In ancient lore shamans were magic practitioners that helped shape the first human societies.
As wise as they were feared, the shaman mystics were a high-rank figure in the
human society, capable of winning battles, de-cursing allies, they could heal physical
wounds and the soul, and also communicate with animal spirits and even shape shift.
In 2012, archaeologists uncovered an unusual site near Lake Świdwie, in north-western
Poland. After meticulously analyzing the settlement using modern techniques, the team
of researchers concluded that it dated back more than 9,000 years.
Yew blades were found near the lake Swidwie in POLAND...This discovery is unique, as
found in other shaman settlements in Siberia and Mongolia only. It apparently served as
a sanctuary from where the spirit practitioners engaged into rituals and out-of-body experiences
which are now out of reach for modern science or written history. It demonstrates
that ancient Europeans had knowledgeable advisors who could read the stars,
use advanced remedies from nature, and who knows what other ancient techniques that
are now forever lost.
Artists-as-shamans are needed in these warring times. Art heals and reveals that which
science cannot. These artists are people in a quest for life's deeper meaning. Shamanism
is universally concerned with the well-being of both nature and human nature, and
the relationship between them. How can modernity know so little for knowing so much?
In making art, the artist breathes herself out to allow the breathing in of universal air, intelligent
with many minds, alive with energy. Artist, shape-shifter, shaman or poet, all are
lovers of metamorphosis, all are capable of visions, insights and dreams.
Real artists have taken up the role of the shaman in our times. Possibly because both
art and shamanism use the realm of metaphor where feeling is expressed and where
healing happens. With metaphoric vision, empathy flows, knowing no borders. Both
artist and shaman create harmony within an individual, and between the individual and
the wider environment, a way of thinking essential for life, which we have almost forgotten
about in our pursuit of money and technology and power.
I saw the video "Marina Abramovic, The Artist is Present" yesterday, showing all her
monumental exhibits and previous performance pieces...that woman is a true artistshaman!
Marina Abramovic, born in Yugoslavia in 1946, has a career that spans approximately
fifty works over four decades of interventions and sound pieces, video works, installations,
photographs, solo performances, and collaborative performances.
"The Artist is Present" is the longest solo performance ever undertaken by an artist in a
museum setting, MOMA. For 3 months everyday for 8 hours a day, Marina sat still in a
chair inviting the audience to take turns sitting in a chair opposite her in silence with
locked eye contact. It turns out that if you can empty your mind each time before, you
can connect with the other stranger's essence and many many people were so moved
by this connection with Marina that tears rolled down their faces in joy.
Now this is an example of how art can be transformative, just as a shaman in ancient
societies transformed people with their spells.
Marina's earlier performance pieces were also dramatic, pointing to hidden aspects of
human nature, which is what art should really be about. Since her early days in Serbia,
Marina has put herself under extreme physical and mental duress to jolt viewers out of
ordinary patterns of thinking. When she cut herself with a knife, or slammed her body
into a wall, it was done with such purity, the viewer was lifted temporarily out of themselves.
It is the opposite of sensationalism or exhibitionism, it is pure magic to behold.
Artists often suffer in their youth, according to Joseph Campbell, as if ‘the whole unconscious
has opened up and they’ve fallen into it’. Shamanism, like art, is a calling, and a
young person may be ‘doomed to inspiration’ as the anthropologist Waldemar Bogoras
wrote of the Siberian shamanic vocation. In a painful transformation lasting months or
years, the young shaman loses interest in life, eats little, is withdrawn or mute, sleeping
most of the time. It reads like a portrait of the young artist in a devastating depression.
The young shaman overcomes the illness through the practice of shamanism, just as
many artists know that their own best medicine is found in their work, like Van Gogh,
who was guided by the sun from the dark side of the mind, to the ecstasy of being.

Real artists do not have fun giving birth to their creations, they are usually tortured souls that delve deep into their psyche to produce and create what they do...and may feel an ecstatic union with their Muse for a moment...but it is not a game to them, like it is too often with many new emerging artists, especially ones who shun the thought of Art College...

If we were discussing Professional Singers...everyone can sing and be made happier and more creative for it, does that mean we should all be on stage and that it is our vocation to be a singer in this life time? Digital Visual Art done skillfully and beautifully is and can be great art...if it is done by a professional artist whose vocation it is to be one and they know their digital tools well...unfortunately in the visual art world today people find it it easy with new technology to put something realistic down on a canvas with a transfer without needing to even know the basics of drawing and art, and light and shadow and perspective, etc...and feel like they are professional artists because they are selling (which is never a criterion in the art field)...

Lets face it, it is good to be creative and happy in your life which singing in the shower and fooling around with paint can do for you BUT it is not the same thing as being a professional singer and professional artist...we have lost our clarity in this regard with the advent of all the new technology...and in our pursuit of hedonism we have also lost the notion that we came to earth to pursue one special vocation which maybe creative accounting for example, and doing art as a hobby for fun...and having a creative life generally...
Capitalism and the pursuit of money has confused the world that only art that sells is of value and that we are all jolly artists having fun and making money...
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As Edgar Degas said, "“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do”.

Why is mythology so popular in modern art? Visual artists are looking to ancient mythologies as references in their works. MOMA recently had an exhibition called, “The Modern Myth: Drawing,
Mythologies in Modern Times”.

And not just Classical Mythology but Futuristic Ones as well, as invented by the artists and then given a name and storyline.

The enduring appeal of course to modern artists is that they can interpret the myths through their own personal experience. Rather than  confront their reality head-on, which is often conflictual, full of humanities’ sufferings and woes and negativity (now a word synonymous with sin), artists are rejecting  real life as is and creating make belief phantasies of their own choosing, often void of any meaning whatsoever, human or otherwise. At least when using classical mythological symbolism, there was evidence of human longing or traits but with Futuristc mythology there only seems to be a wishful wanting for plastic perfection, a Goddess Xena, with big boobs who wields a mighty sword on those who are less perfect, and makes the world right again. 

The human element of empathy is gone in this vision. Only a tiresome, shallow barbie-like doll of existence, no psychology here, no depth, no understanding of why a human could be negative, or an analysis of society or politics in any way. Paula Prego is a great contemporary artist that most young artists, who aspire to never be, “negative’”, shun because she speaks volumes about society and human relations.

So what is left, something a magazine calls “Beautiful Bizarre”, kitschy, smooth, expressionless doll like figures with a little something meant to spark interest. BORING!

In wondering why young artists are running away from the real, and humane, I thought maybe it is because they are on over-load of information from news journals and social media about how ugly we have made this world. Sometimes I feel the same way when I see Trump’s face, or massive hurricanes drowning people, but I cry then can hopefully carry on with daily existence. But maybe the young people don’t have the stamina or strength anymore as they did not ever have a world that wasn’t portrayed like this. Unlike my generation that had a naively free childhood from all this information age.

Even the rise of popularity of “Mindfullness” has not changed this trend of alien worship, futuristic hero worship and plastic imaging in art…(The AGO is having a big exhibition of “Monsters” soon), all it has managed to accomplish thus far is have people say, no to negativity of any kind here, which basically means don’t disturb me with anything real, I am so stressed I can’t handle anything more…don’t bother relating to me because I am on the computer with my own private thoughts and visions, only pleasant ones of course. We have regressed to infantilism as contemporary artists and it makes me want to cry because it means that nothing will ever change if everyone is detached from reality! 

I am not stoked by this trend!

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