monterey Park, CA 91754-6099
February 9 to April 26