Jonathan Allen, 'Kalanag', 2007.
Swing by Jonathan Allen's latest exhibition at David Risley on Vyner Street, a photographic installation delving into the powers of modern illusion named after Adolf Hitler's notorious 'minister of magic', aka Helmut Schreiber.
'Things that have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed,' wrote James Frazer in 'The Golden Bough' (1890-1915). This kind of contagious power has been discussed by cultural historian Simon During in his book 'Modern Enchantments' (Harvard 2002) within the context of the 'secularized illusions of the theatrical conjuror'.
In this show, Allen questions the possibility of distinguishing between these kinds of magic through a photographic installation around Kalanag's role as a magician sympathetic with high-ranking members of the Nazi Party - Goring, Bormann and Hitler, and, during his film collaborations, with propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. After WWII, Kalanag re-emerged in one of the most remarkable touring illusion spectacles of its times, 'The Kalanag Magical Revue', which the magician toured until his death in 1963.
This instance of moral conflict and its subsequent historical amnesia is reminiscent of another, Leni Riefenstahl's self-recreation and many lives that followed her own war-time alignments and compromises. Here, magic and its usually benign nature become framed by the knowledge that this was illusion produced in the service of politics.
Allen, jumping over the conflict attached to Kalanag ephemera, presents some of the original objects in vitrines, and small framed photographs of the magician and his props and assistants, some even showing his performances before the German Fuhrer. Suggesting Frazer's contagious magic, the idea behind the show - to present material objects thought to be imbued with a kind of reliquary, here problematised charge - will hold your disbelief through its very credible reconstruction of its subject, even if it's only by inspiring the viewer to watch and wonder whether the magic works after all.
Lupe Nunez-Fernandez
Jonathan Allen, 'KALANAG'
To 6 Jan 2008
David Risley Gallery
45 Vyner Street
London E2 9DQ
T: +44 (0)208 980 2202
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