Everyone knows what subliminal ads are. Rove used them (DemocRATS)
in 2000, and W denied it while mangling the word with his usual charm
as “subliminable.” Liminality, according to Wikipedia, is a
psychological term referring to a transitional state of ambiguity,
openness, and indeterminacy between two separate planes; a zone of
potentiality and possibility in which social distinctions vanish and
communitas replaces hierarchy. The term comes from the Latin
word for threshold.
Myth, Magic, Mystery, a large exhibition of spiritual
art, explores the subconscious and the transcendental, areas of
experience that are suspect to an art world driven by conceptual
pseudorationalism (aka absurdist magical thinking). This show also
seeks to foster art that espouses and celebrates healing,
connectedness, wellness, sustainability, and community over the
commercial art world’s hypercompetitive rat race, a microcosm of our
current system, which is of, by, and for capital. The 33 artists
selected by Red Door curators Jais Booth, Bronton Cheja, and Lisa
Rasmussen cover a wide range of subjects, approaches, and media in
their 57 works, though anyone familiar with John F. Kennedy
University’s Arts and Consciousness Department in Oakland, San
Francisco’s California Institute of Integral Studies and Art Institute,
or Inverness’ Lucid Art Foundation, will have encountered some of these
artists before. The curators’ statement lists symbolists, Nabis,
certain surrealists (Matta, Onslow Ford, and Paalen), and religiously
inspired abstractionists (Kandinsky, Tobey) as progenitors, as well as
mystics and seers of all creeds. To generalize greatly, the work
divides into two major types: depictions of symbolic or archetypal
figures, or of magical agency, generally figurative, though the figures
may be mandalas or ideographs; and depictions of nature and change,
independent of humanity, generally abstract. On Saturday, April 18,
there will be an artists’ tour (1-2 p.m.); a panel discussion “The
Liminal in Art” (2-3:30 p.m.); a fifteen-minute slide presentation of
Nepal’s sacred sites; and a mask-making workshop. A catalogue featuring
the artists’ images and essays is available. Through April 26 at the
Red Door Gallery and Collective (416 26th St., Oakland). RedDoorGalleryandCollective.blogspot.com
or 510-292-7061
