- Venue
- Goldsmiths College
- Location
Voo-Doo: ‘Hoochie Coochie and the Creative Spirit’
Visited: Thursday 5th February 2009
“Voo-Doo ‘Hoochie Coochie and the Creative Spirit’” is an exhibition drawing on the works and beliefs of a wide cross section of Artists. The exhibition catalogue lists the Artists to include: Francis Bacon, William S. Burroughs, Dash Snow, Ansel Krut, Francis Albert Sinatra, Dorian Gray, Sergei Rachmaninov Muddy Waters… All who experienced “The ‘spark’ and the ‘fire’.” of the inexplicable birth of creation.
The visitor must be ‘Initiated’ into the exhibition space – the space being an old gunmakers shop, a little worn at the edges giving a hint that you might be tresspassing as you walk up the stairs or into the basement. The initiation involves making a wish using a replica of the Wish Machine that William Burroughs kept on his desk. The label explains that you should insert £1 when wishing for good voodoo, £2 when wishing for bad and that most importantly you must believe in the wish for it to come true.
The exhibition is divided: in there basement there are Spells and upstairs there are Dolls. In the fron window of the shop there hangs a beautiful quilted tapestry – a colourful map of the world with tiny flying figures pinned over the oceans, the heads of the pins in the place of the heads of the little fabric bodies.
The Spells room includes a cabinet of artefacts from the estate of William S. Burroughs and a large dish of bubbling molten wax, the heat of which can be felt as one stands too close. Upstairs in a dimly lit room there is a collection of dolls, one made entirely of hair. We did not spend too long in this room as one of my companions found the closeness and the stillness of the dolls too frightening (though not half as frightening as the robotic singing faces which are part of ‘Giantbum’ one piece of the incredible ‘Altermodern’ at Tate Britain).
Though we visited the gallery on what must have been the busiest Thursday morning any private gallery has ever had, there was still a calmness to the space the undercutting bustle feeling a little like that spark or current of creativity the exhibition is trying to explain.
On the way out we finally encountered the Wishing Machine – the gallery was busy and unfortunately there was noone free to initiate us as we entered. Ignoring the convictions of my two friends that we would be cursed, I took one of the cards away to consider what my £1 wish would be. The nextdoor café Fernandez & Wells providing the perfect environment to dream up good voo-doo wishes. All our consciences were easier when the wish had been deposited. And so far, with the power of belief, I think the wish might be coming true.
