On Saturday, October 2nd, Garage Rotterdam presented an evening program related to the exhibition “The Great Invocation”, hosted by curator Pàdraic E. Moore. The first speaker, Dr. Tessel M. Baudin, shared her ideas regarding automatism and ‘The Castle Problem.’ Regarding the questions, ‘how does it (the art) make you feel? What does it mean to you?’ she noted, ‘subjective experience is a valid and potentially important part of departure’ when thinking about the meaning of art. Automatism (one of the main themes of the exhibition) is an open channel of communication, or ‘a form or an act of openness’ with the art itself and/or with the audience. Automatism can be spiritual or mystical (engaging with realities or entities); motor (with the body); or poetic (as in communication with the subconscious or alter-ego as found in surrealism).
Regarding ‘the castle problem,’ Dr. Baudin shared André Breton’s 1936 work wherein Breton asks whether or not there are pre-destined places for the accomplishment of mental transmission or mediumism. Breton said ‘yes, there must exist observatories of the inner sky.’ If we want to enter this place, the idea of a castle (that is associated with ghosts, vampires, ruins, madpeople locked in towers, kings and queens, etc.) works well, as it usually comes layered with a lot of meaning. You can build the castle (a place of other reality) in your own mind, or visit a castle on location in order to engage with the other reality. In closing, Dr. Baudin said, ‘The Great Invocation will assist the world in times of unprecedented calamity, and also self-destruction” and asked, ‘if there is an invocation, who or what is being invoked? If we are making a call, who is on the other end of the line?’
The Great Invocation is showing at Garage Rotterdam until November 7, 2021.
More information about Dr. Tessel M. Baudin can be found at https://celstec.academia.edu/TesselBauduinPhDArtHistorian/ and http://www.tesselbauduin.nl/