A Tarot deck is far and away one of the most fascinating pieces of conceptual art ever created. Usually it is associated with psychics, weirdos, Terry Gilliam, Thomas Pynchon (particularly in Gravity’s Rainbow) and adepts of magick like Aleister Crowley and A.E. Waite, both of whom created their own Tarot decks. Carl Jung, the famed psychoanalyst, believed the Tarot images “descended from the archetypes of transformation.”
More recently, Terry Gilliam’s film “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” was built around Tarot symbolism, especially in the guise of Heath Ledger’s character Tony, who represented the Hanged Man of the Tarot’s Major Arcana. Doctor Parnassus himself is seen at one point playing with a Tarot deck, revealing the Hanged Man card right before his rag-tag group of performers pull a hanging and lifeless Tony up from a bridge.
Aunia Kahn, an artist and curator, commissioned 23 artists to create their own interpretations of the 22 Major Arcana of the Tarot deck (in addition to the card back), using a lowbrow, pop-surrealist aesthetic. The exhibition will open at the La Luz de Jesus on October 1, 2010, in Los Angeles. Also in the works for the Lowbrow Tarot Project are a hardcover coffee table book and a Tarot deck.
14 of the 22 images were given a sneak peak at Hi-Fructose. Some of the standouts are Kris Kuksi’s The Emperor, Chris Mars’ The Heirophant and Claudia Drake’s The Hermit (the best of the bunch). These three rise to a state of sublimity, while the lowbrow aesthetic renders a few of the others forgettable, like Danni Shinya Luo’s The Star and Jennybird Alcantara’s The Moon.
September 08, 2010 at 4:14 am, Coaishdnr said:
Tarot game players are still waiting for the mainstream American media to tell the whole truth about tarot cards, that they were really made for games still played in European countries. Psychics aren't the only ones who use tarot cards. Game players also use them for card games. The Lowbrow Tarot is interesting in its own right as a work of art but there are also other kinds of tarot decks used sometimes called “tarock” which also deserve more exposure in our media. Americans would have better tarot decks if we played games with tarot cards instead of always seeing them as psychic tools.
September 10, 2010 at 10:20 pm, Laurie Lipton said:
Dear DJ Pangburn, You use my image of the Death Tarot card for your article on the Lowbrow Tarot Project, but don't even mention or credit me. Not nice! regards, Laurie Lipton (http://www.laurielipton.com)