"MATERIA PRIMA" - the artist as shamanic presence.

curated by Stephen Romano

"Curator Stephen Romano says, “The exhibition is an articulation of the esoteric nature of the artist as shaman, a producer of art works that serve as social healing devices, to make well again our collective consciousness.

BLAM Gallery

56 Bogart Street

Brooklyn, NY 11206

www.blamprojects.com

brooklyn@blamgallery.com

November 4, 2016 - November 27, 2016

Opening Reception November 4, 2016 (5-9pm)

featuring contemporary and historical works of

Alexis Karl, Sarah Zar, Hanna Jaeun, Nyahzul Blanco, Barry William Hale, Dolorosa De La Cruz, Allessandro Siclordr, Linnea Strid
Colin Christian, Lena Viddo, Gigi Chen, Erin O’Shea, Steven Bradshaw, Samuel Gliner, Damien Michaels, Cendrine Ravoni, Ken Weaver
Jel Ena, Teiji Hayama, John D. Monteith, Ray Robinson, P54, Jaya Suberg, Erna KD, Charlotte Rodgers, Steven Baines, Lukasz Grochocki
Orryelle Defenestrate, Inge Vandormael, Cecilia Avendaño Bobillier, Marko Velk, Travis Lawrence, Judith Vergara García, William Blayney
AW Sommers., Brian Sparrow, William Mortensen, Francesca Lith Nardi, A. Fiorello, Lori Field, Charles Dellschau, Jacob Bohme, Darcilio Lima...

Sarah Zar "Channel, Oracles & Evacuations Series" 2016

BLAM BROOKLYN is pleased to announce the exhibition "MATERIA PRIMA", curated by Stephen Romano.

The exhibition is a mixture of leading contemporary artists, folk art, vernacular photography, esoteric ephemera,

outsider art and unexpected images and objects.

"MATERIA PRIMA" is based on the theme of diverse magical practices, challenging the notion that all magic is necessarily dark in nature.

William H. Mortensen (1897 - 1965) l: "Faternal Practices" c. 1924 R: "Betty Compton" c. 1924

Curator Stephen Romano says,“The exhibition is an articulation of the esoteric nature of the artist as shaman, a producer of art works that serve as social healing devices, to make well again our collective consciousness.

To re-inject the forces of hope, optimism and belief of magic into our declining culture. The true artist…the art they make, is a primary experience in and of itself.

The creation is an act of magic, a conjuring or a protective spell. It is where the artist makes a stand: socially, politically and spiritually.

We live in this universe that has no known boundary, the concept of the scale of spatial infinity is one that is impossible to comprehend, and equally we live for a very brief time, in a very microcosmic space.

Given that realization, what is purpose? In my experience, which is what I try to articulate as a curator, what sustains us is the need for self-actualization, the perpetuation of the metaphysical, and contact with the higher order.

Hanna Jaeun
'The Path' 2016 Acrylic in wood panel , 'Tentacle Girl' Acrylic on wood panel

This is achieved through culture, in what Teilhard de Chardin would call a ‘biophilic’ experience as opposed to say, looking at something that would dumb down our perceptual senses,

a ‘necrophilic’ moment; one that perpetuates the death of the psyche. Great art is an enrichment, and one that ought to be a shared social experience."

Ken Weaver "1000 Years After I am Gone"

When asked about the extreme and esoteric nature of the works in the exhibtion, Stephen Romano responded "We live in extremely times, the art of our time should be an extention and reflection of those extremes"

Stephen Romano has been a prominent Brooklyn gallerist and private art dealer over the past few years, curating exhibitions at his eponymous galleries in Dumbo and Bushwick featuring the works of well known artists such as photographer William Mortensen, Charles Dellschau, Colin Christian, Rithika Merchant, Jel Ena, Matthew Dutton and David Molesky. He has also held ambitious group exhibitions such as "Mysterium Cosmographicum", "In Missa Interfectionis", Infernum", "Heirogliphica", "Saint Bowie" and the blockbuster "Opus Hypnagogia" at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn. Stephen presented outside curated exhibitions such as "Destinesia" and "The Devils Reign' curated by the high priest of the Church of Satan Peter H. Gillmore.

Barry William Hale Left: "Legion 49 Sculptural Series" M:"Legion 49 Servitor Sculptural Series: Balfori" R:"Legion 49 Sculptural Series: Beelzebuth"

An active and enthusiastic member of the international art community for the past 30 years, Romano has championed female artists, artists of diverse cultural backgrounds, as well as esoteric and occult artists.

He also includes outsider, marginalized, self taught artists, and artists whose visionary practices placed them outside of the mainstream art world.

Gigi Chen "Looking for Magic"

Interview with curator Stephen Romano by artist Charlotte Rodgers.

So what makes art dealers select the pieces that they do? Commercial instinct? A certain aesthetic?
In many spheres, art is simply, all about the money. Money for investment, money to launder and money to translate into status. However, there must be some collectors who are in it for more than just financial gain or its associative power, or am I a deluded idealist, destined to starve in an attic rather than ‘get real’.
I have noticed that there are collectors of both art and antiquities that gravitate towards the indefinable, not the object itself but the feel of the object. I do it myself with bones and found items, opening myself up to what is contained rather than the container.
I talked once to a very urbane, very important antiquities dealer about this after I’d wandered through a 4 story Georgian house that contained just a fraction of his collection.

I presented my own experiences to him of going for the feel rather than the outward appearance, and he said he did the same.
In the antiques trade it is called having ‘the eye’, the ability to see beyond

However, in art as with antiquities there are those who are in it purely for financial gain, and there are those that walk in their world for love, but balance their collecting with a professionalism that communicates their passion and makes its perpetuation possible.
I’ve come across reference to Stephen Romano’s Gallery and the artists exhibited there on various occasions. Although there was an eclecticism in the work shown, there was also a continuing thread of power and spirituality in all the work displayed.
While I was in New York we had tried to meet up to talk further but circumstances thwarted us. Thus I’d initially tried to interview Stephen in a more formal manner via e mail, but I can get over excitable and avalanche people with words and as someone who likes to think before he replies (unlike hyper reactive me) we decided to have a more relaxed approach so we conversed over a meandering face book message thread.

I’ve removed many of my interruptions and comments from the following, as they interfered with the flow of the discussion.

Where are you from originally?
Montreal I guess, hard to draw a line where the story begins, so perhaps best to say Canada.

How long has art been part of your journey?
I’ve been drawing since I was 2. I had an aunt who was a successful Canadian abstract artist, she would bring me books on Durer, Bosch, Rembrandt and Dali.

She encouraged me, enriched me. I always knew that I was going to be an artist, there was never any doubt.

She sounds a gift of a woman!
I struggled through high school as an outsider, I was in bands and stuff.

As a singer or a musician?
Singer…just always trying to find my place.

I could never get that ‘school-days are the best days of your life’ rubbish…
I was banging my head against the wall and then found the works of Anton LaVey when I was 13 or 14 which was a shot in the arm for my morale, and a huge affirmation for me.
Then later I went to community college and met ‘a master’ Ray Robinson who introduced me to deeper stuff, Castaneda, Shree Rajneesh and de Chardin.
Anyway, all the while the goal was to become a practising artist, which I did well into my 30’s. Then I hit my endgame, I was making black squares, essentially filled with rhetoric.

So I went off into the world of art dealing. I just disengaged my passion for making art altogether.

Was the art you were creating spiritual?
The art? No more like Ad Reinhardt and Gerhard Mertz. ThinkArt!

wpeter

Wow- was that change of directions difficult or just a transference of creativity?

Totally hard. Like a withdrawal from heroin. It was in my blood but I was tired of living a marginalized life, somehow art dealing was more empowering,

so I apprenticed with a few major people, learned the ropes and the game and ten years later I was a private art dealer, doing well.

So what did these major people teach you?
Presentation is everything.
Know your facts all the way down the line.
Life is once, show up for it.
Always have the artist’s integrity at the forefront.
Don’t try to sell your friendship, sell the work.
Only present works you would want for yourself.

You love what you do?
Sure of course. It’s all I think about, that’s how I got to here.

Or is it just a job?
It’s not a job at all. I don’t even remotely think in that way.

Ray Robinson l to r : "Janet Horne 1727", "Birth of a Witch", "Witch and her Dog Execurted on the Same Day” (Dog was shpwn Mercy and was Stragled before Burned)" 2015

"The greatest life force I ever encountered was Ray Robinson, an artist in exile from the UK whom was a student of Reg Butler and was very influenced himself by the works of David Bomberg. I met Ray when he was given a post at a community college in small town Ontario. I was 19 and a thin shadow of a man, killing myself with drugs and drink. Ray is a sorcerer, someone who is able to effect change in the world, like all good withches. Ray taught his students seeing the truth without fear, and make that the mean to an ends through which to create an art that is a visual truth. Ray saved my life, or at least pointed out that I had no life to save.. Ultimately, the artmaking opened the psyche to lucid dreaming, I suppose that would be where my canvas is now"

Of his art, Robinson says "NO ONE CAN MAKE A JAPANESE TEA CEREMONY BOWL.......THEY GROW FROM THE HANDS OF THE MASTER AND THE NEEDS OF THE CLAY.......THE MASTER ALLOWS."

DISINFO - THE ART OF RAY ROBINSON: THE THIRD DOOR

So what presses your buttons? From what I have seen of the art that you gravitate towards, there is a real mysticism and power in what you’re attracted to?
I have a background in contemporary but also Outsider and folk art, vernacular art. To me the whole thing is about, self-perpetuation and expanding your boundaries.

Going through dark waters to find one truer light. An awakening, otherwise we are just specimens of a species that procreates and produces fertiliser.

What sets us up from the other animals basically is our ability to perpetuate our intellect into the realms of the esoteric, the spiritual, the meta.

Now I would argue apes and dolphins and whales and others have the ability to do that as well and are as soulful as we are, more actually.

The highest order of sentient beings is not actually man but as a generalised self-referential concept, let’s just start with that.
So…here’s my pitch.
Given the vastness of space, that we live in a universe that has no known boundary, the concept of the scale of spatial infinity is one that does JUST fit into our brains.

I’m talking about the actual known cosmic space, not internal universe and the vastness of the breadth of time. That… what is it…12 billion years since the big bang theory,

and we aren’t even sure of that any more. Time will flow infinitely into the future regardless of whether we survive as a species or not.
So we live for a very brief time, in a very microcosmic space.

O yes, life is so very, very short.
Given that realisation, one would be likely to succumb to despair and the hopelessness of our existence yeah?

Depends on who you are
Yeah, yeah, but I mean the average person or the general population, not the exceptions.

OK…
So what is the purpose? Well in my experience and that’s all I’m talking about anyway, what sustains me out of that angst is the need for self-actualisation, the perpetuation of the spiritual, contact with the higher order.

I relate!
And that to me is achieved through culture, specifically the visual arts. I consider the visual arts to be the jewel in the crown of our cultural achievements, I mean you don’t go to The Met to go shopping, you go for self-enrichment.

I mean you COULD I guess, but you’d be missing the point. So there we are face to face with a great art work, having a primary experience with the real thing, not the JPEG. And we are so humbled that for

5 seconds we manage to turn off our internal dialogue lose our self-importance and be in the NOW and somehow through this experience we get a sense, maybe on an intuitive level I don’t know, that our potential as a species is so much greater.

It is what de Chardin would call a ‘Biophilic’ moment as opposed to say, looking at something that dumb’s down our perceptual senses which I would call a ‘necrophilic’ moment, one that embraces the death of the psyche.

Like TV?

Sure, or Andy Warhol, or Jeff Koons not that I dislike them particularly, for me, and here’s where it gets beautiful, for me the TRUE artist has a shamanistic role to perpetuate the sense of hope and optimism and love and unity in our culture.

To reintroduce and re inject the sense of magic, THAT is the true artist to me, not the showman.

Agreed but in my mind to also guide through the hopes and fears and taboos.
The ones who want fame and money and to be irreverent, again I don’t hate those guys I just don’t take them seriously.

The true artist, they are the ones who will perpetuate a culture of good will, who will unlock our greater potential those are the artists that I love.

You’re walking a fine line here between the worlds. Visible/Invisible, corporate/counter-culture
O well, the true warrior, let me find the exact quote, it’s magnificent.

‘The art of the true warrior is to balance the terror of being alive, with the wonder of being alive’ Carlos Castaneda

Perfect! I stagger continuously between the two…
The great art is nothing more than that IMHO
The true artist…the work they make, is in itself not a representation of secondary experience. That art doesn’t interest me, it is primary experience in and of itself. An act of magic; the artist takes a strand, socially, politically and spiritually.

Okay, so if you perceive the true artist to be a shaman, what is the role of the curator and the art dealer?
The presenter, nothing more (or less hahaha)

Surely if you think in those terms, you see yourself as going from being a shaman to a presenter which isn’t perhaps emotionally affirming, though perhaps more materially so?
That’s difficult to comment on, and sometimes there is an itch under my skin to return to art making, like heading into an electromagnetic storm, but my sense of self-preservation redirects me!

O creating is a bloody descent, no two ways about it- when I stopped using drugs/drinking, my artistic process was terrifying as it was such an emotional and spiritual rock and roll of a journey, that often threatened my sobriety.
I’ve been clean and sober for 28 years.

Wow…only 20 years for me! So was getting sober part of your reason for changing your creative direction?
I guess…or part of it.

Curator and dealer Stephen Romano .. with Amie Romano .