Not Without My Ghosts is a modest 112-page paperback catalog for an exhibition of "mediumistic" art developed by Haywood Gallery Touring and the Drawing Room with curators Simon Grant, Lars Bang Larsen, and Marco Pasi. The show's tour began in the Drawing Room, London (26 March – 14 June 2020) and proceeded to Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool (11 July – 5 September 2020); Millenium Gallery, Sheffield (19 November – 7 March 2021); and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea (20 March – 13 June 2021). The tour may be over, but the book is still available.
Not Without My Ghosts includes about thirty-seven reproductions, including many of works that were in the exhibition and a few additions dating from William Blake's The Head of the Ghost of a Flea (1819) to a photograph of a Museum of Black Hole Spacetime Séance (17 Jan. 2020) showing Suzanne Treister and others involved in that project. Almost all are in colour. The cover features a section of Barbara Honeywood's Album Page XIV (1864) (see. p. 53) overlaid with a removable translucent jacket. The foreword is by Brian Cass of Hayward Gallery Touring. Three short essays provide historical and critical context: "Spiritualist Sisters in Art" by Simon Grant; "Spirit Voices, Women's Voices: Art and Mediumship" by Susan L. Aberth; and "Infinite Redress: Politics in Spiritualism and Medium Art" by Lars Bang Larsen.
One minor criticism of the publication—which is exaggerated here out of sympathy for art history instructors everywhere—is the hint of uncertainty regarding how best to describe the artists. Are they mediumistic artists, medium artists, artists who are mediums, or artists who use the techniques of mediums? All of these possibilities compress around the word medium, which many art students and professionals alike aren't entirely sure is mediums or media in the plural. (Wasn't that point a non-issue before the popularization of multi-media art and art employing the media?) The catalog authors certainly recognized the homonymic problem. Cass, for example, crafted his description of the type of works included in the exhibition: "the curators focused firstly on works by artists for whom drawing was a crucial part of their practice, before then widening their selection to works in other media. [. . .] the exhibition also illustrates how it has been primarily female artists who have engaged with, and interpreted, spirit art and the mediumistic" (p. 6). Students and other aspiring wordsmiths take note: the "mediumistic" artist who uses the techniques of a medium is not to be confused with the artist who works in many mediums.
Terminological word play can be fun, organizational and technical issues not so much. For instance, some readers may be less than amused by the arrangement of the illustrations alphabetically by artist and by the lack of figure numbers or page references to the illustrations in the text. The disconnect between text and image, combined with the fact that a good number of the artists are not immediately identifiable even to art historians, means that the text-to-image navigation requires repeated page rifling. On the technical side, the small size of the book makes study of the more detailed works, such as those by Ann Churchill, difficult; although, thanks to the quality of the reproductions, that problem is far from ubiquitous and can be overcome by way of a magnifying glass.
Who is most likely to bother rifling pages after every mention of an artist and go looking for a magnifying glass to look at the work when they find it? Anyone interested in art histories other than those governed by the capitalist politics of commercial gallery marketing and advertising will find this volume worth their attention, as will those enthralled by images born of genuine efforts to permeate the boundaries between life here and the hereafter. Artists weary of the valuation of style over content and anyone in search of counterparts to their personal visual experiences of things beyond the mundane world are also likely to be captivated by both the collection and discussions of it. There is indeed so much more to the visual than "Art."
One point likely to give serious pause to contemporary readers that is specifically noted by Larsen arises from the factual information about how "mediumistic" artists interpreted their own creative process. To paraphrase the authors, a "mediumistic" artist is one who embraces the notion that their work is not entirely their own insofar as they see themselves as a conduit for some force from the beyond. Traditionally, such energy would be thanked, applauded, and allegorized by (mostly) male artists and their fans as muses. Is it possible that the Other from beyond who flows through the mediumistic body and makes use of her limbs and skill to produce images is simply a new description for ancient fantastical beings? The refashioned description conforms to old-fashioned notions of "feminine" passivity as the opposite of "masculine" active energy, and co-operative "feminine" relationships as the opposite of political and competitive "masculine" hierarchies. Further, the attribution of the image to an absent Other negates the need to recognize the artist who is present and that artist need not be bothered with critical, particularly negative judgements of her work because, quite simply, it isn't entirely her responsibility.
Thus, mediumistic artists simultaneously subvert the conventions of the "Art" world and embrace those of conventional femininity, which suggests that the modern-day interest in such art may have less to do with recognizing originality, rewriting art history, recognizing female artists, or even embracing the occult, and more to do with reaffirming some very limiting notions about the proper boundaries of female behavior and activity.
Mediums not Men. Ghosts not Muses. Absent Others not Present Women.
Obviously, the images and the essays in Not Without My Ghosts are equally thought-provoking. This small but mighty little book is highly recommended.
-review by Emily E. Auger
Exhibition Catalog. Brian Cass (foreword), with Essays by Simon Grant, Susan L. Aberth, and Lars Bang Larsen.
Hayward Gallery Publishing, 2020.
112 pp. $20
