The Art Angle Podcast: How the Art World Fell Under the Spell of the Occult

Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News that
delves into the places where the art world meets the real world,
bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join host Andrew
Goldstein every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in
museums, the art market, and much more with input from our own
writers and editors as well as artists, curators, and other top
experts in the field.

You don’t hear the words “witch hunt” much nowadays, unless
they are being deployed
by a certain US President. But the term is increasingly relevant—in
a much more literal sense—to any tour through the art-historical
canon, where witchcraft, paganism, and the occult seem to be more
important presences every day.

This development is in tune with what’s happening in mainstream
culture, too. More than one million Americans today identify as
Neopagans or Wiccans, and many businesses are riding their
broomsticks straight to the bank. In the US, more than $2 billion
is spent on “mystical services” each year, ranging from tarot card
readings to online horoscopes, and you can find a slew of podcasts
on the subject with titles like “Hippie Witch,” “so you wanna be a
witch?” and “The Witch Bitch Amateur Hour,” to name just a few.

What exactly is driving this spiritualist surge? This week,
author and art critic Eleanor Heartney joins the Art
Angle to divine the details of this phenomenon in art and
culture. Following an article for Artnet News
in which she traced the intensifying focus on artists
exploring occult practices in recent museum exhibitions—most
notably the Guggenheim’s attendance-record-breaking retrospective
of the Swedish mystic artist Hilma af Klint—Heartney discusses why
spiritualism and the occult are on the rise in 2020, how feminism
fits into the puzzle, and what her new book, Doomsday Dreams: The Apocalyptic Imagination in
Contemporary Art, has to say about breaking through a
history of cataclysm-inclined thinking.

Listen below and subscribe to the Art Angle on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever you get your podcasts. (Or
catch up on past
episodes here on Artnet News.)

Listen to Other Episodes:

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The Art Angle Podcast: The Radical, Viral Artworks
That Defined the 2010s

The Art Angle Podcast: How
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The Art Angle Podcast: New
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The Art Angle Podcast: Is the Art World Causing a
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The Art Angle Podcast: Art Basel Rules the Art
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The Art Angle Podcast: How
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The Art Angle Podcast: Who
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