Sixties Surreal | Art & Artists

Through Jan 19

All

10 / 10

Previous Next

Organized religion was one of the many institutions that came under question in the 1960s. For many artists, the search for alternatives led to the exploration of expansive forms of spirituality, influenced by cultural roots, ancestral knowledge, and the occult. Many practitioners of historic Surrealism promoted esotericism and the magical sciences as tools for unlocking the subconscious mind and critiquing the dominant institutions—family, church, and state—of the period. The artists gathered here follow that line of thinking to various critical ends. Some, such as Jordan Belson and Ching Ho Cheng, sought spiritual knowledge by using meditation, psychedelic drugs, and divination as tools for elevating consciousness. Others, including Claes Oldenburg and Eduardo Carrillo, looked outward, questioning the dominance of religious institutions and reappropriating conventional iconography for new ends. Still others, such as Oscar Howe and Carlos Villa, evoked ritual practice in their work to assert claims to cultural identity and counter the destabilizing effects of colonization and Christianity upon Indigenous systems of belief.

Back

1 / 6

Previous Next

A glowing target shape with a red ring and white center on a dark background. No text present.

In Samadhi Jordan Belson attempts to portray a visual phenomenon he perceived while in a meditative state. A follower of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, Belson lived and maitained a strict Yogic practice and a largely ascetic and solitary life in San Francisco in the two years leading up to the film's creation. He rendered his experience in a color palette inspired by natural elements and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, accompanied by an electronic score punctuated by sounds of his inhaling and exhaling.

Sixties Surreal | Art & Artists

Sixties Surreal | Art & Artists

Mojo Secrets

10

Jordan Belson, Samadhi, 1967

Artists

On the Hour