Marres Maastricht, 2018
Photos by Gert Jan van Rooij Studio
When you spill salt, do you throw some over your
shoulder? Do you knock on wood when you want something good to happen or blow
out birthday candles after making a wish? What about stepping on sidewalk
cracks, killing spiders, shattering mirrors and opening an umbrella indoors?
Artists have always had a fascination with
phenomena that defy rational explanation. The surrealists were obsessed with
the analysis and creative possibilities of dream states. Authors including
Antonin Artaud, William S. Burroughs, and Alan Ginsberg explored (sometimes
with the help of drugs) the boundaries between reality and fiction. Directors
Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovski captured the way superstition informed the
imagination and consciousness.
Curator, artist and magic thinker Erich Weiss
assembled a wonderful cast for this subject: Nina Beier & Simon Dybbroe
Møller, Otto Berchem, Pierre Bismuth, Santiago Borja, Ulla von Brandenburg,
Stefan Brüggemann, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen, Keren Cytter, Uri Geller, Joachim
Koester, Germaine Kruip, Nils Nova, Joanna Piotrowska, John Stezaker
and Mungo Thomson.
