The Collector's Room

Treatment for Six Characters (still) in The Collector's Room, curated by Karen David

The Collector's Room curated by Karen David sees JGM Gallery transformed into a parlour room of a fictitious collector with a leaning towards illusion, stage magic and the escapologist Harry Houdini. In this room we encounter artworks such as spirit levels, levitations, gospel magic props, tarot cards, portraits of magicians, antique keys, handcuffs, sword boxes, escape trunks, magic wands, smoke and mirrors.

Anne-Marie Creamer exhibited a new print adapted from her film, Treatment for Six Characters, 2014, showing the historic Baroque theatre, Theatre Valle, Rome. At the time I made the film the theatre was under political occupation by Theatre Valle Ocuppato. The photographic print, the site of the premiere of Luigi Pirandello's infamous work, Six Characters in Search of an Author, shows the theatre empty, waiting to be activated. It is pictured inverts traditional perspective, showing the point of view of the actors or theatre producers, rather than the audience.

The exhibition also featured:
Jonathan Allen, Ralph Anderson, Dominic Beattie, Katrina Blannin, Isha Bohling, Juan Bolivar, Stella Capes, Anne-Marie Creamer, Karen David, Rosalind Davis & Justin Hibbs, Richard Ducker, Austin Eddy, Machiko Edmondson, Tim Ellis, James Fisher & Kate McLeod, Ludovica Gioscia, Katie Goodwin, Alastair Gordon, Andrew Grassie, John Greenwood, James Hopkins, Chris Jones, Joy Kngwarreye Jones, Richard Kirwan, Hiroe Komai, Caterina Lewis, Karl Marrow, Barbara Nicholls, Plastique Fantastique, John Richert, Lex Shute, Sophia Starling, Holly Stevenson, Daniel Sturgis, Phyllis Thomas, Suzanne Treister, Jessica Voorsanger, Richard Wathen, David Ben White, Alice Wilson, K. Yoland, Neil Zakiewicz

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“A magician's audience always knows that the trick is not showing us what is actually happening - showing the spectator the mechanism of the illusion - but it is pretending to do that thing. Like the waxwork double, the magic trick is a simulation of reality that is always slightly distorted, always off-centre, always a theatrical manifestation of the real. It is this theatrical conceit that makes watching and participating in magic so pleasurable and yet potentially so unsettling.”

– excerpt from The Magician’s Apparatus by Richard Allen, The Collector’s Room publication

"There is a new category of art exhibition – the phantom exhibition. These are exhibitions that opened around early March 2020, immediately prior to lock down on 23rd of March in the UK. They exist in physical form, but have been witnessed by few visitors. They opened to the public for approximately six weeks with a physical catalogue, like any other traditional exhibition, but transformed to being a virtual exhibition that doesn't exist at all, except as a series of photographs on a website."

- N . Zakiewicz, 4th June, 2020 – excerpt from FabledTimes

"Some works leaned against the walls or bent themselves around a corner as if moving slowly around the room when not observed by visitors. But the sophisticated lady was now involved with her own helium experiments and was not divulging such secrets. We remember painted eyes, a free standing screen of rectangles with holes, a photograph of a theatre? A painting of large grey dots radiating out from a central point. Feathers on strings? Time has blurred the details but a definitely awkward, slightly spine chilling feeling remains with us. Both hot and cold. A curious episode, especially as a possible last cultural experience.”

- M. Hale & B. Nicholls 15th April, 2020 – excerpt from FabledTimes

This wunderkammer installation is a replica of the collector's own room, herself a young, retired, reclusive magician, turned feverish art collector, who obtained a good many of the works in exchange for personal performances of illusion. It is not known why she retired; some say a transformation act went terribly wrong, while others heard that she feared the strength of her own powers. Although the retired-magician-cum-collector would, of course, never reveal her secrets, here in this collection of artworks we might share a glimpse into her Houdini-esque obsession.

Harry Houdini was born Erik Weisz on March 24, 1874 to a Rabbi and his wife in Budapest. At 17 he began his magic career, first with card tricks, then escapology with his brother Theodore at Coney Island as 'The Brothers Houdini', and later with Bess, his beloved wife and stage assistant, performing illusions and theatrical stunts of escapes. Houdini spent much of his life researching spiritualism 1 and psychic phenomena and became known as a great debunker of fake spiritualists, himself being able to recreate with stage props every event of proposed psychic phenomena that he witnessed. Houdini offered cash prizes to anyone who could demonstrate actual supernatural abilities, the prize was never collected, and his search continued.

The Collector's Room holds three narratives: the act of collecting, the lens of fiction, and the illusion of magic. An intangible transformation occurs where the potency of these works in this space take on new meanings due to our viewing experience altering and 'contorting' slightly when presented with a fictional agency. We could call this misdirection or sleight-of-hand, or one of many other effects used (to different ends) by stage magicians, faith healers, politicians and, also, visual artists, who using the effect of 'production' (i.e. rabbit from a hat) create something from nothing as part of their own presentation, wielding the unconscious into material, thoughts into actions, the invisible, visible.

The Collector's Room becomes a space where myth, rumour and illusion hang waiting and whispering. At once chattering with mysteries and silent in their gaze.
This exhibition presenting 44 artists has been curated by artist Karen David. Her PhD research on fiction as a methodology is informed by an ongoing project of a fictional commune investigating links between pop culture, the paranormal and new possibilities in gardening.

Houdini himself was a Collector and holding one of the largest collections of spiritualism books of his time. Now at the University of Texas, this collection holds a variety of material including handwritten descriptions of magic tricks, materials from his film company Houdini Picture Corporation as well as American and British theatre history, business and personal correspondence including a series of love letters with his wife, and materials relating to his interest in debunking spiritualism.

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