How is the modern art world hooked on the money of a pharmaceutical drug empire?
Is rock art linked to hallucinogenic trance?
How did opium influence the Romantics and Surrealists, and ergot influence the hippies and medieval masters?
The BB team presents the history of drug art from Cro-Magnons to public art.
Philanthropists on heroin
Art and drugs intersect in our field of vision on a regular basis: on June 22, 2018, artist Dominic Esposito and gallerist Fernando Alvarez installed an 800-kilogram heroin spoon outside the Purdue pharmacists' headquarters in the United States.
Esposito and Alvarez's action is not at all a shock-advertisement for their exhibition Opioid: Express Yourself. The huge replica of the spoon in which addicts heat up their dose to precipitate impurities is a political gesture.
The opioid crisis has been brewing in the United States since 1990. At the state level, it has been silenced or dealt with poorly. Every year, 60,000 people die from overdoses in the United States. Two thirds of these deaths are related to heroin, morphine and other opiates.
American doctors prescribe painkillers even when they don't need to: pain is often a reason to change doctors or insurance companies, and that means losing money. The best-known analgesic is OxyContin, which is what Purdue Pharma makes.
From legal painkillers, people are switching to street drugs; for a decade, Purdue's owners have been fined for falsification in advertising and public lectures, even for bribing doctors. But Esposito and Alvarez favored jailing the company's owners, the Sackler family.
The irony of this and several other artistic responses to the heroin crisis is that Purdue came into the world before artists were at the door of their headquarters.
The Sackler Center for Arts & Education at the Guggenheim Museum, Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London, The Sackler Wing at the Louvre, the Sackler Courtyard at the Victoria & Albert Museum — the «Medici of our time», as the Sacklers were nicknamed, a good chunk of their opioid fever earnings went to sponsoring the world's best museums. The museums didn't refuse.
American doctors prescribe painkillers even when they don't need to: pain is often a reason to change doctors or insurance companies, and that means losing money. The best-known analgesic is OxyContin, which is what Purdue Pharma makes.
From legal painkillers, people are switching to street drugs; for a decade, Purdue's owners have been fined for falsification in advertising and public lectures, even for bribing doctors. But Esposito and Alvarez favored jailing the company's owners, the Sackler family.
The irony of this and several other artistic responses to the heroin crisis is that Purdue came into the world before artists were at the door of their headquarters.
The Sackler Center for Arts & Education at the Guggenheim Museum, Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London, The Sackler Wing at the Louvre, the Sackler Courtyard at the Victoria & Albert Museum — the «Medici of our time», as the Sacklers were nicknamed, a good chunk of their opioid fever earnings went to sponsoring the world's best museums. The museums didn't refuse.
Lotophagists, ethnomycologists and neuroscientists
The depth of the Sacklers' penetration into the world of sovriska is shocking. But the drug addiction of art began much earlier — thousands or so of ten years earlier.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Western scholars became interested in the shamanic rituals in their colonies. They spent months and years inside tribal communities to describe their social structure and life. But one thing was immediately clear: mystical enlightenment did not come only through the techniques or special skills of the priests. More important were psychoactive substances.
American Indians call their god Peyotl, after a «magic cactus». Polynesians chew the pepper plant kava, Malaysians prefer the related betel nut.
Judging by the findings of archaeologists (or rather, ethnomycologists — scientists who are obsessed with the study of mushrooms as cultural symbols), drug ceremonies became a theme for art many thousands of years ago. Researchers have even found rock art fragments in the Sahara that resemble magic mushrooms.
Five years ago, researchers at the University of Tokyo suggested that the poetics of all primitive art was shaped by psychoactive substances.
Alan Turing, the creator of the classic artificial intelligence test and the cracker of the WW2 Enigma military cipher, also applied mathematical apparatus to the study of nature, as if he lived not in the middle of the 20th century, but in the ultra-modern.
One of Turing's main bio-discoveries was the mechanism according to which patterns on animal skins are formed. The scientist presented a mathematical description of a system of two chemical reagents - two colors, such as black and white. From his equations it followed that taking the system out of equilibrium leads to its polarization. The colors do not mix into a gray coloration, but form patterns.
In the 1970s, scientists Wilson and Cowan applied this model to the human brain. According to their theory, the appearance of a drug throws the system of excitatory and inhibitory neurons out of balance and polarizes it. Patterns are formed from the neurons, which are then projected into the visual cortex.
In other words, underneath the substances, man is literally looking inside his brain. But why was it so important for primitive people to sketch these patterns? Why these particular ones? The Tokyoites offer two explanations.
First of all, these patterns are chemically stable. They persist at the neural level even when the drug has already been withdrawn from the system. Stimuli from the outside world cannot produce this effect. Second, substance use was most often part of shamanic rituals. Belonging to the sacred sphere probably increased the cultural significance of drug visions.
Alan Turing, the creator of the classic artificial intelligence test and the cracker of the WW2 Enigma military cipher, also applied mathematical apparatus to the study of nature, as if he lived not in the middle of the 20th century, but in the ultra-modern.
One of Turing's main bio-discoveries was the mechanism according to which patterns on animal skins are formed. The scientist presented a mathematical description of a system of two chemical reagents - two colors, such as black and white. From his equations it followed that taking the system out of equilibrium leads to its polarization. The colors do not mix into a gray coloration, but form patterns.
In the 1970s, scientists Wilson and Cowan applied this model to the human brain. According to their theory, the appearance of a drug throws the system of excitatory and inhibitory neurons out of balance and polarizes it. Patterns are formed from the neurons, which are then projected into the visual cortex.
In other words, underneath the substances, man is literally looking inside his brain. But why was it so important for primitive people to sketch these patterns? Why these particular ones? The Tokyoites offer two explanations.
First of all, these patterns are chemically stable. They persist at the neural level even when the drug has already been withdrawn from the system. Stimuli from the outside world cannot produce this effect. Second, substance use was most often part of shamanic rituals. Belonging to the sacred sphere probably increased the cultural significance of drug visions.
Bosch and the hippies
The next burst of drug art happened in the 1960s. Albert Hoffman had synthesized LSD from ergot alkaloid 20 years before, Aldous Huxley wrote an essay «The Doors of Perception» in which he praised mescaline, and beat poets invented their «acid test» parties.
The psychedelic revolution reached its maximum scale by 1967. More than a hundred thousand hippies gathered in San Francisco for the «summer of love». For several months they did not leave the streets, speaking out against the Vietnam War, for free love and for the legalization of LSD, which was already banned at that time.
The hippies' artistic agenda was primarily the aestheticization of everyday life. Rock album covers, promotional posters for festivals, light shows at concerts — this is where psychedelic visuality was formed.
Neon fractals, bizarrely shaped flowers and kaleidoscopic patterns didn't just introduce the public to visions under LSD. They also proved to be an attractive alternative to official black and white media. Not only political agendas and musical innovations, but also colorful advertisements drew crowds to psychedelic festivals.
By the 1970s, it was discovered that the LSD aesthetic was even too attractive. Psychedelia leaked from the counterculture into the mainstream: onto T-shirts and souvenirs, desktop screensavers and tabloids, into music videos and Andy Warhol's ironic pop art.
Today it even evokes skepticism. While Europe is massively nostalgic for the free spirit of the hallucinogenic 1960s, some critics take a more sober view of that era. Here, for example, from a review of Summer of Love, an exhibition held by Liverpool's Tate in conjunction with New York's Whitney: «The whitest, most heteronormative, most conservative show. <...> A gift shop».
Psychedelic aesthetics have also influenced gallery art. A recognizable visual overdose can be found in contemporary installations, from Yayoi Kusama's fly rooms to Pierre Huy's languorous light shows, which, through artistic means alone, immerse the viewer in a trance.
Op art in the same 1960s explored optical illusions with brightly colored geometric compositions. A single arrangement of colors was enough to produce an effect similar to a festival poster.
Echoes of drug art can also be found in the Renaissance. According to a study by art historian Lorinda Dixon, the religious visions depicted by medieval artists were influenced by the same ergot alkaloid.
Posthuman or animal
There are known cases of miraculous cures for ergotism after a trip to an Antonian monastery. Mandrake root, from which the medicine was brewed in the apothecaries in Bosch's paintings, sometimes helped too. Yet medieval artists manifested the epidemic as a divine warning of the impending end of times.
By the 1960s, the relationship between humanity and nature had changed. LSD was being synthesized in chemical laboratories. People chose to surrender themselves to the substance for a few hours, rather than trembling before the «plague curse».
Looking at the psychedelic era today, theorists often refer to it as one of the first steps toward posthumanism.
Today it even evokes skepticism. While Europe is massively nostalgic for the free spirit of the hallucinogenic 1960s, some critics take a more sober view of that era. Here, for example, from a review of Summer of Love, an exhibition held by Liverpool's Tate in conjunction with New York's Whitney: «The whitest, most heteronormative, most conservative show. <...> A gift shop».
Psychedelic aesthetics have also influenced gallery art. A recognizable visual overdose can be found in contemporary installations, from Yayoi Kusama's fly rooms to Pierre Huy's languorous light shows, which, through artistic means alone, immerse the viewer in a trance.
Op art in the same 1960s explored optical illusions with brightly colored geometric compositions. A single arrangement of colors was enough to produce an effect similar to a festival poster.
Echoes of drug art can also be found in the Renaissance. According to a study by art historian Lorinda Dixon, the religious visions depicted by medieval artists were influenced by the same ergot alkaloid.
Posthuman or animal
There are known cases of miraculous cures for ergotism after a trip to an Antonian monastery. Mandrake root, from which the medicine was brewed in the apothecaries in Bosch's paintings, sometimes helped too. Yet medieval artists manifested the epidemic as a divine warning of the impending end of times.
By the 1960s, the relationship between humanity and nature had changed. LSD was being synthesized in chemical laboratories. People chose to surrender themselves to the substance for a few hours, rather than trembling before the «plague curse».
Looking at the psychedelic era today, theorists often refer to it as one of the first steps toward posthumanism.
Swedish scientist and curator Lars Bang Larsen states, «LSD ranks alongside satellite communications, computer technology, space travel, and the legalization of contraception».
All these inventions, he says, undermine the biological unity of the human being. Substance-influenced art expresses both human subjectivity and non-human technology at the same time.
The artists themselves, however, more often sought to reach a natural zero with the help of drugs, rather than to turn into a machine. They were interested in the animal manifestations of man, in complete submission to instincts and in religious and occult revelations.
«Grandmother of performance art» Marina Abramovic, in a recent film about Brazil, took center stage in an ayahuasca ceremony. She went into the jungle, stripped naked and documented her bodily reactions to the drug: «She shits and pisses and pukes all at once», wrote one review.
All these inventions, he says, undermine the biological unity of the human being. Substance-influenced art expresses both human subjectivity and non-human technology at the same time.
The artists themselves, however, more often sought to reach a natural zero with the help of drugs, rather than to turn into a machine. They were interested in the animal manifestations of man, in complete submission to instincts and in religious and occult revelations.
«Grandmother of performance art» Marina Abramovic, in a recent film about Brazil, took center stage in an ayahuasca ceremony. She went into the jungle, stripped naked and documented her bodily reactions to the drug: «She shits and pisses and pukes all at once», wrote one review.
But a more effective medium for such experiments was, in fact, performance. In «Rhythm 2» (1974), the same Abramović took two potent substances. The first was a catatonia drug, to which her body reacted with convulsions, but her mental clarity was unaffected.
In the second part, a large dose of a schizophrenia drug deprived her of her memories of the performance. Abramović was present in the room for five hours, but lost touch with time, space and the audience.
A little earlier, on the approach of the 1968 uprisings, the French artist Jean-Jacques Lebel staged radical erotic Happenings, before which, or even right along the way, he took large doses of acid.
The explicit aggression of Lebel's and Abramović's performances contradicted postwar declarations of love and world harmony.
Under substances, the human personality temporarily disintegrates, stresses Larsen, who is the only researcher among the non-hysterical drug-phobic who does not romanticize psychedelics at the same time. He admits that substances were not only a way to be transported to a luminous alternative reality, but also a dangerous, often painful experience — just read the memories of bad-trips.
Read Part II for the continuation
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