Amulets and Voodoo Dolls ... As Art?
There is something interesting and disturbing about using things like amulets
and voodoo dolls as art pieces. I think of them as standalone talismans that conjure power and purpose. But there is an art exhibit in Paris at La Maison Rouge that, through "art-speak" is described as "a feast for the horror vacui eye. What ties its wildly diverse elements together is a visual style of burdened entanglement that overloads the specific intentions and functions behind contemporary art, magical charms, sorcerers’ amulets, witchy spells, spiritual worldviews, psychic theories, Christian religious beliefs, African community healers, and other indigenous cultural habits." That is according to Hyperallergic.
You can read the art review at the above link. As for me, I will view the objects as what they were created to be - magical, prophetic and magical. Not as simply "art".