Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs

In Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs, artists manuel arturo abreu, DB Amorin, Jonathan González, fields harrington, sidony o’neal, and Africanus Okokon traverse causal, alogical, and ritualistic modes of knowledge formation. Their works across sculpture, new media, sound, print, installation, and video, evoke the oft-denigrating phrase “magical thinking,” signaling an impossibility or distortion in the connection between thoughts and beliefs and reality. The exhibition builds upon the symposium Magical Thinking, co-organized by manuel arturo abreu and Laurel V. McLaughlin in collaboration with Director of Public Programs Lisa Dent in November 2023 at MASS MoCA and supported by a Terra Foundation for American Art Convening Grant. 

Works in the exhibition Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs resist Western frameworks and their historically dominant visual and political regimes, instead offering invitations to see signs, relationships, and links between the material and spiritual worlds in knowledge systems from across the Global South. These invitations range from the recognition of ghosts within Nollywood film, dream-logics and hacking for anti-colonial technologies, and defiant HeLA cellular speculations. Such magical thinking operates as fugitive modes of existence and resistance.

A new commission for the exhibition from Jonathan González, suite for a minor meeting, will be realized at the at the Museum of African American History’s African Meeting House in collaboration with Angela Tate, Chief Curator and Director of Collections, Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket. Magical Thinking, of Systems and Beliefs is organized by TUAG curator Laurel V. McLaughlin and accompanied by a reader, featuring contributions from participating artists joined by scholars and artists Rebecca Schneider, M. NourbeSe Phillip, Emilio Rojas, and S*an Henry Smith. Exhibition design is provided by Common Space, a creative studio founded by Jon Santos. Generous funding is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

Image: Africanus Okokon, Unpossessed (still), 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.