MUSINGS: BUT IS IT ART? ILLUSIONS: THE ART OF MAGIC AT THE AGO

Detail of Strobridge Lithographing Co.'s Kellar - Levitation, 1900. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)

A good magician has be adept at so many elements of performance while simultaneously appearing as though they are not performing any of them. They must be able to win the trust of the crowd despite explicitly being there to fool them; they must be able to handle their props gracefully and naturally, pretending that a hollow prop is solid or pretending that an envelope laden with secret pockets is perfectly ordinary. Most of what makes good sleight of hand, like good design, must be completely invisible.

In the AGO’s Illusions: The Art of Magic the curator’s hand is often more heavy than sleight but I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing.

The Art of Magic is dramatic from the get-go; one enters through a velvet curtained hallway where turn of the century vaudeville tunes play softly. Inside the walls are painted a dark, velvety green, reminiscent of a pool table. The style of the exhibition space is appropriately theatrical; pieces are lit by spotlights in the dark exhibition space. Section labels are equipped with lenticular prints so thematically appropriate images “appear” as you walk past, however, the effect is somewhat hindered by the low lighting.

There are also several interactive elements in the show. Visitors may look through small peep holes in the walls to view tricks being performed or archival footage from the turn of the century. At about the halfway point of the show there is a station to “design your own magic poster” using various elements from the posters featured in the show.

Take a Peek! Featuring a video demonstrating some sleight of hand. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)

The kitschy aesthetic brought back memories of flipping through Ripley’s Believe it or Not books in the school library, which is not a memory I ever thought I’d associate with the AGO. I had fun at The Art of Magic and I’d recommend it to others but I at several points I found myself thinking “I can’t believe I’m in an art gallery right now”. For all the times I’ve written essays railing against The White Cube and reviews complaining about galleries taking themselves too seriously, I was confronted with the fact that maybe I like white cubes more than I’d like to admit and that there was a small part of me that thought this show was too fun.

A lovely assistant hovers above the exhibition. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)

It’s not like the exhibition is unintelligent or shallow. With every successive room I thought to myself “I hope they have more information on this” and lo and behold there it would be. For instance, I was really taken with the incredible skill with which the posters were designed and printed. Most of the posters of this time were made with a process called “chromolithograph”, a precursor to modern CKMY printing, in which posters are successively printed with primary colours which layer to create depth. When you consider the technology of the time, the quality of images achieved is absolutely amazing, I was particularly struck but the sensitivity with which this portrait of Harry Kellar was rendered, rivalling that of any oil painting. Of course, very few of the artists behind these works are named but at least two text panels are devoted to explaining the printing process and acknowledging that the collaborative nature of producing these works would make naming an individual artist almost impossible.

Detail of Strobridge Lithograohing Co's Kellar, The Great Magician, 1894. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)

Another aspect of this art form that I had hoped would get some attention in this show was the orientalism that pervaded early magic acts. In the very first room, a poster from around 1915 advertises Chung Ling Soo and his Ten Assistants, in which a man in a Chinese inspired costume holds up ten fingers. Later in the exhibition there is an entire selection devoted to Chung Ling Soo and other similar characters played by white men that were meant to capitalize on the fascination with Asian art and aesthetics. This section is accompanied by a short interview with Julie Eng, executive director of Magicana and a magician herself, as she discusses her experiences confronting these stereotypes in her own career.

James Upton Ltd.'s Chung Ling Soo and his Ten Assistants, around 1915. (Photograph courtesy of Mary Wallace.)

Ultimately, I thought the objects on display were both interesting and aesthetically pleasing but more than that the exhibition pulled back the curtain just enough to add depth to the spectacle and make it more than just an amusing trick.