PSYCHO POMP at ART WARS ! Art Opening 7th May

Who shows us the way today? Art it seems has been well & truly co-opted and is no longer at the service of the Muse or indeed the mind. It pays its dues to commerce – now just simply another commodified object, no more interesting it seems, then the price of a specialized sports car or high-end
bauble of jewelry – this is not just the supposition of the collector or indeed the viewing public, but exists in the very complicity of the artist who engages in this way willingly. One explanation might be that simply: the song remains the same. The psychoanalyst C.G. Jung suggested man’s stress on
intellectualism could be due to a negative anima (shadow) – often represented psychompomically in legend & myth by a female figure – who asks riddles that men must answer or die. The all-pervasive psychoanalyzed figure of Oedipus resonates at his most acute point, through his own such
psychopomp – the Sphinx.

He confidently answers the riddle – but he does not realize he has traced out his own fate – for his answer to the Sphinx – is like the Sphinx itself – the very monstrous actualized events that will follow: for Oedipus will sleep with his mother; once he has murdered his father – she will then commit suicide – as indeed does the Sphinx once its riddle is resolved. The tale ends in a terrible act of self-mutilation – the artist’s ultimate horror: he gouges out his own eyes. In literature Virgil appears as Dante’s psyhcopompic guide in the underworld. In the old world of Norse legend & Native America – in Greek & also near Eastern cultures, Horses act as guides between worlds. Horses allow Shamans to fly: ‘Stealing Horses, is stealing Power’ was a Native saying. Psychopomp has a series of artists who have never left the territory of the enchanted isle – a place that is the reserve of the Shaman – a place without price. Here the invocation of the Psychopomp is like one who has shown the way – even to those among them who have acquiesced, betrayed the republic, abandoned the city-state – induced by the sniff of money or naked ambition into the shallow-dark mono-culture of the commodified world. Will they like Dante and his noble guide Virgil reveal through a poetic light – the way into – as well as out of – the darkness
Luke Brennan,Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly,Lisa Cradduck,John Cussans,Akira the Don,James P. Graham,
Mark Hammond,Lee Holden,Piers Jackson,Dean Kenning,Guillaume Krattinger,Dominique Lacloche,Peter Lewis
,Dr David Luke,Makiko Nagaya,Augusta Ogilvy,Simge Peker,Raul Pina,Jonny Reding,Paul Sakoilsky,Martin Sexton,Peter Suchin,Truth Machine,Zoltar.

a r t w a r s project space 23 – 25 Redchurch Street London E2 7DJ
Open – 8th-31st May Contact: info@artwars.co.uk