There's No Such Thing as a Family Friendly Demon Summoning Event at an Art Museum
The problem with hipster secular atheism is that it opens the door for a lot of stupidity.
Meet the artist, Tamar Ettun, with awards up the gazoo. Here’s a peek into the artist’s mind:
Artist pours blood-like fluid onto a fake placenta with an umbilical cord spilling out of it.
Artist: Hey look at me, I’m an ironic hipster who makes “art” with the occult just to shock and piss people off! Look how sophisticated I am!
Artist builds a creepy looking cylinder with garish 90s style cut-out art ala Pee-wee’s Playhouse and calls it a demon trap.
Museum Curator: Hey look, here’s an edgy artist who dabbles in demon summoning. I know - we’ll create a “family friendly event” where kids can play around with their demons. Kids will love it!
Artist literally posts a phone number on their website inviting people to “chat” with the demon that’s been summoned.
Dumb Parent: I’m a sophisticated modern parent who believes in inclusion and diversity (but not God), and anyone who complains about kids learning how to trap a demon is a backwards Christian bigot. Demon summoning is just a beautiful metaphor for connecting with their shadow selves. The kids will love this!
Website: Actual text from museum website (underneath an oversized photos of two children playing with homemade pennants, one with a shirt that says PRIDE PRIDE PRIDE):
At August Free First Saturday, Brooklyn-based artist Tamar Ettun (she/they) will present Lilit the Empathic Demon. The performance is inspired by Lilit, an aerial spirit demon with origins in Sumerian, Akkadian, and Judaic mythology. Families are invited to create a vessel to trap the demon that knows them best—perhaps the “demon of overthinking”—and then participate in a playful ceremony to summon and befriend their demon. This project was organized in collaboration with Dreamsong, which will also host a conversation between the artist and writer Elisabeth Workman on August 4 at 5:30 pm.
Schedule:
Art-Making Activity: Plant Pressings, 10 am–3 pm
Press patterns into clay using plant material to create your own decorative wall hanging for display somewhere special.Art-Making Activity: How to Trap a Demon, 10 am–3 pm
Demons have a bad reputation, but maybe we’re just not very good at getting to know them. Do you have a demon that creeps into your thoughts? Maybe the “demon of overthinking” or “the demon of not trusting your gut”? Work with visiting artist Tamar Ettun to design a vessel for holding the demon you know best!Performance: Lilit the Empathic Demon, 11 am and 1 pm
After designing your trap, Lilit the Empathic Demon will come from the dark side of the moon to lead you in locating your feelings using ancient Babylonian techniques. This collective and playful demon summoning session will conclude with a somatic movement meditation, designed to help you befriend your shadows.Performance: Catharus, 11:30 am and 1:30 pm
What songs would you sing to thank and honor the plants you love most? Listen as vocal ensemble Catharus offers reimagined hymns praising what is sacred in nature.Family Tour, 11:30 am
Tour for General Audiences, 1 pm
Join a Walker educator for a family-friendly guided tour of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at 11:30 am (40 min.), or take a guided tour for general audiences at 1 pm (60 min.). To participate, meet outside the Walker’s Main Entrance five minutes before the tour start time. Tours explore a selection of artworks and include interactive discussion.
Commentary:
So…based on the scrawled graphic above by the artist, I clearly have not spent enough time pondering the “historical transformation of the color pink.” Nor did I see the apparent connection between desire and death.
But as social media goes into an uproar over a recent demon summoning event for kids - excuse me, “How to Trap Your Demon” event for kids, I’m struck by how facile and ignorant the alleged art intellectuals of America are these days.
There will be two kinds to support this demon trapping stupidity:
People who don’t believe demons are real and think this is just a creative way to express certain aspects of our personality we may need to integrate. At its best, this group is just pretentious and cheesy.
People who do think demons are real and are either pretending they don’t believe, and/or minimizing the demons by making them “cute” and “empathic.” (The artist in question calls the demon that has been speaking to she/they as “Lilit the Empathic Demon.”)
In both cases, we have hipster “edgelords” trying to shock and provoke, and doing stupidly dangerous things in the process. And then we have naïve progressive parents thinking they are being sophisticated and not superstitious by taking their little children to these dark events. This is really bad for the kids - they could open up a whole lot of negative spiritual stuff doing this.
Yes, I think demons and negative entities are real and they are not to be messed with.
I learned the hard way with a Ouija board in high school - long story - don’t eff with the supernatural like this. You are opening doors.
This is not just a Christian belief. In Sufism, the demons are more generally thought to be bad Jinn, and the particularly nasty ones are called “Ifrit,” which can shapeshift. And then there’s Jadu, which can either be a form of witchcraft or a negative thoughtform that can attach to your brain. Lovely.
So this is what the state of the modern artworld has come to. Scary.
Excellent comment Stephanie. The "try hard, I'm so original and artistic" frauds are one thing, the stupid ones that buying
into this, are the real problem imo.