Advertisement

Do you believe in magic? Artist Glenn Kaino wants to know

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Through his latest project, opening Thursday at the gallery LAX Art, artist Glenn Kaino has discovered some parallels between the nether-realms of magic and contemporary art.

Both can involve extreme-sports performance stunts, with Kaino calling David Blaine ‘the Chris Burden of popular culture.’

Advertisement

Both can be highly self-reflexive, with practitioners in the fields steeping themselves in the history that came before them.

Both are small, though the magic community feels to him much smaller: ‘You can spend two months in the community and meet everyone major in the field,’ he said. Or as his magician friend Derek DelGaudio quipped, ‘All the real magicians in the world could fit inside one wing of LACMA.’

And both contemporary art and magic require a certain amount of faith, or at least a suspension of disbelief, lest you see the whole thing as one big sham.

‘There’s a difference between a bar magician who can fool you about where coins are situated, and someone who can really make you feel that something is vanishing,’ said the artist, who immersed himself in the world of magic last year after feeling disillusioned with contemporary art.

Click here for more about the artist’s quest to believe in magic and the gallery show that resulted from it.

-- Jori Finkel
www.twitter.com/jorifinkel

RELATED:

Advertisement

L.A. Art Biennial on tap for 2012

Brookledge, Hancock Park’s magical home

Advertisement