Yet another mainstream media article dedicated to the Guggenheim exhibition Mystical Symbolism is doing the rounds courtesy of the New York Times, and depending on who you ask, it is either a barbaric attack by an ignorant journalist on a deeply significant, misunderstood movement, or a generic, and predictable critique of a blip in the history of art that is best laid to rest.
Readers would be forgiven for assuming that I stand in the first camp, but truth be told, I am closer to the second, and my response to the supporters and lovers of Symbolism and esoteric art dismayed by this latest screed, is quite honestly, “what did you expect?”
I will admit to being jaded where the question of acceptance of these subject areas by the mainstream is concerned. Heroic efforts have been made to demonstrate and document the significance of esoteric thought and its impact on wider culture over the last 25 years in those academic centres where esoteric topics have finally found a home. However, as I have been pointing out for some years, to little avail, for as long as they remain in the ivory tower and concerted outreach work towards a wider public is not undertaken; disciplinary boundaries remain in place and esoteric historians do not develop richer lines of communication with other Humanities disciplines; scholar-practitioners insist on ring-fencing esoteric topics, thereby marginalising them, then mainstream acceptance, and more importantly, accuracy in mass media treatment of these subjects, is never going to happen.
This was the subject of the very important round table held at the 2016 Trans-States conference at the University of Northampton, where artists, publishers, scholars and practitioners explored this very problem, yet were not able to reach a consensus on how it should be addressed. In my own contribution to the discussion (where I forewarned that this exhibition would not be doing full justice to the topic), I advocated what I am repeating here: better lines of communication are necessary if we wish such phenomena to eclipse.
In my correspondence with the Guggenheim curator Vivien Greene in September 2016, I urged her to consider the possible repercussions of choosing an approach that would prioritise disciplinary preferences over accuracy, and the necessity of providing sufficient context to educate the wider public – and the media – regarding the backdrop to these Salons. My precise words were:
Since your 2017 event was announced, I have received dozens of inquiries from scholars in Europe and the US, asking whether I am involved (due to the subject matter), and I have had to explain that your focus is different. The response has unanimously been that it is extremely sad to see that the disciplinary boundaries between our respective fields are leading to a misrepresentation of this area of art history at an institution such as the Guggenheim.I cannot highlight strongly enough that I do not wish to antagonise this effort in any way – to the contrary. My concern is that once again, this area of history will be misunderstood and misrepresented. Much scholarly literature has now documented the clear significance of esoteric thought in relation to wider culture, and collaborations between historians of esotericism and religion, art historians, literary scholars, and curators are increasing for precisely this reason.
I received no response to this, nor to my request for “an openness to discovering how our respective disciplines may benefit from each other.”
Following my recent comment on the Guggenheim exhibition, I also sent a letter summarising the context (as found on this website) to these exhibitions, and informing the art editors of a number of mainstream news sources , the New York Times included, of the importance of understanding the full story before critiquing the exhibit. Clearly, that effort also fell on deaf ears, for as an independent scholar I cannot possibly hope to be heard when even large scholarly centres have been overlooked.
The bottom line is that one cannot expect art critics steeped in decades of postmodernist ideology to even begin to comprehend an artistic movement that scholars themselves do not talk to each other about. Efforts to cross disciplinary boundaries are being made, but their reach and impact beyond the ivory tower is minimal at best. I have always believed that academia should serve society; in that respect, it is failing. One cannot expect to do justice to such a movement as that of the Symbolists, or that of the Rose-Croix Salons without properly contextualising its history – and contextualisation does not mean cherry-picking, which is what has happened here. When such a high-profile institution as the Guggenheim presents such an event, there is a social and educational responsibility to consider, and the communication strategy should have taken this into account. Mystical Symbolism is indisputably a beautiful exhibition, but cannot do justice to its material with the approach it has taken, and that is a terrible shame.
I will not unpick the NYT review of the show to demonstrate its many errors, nor gripe about its condescending tone which is a generic feature of such reviews. Such art critics know no better (although the lack of due diligence on the part of this author, as well as the author of the New Yorker’s review, is a concern given the impact of these publications). Still, they have been trained to think and write a certain way, they are entirely ignorant of and indifferent to the issues that concern those of us looking at the bigger picture, and it is their prerogative to remain so. If we want that to change, it is up to us: scholars, curators, authors, etc, to educate them and to consider what counter-measures might be successful…. beginning with better public communication. Journalists do not aim to educate, but to inform and to sell papers… and that with numerous caveats and biases depending on the venue. Postmodernist philosophies have done their fair share of damage … as the pendulum begins to swing, we need to get behind it.
There is a very good reason why I have made so much of my work available through this website rather than reserving it for the academic arena; I saw my research as one more small contribution to knowledge, which can benefit various groups among the wider public. It is for this same reason that I prefer to deliver open public seminars and lectures, and to channel my work through working with young people and special interest groups, rather than focusing solely on closed conferences. I see it as playing the long game.
Therefore, I would suggest that once the outrage has died down, articles such as this should serve as an object lesson to those of us active in these areas, and as a clarion call that should encourage scholars to work more actively and more directly with outlets of culture, such as large museums and galleries, as well as the media, to ensure that some day, a richer and altogether more accurate portrayal of culture is offered, far from academic, disciplinary, and ideological agendas.