The titular “magical consciousness” of this exhibition, curated by artist Runa Islam in collaboration with the Arnolfini, takes inspiration from the philosopher Vilém Flusser, who postulated that images have a nature that exceeds their function of capturing an event. Rather than theorizing the nature of photography, Flusser investigated the speculative possibilities of an object that is also an image. The show also borrows the title of a 2010 film by Islam in which she reveals a hidden aspect of an artwork. Indeed, the very notions of revelation and transformation are at the heart of this exhibition.
For example, in Untitled (Outline), 2009–11, Matias Faldbakken, an artist who plays with the language of vandalism and transgressive behavior, has graffitied a wall and the windows of a gallery here, changing the space into a subtle and engaging painting. The “MacGuffins” of Onkar Kular and Noam Toran’s The MacGuffin Library, 2008, are derived from films like The Maltese Falcon and Kiss Me Deadly, and created by a 3-D printer. These black polymer objects, renderings of highly desired items that stood as plot devices in classic movies, now take on a strange sculptural life of their own. Mariana Castillo Deball’s large papier-mâché version of a bottle is the most amusing work in the show as it also takes the guise of a piñata. Hanging high from the ceiling and painted in International Klein Blue, it becomes a floating witticism.
The exhibition itself does not quite offer an illumination of Flusser’s complex ideas, but rather it asks the viewer to make connections and interpretations. In fact, it is in the spirit of Islam’s films: dry, measured, intellectual, referential, but also surprisingly sensuous. This is best exemplified by the quiet star of the show, an Aztec obsidian mirror dating from approximately 1351–1521. Dark and silent in its Perspex case, the mirror was used for healing and divination some time ago, but here we enjoy it first as a sculpture and second as an object that helps us see things that may have been veiled.
