Magic Show

Jonathan Allen & Sally O'Reilly 

Softcover | 17.78 x 0.64 x 24.13 cm | 115 pp

Hayward Gallery | 2009 | 9781853322815

Published in conjunction with a 2009 Hayward Gallery exhibition, Magic Show demonstrates how visual artists adopt the perception-shifting tactics of the theatrical magician to explore questions of creative agency, the power of suggestion, and the fragility of belief. Artists, like magicians, manipulate and mystify not simply for entertainment, but to redress fundamental relationships within the social, political or cultural realm.

This richly illustrated book, with over 100 colour reproductions, contains essays that elaborate on the intersections between art and magic by Jonathan Allen and Sally O'Reilly, as well as texts on each of the 24 featured artists. It also contains new writing on arcane images and esoteric ideas from the cultural history of magic by Simon During, Brigitte Felderer, Peter Lamont, Pierre Taillefer, Helen Varola and Marina Warner; a fold-out collation of texts and images exploring the dynamics of magic, art and power; and an illustrated selection of curious props and off-beat ephemera from the world of theatrical magic.

Featured Artists
Jonathan Allen, Archive (Chris Kubik & Anne Walsh), Zoë Beloff, Ansuman Biswas & Jem Finer, Joan Brossa, Rick Buckley, Brian Catling, Center for Tactical Magic, Jackie & Denise Chapwoman, Tom Friedman, Brian Griffiths, Colin Guillemet, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Susan Hiller, Alexandra Hopf, Christian Jankowski, Janice Kerbel, Annika Lundgren, Juan Muñoz, Bruce Nauman, Ian Saville, Ariel Schlesinger, Suzanne Treister and Sinta Werner.