Agnes Pelton Spiritualist Paintings

Man, I miss those days of head shops and New Age stores. Things were wacky, oddly ambitious (i.e., cosmic), and way, way out there back then in the 70s and 80s. The head shops had bongs and all sorts of dope smoking paraphernalia, rock and roll and counter-cultural mags (above all, High Times), alternative comics like The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and a bunch of LPs of the sort that sound good when you are stoned. The New Age stores had crystals and incense and spiritual and spiritualist books of every kind, including channeled literature, which I find to be a fascinating field. Now, we just have Whole Foods and food co-ops and all they have are books and magazines about yoga and healthy eating, and, heaven help us, Magnolia. How far we have fallen from the summit of weirdness! Things are just so sensible. Maybe that's because it's harder and harder to make a living, so you've got to stay focused and in fighting shape. Oh, then there's stuff like Cross Fit, which, if it is in fact some sort of neo-cult is certainly the healthiest cult ever. There is also the ascent of the scientific materialism view on the one hand and the rise of Evangelical Christianity on the other, neither of which is comfortable with spiritual and existential zaniness.

Be this as it may, if you really want to get "out there" with spiritualist stuff, you need to look at the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- the Golden Age of seances, spiritualist communications, and stupendous cosmologies such as that of the Theosophists. People didn't need to apologize for spiritual curiosity back then; it was assumed that there are many levels of consciousness and that we benefit from cross-fertilization between realms. Curiously, these modes of existential engagement have received some attention in the art world over the last couple years (perhaps because of yearning for more mystery in our lives), starting with a big show of the gorgeous works of Hilma af Klint at the Guggenheim last year. Now thought to be some of the earliest purely abstract works ever, Klint's large paintings were produced by her following instructions from what she called spirit guides. Later, I think she worked from intuition instead of strict "instruction." The most recent installment in the resurgence is a big show of the early-20th century paintings of Agnes Pelt at the Whitney. Her works are based on her own spiritual visions and they aren't purely abstract, but employ many suggestive symbols, for example egg-like shapes. In my view, hers are not as compelling as Klint's; they look kind of proto-New Age, which isn't necessarily great, since New Age aesthetics often aren't the best. Nevertheless, it's really fun to engage with Pelton's works, and to think about what they might tell us about worlds that exist beyond our eyes.