A Murmuration of Madonna & A Conspiracy of Demons

TOON, Talleres de Arte Contemporáneo TACO, Mexico City & Mirror Neurons, the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University

A Murmuration of Madonna was originally produced for TOON, an exhibition at Talleres de Arte Contemporáneo TACO, Mexico City, May 23 -April 12 2024.  Curated by Erika Servin, the exhibition included work from Irene Brown, Theresa Easton, Chris Jones, Christian Mieves, Wolfgang Weileder and Erika Servín, a group of academics from the University of Newcastle Fine Art department. The practice and pursuit of avant-garde visual arts by this group reflect the cultural environment of Newcastle City, as vibrant as it is creative, and which provides the basis for the teaching excellence of their institution. With this intercontinental art exhibit, Servin brought TOON to Mexico, starting a conversation about the values and ambitions we share in the contemporary art world.

TACO Contemporary Art Workshops finds a close structural connection between the practice of these artists and the educational commitment of their space. Since its founding in 2008, TACO has served as a community of artists concerned with dialogue with other creators in training to generate inclusive, playful and reflective dynamics that open a gap within artistic pedagogy in Mexico.

A Murmuration of Madonna & A Conspiracy of Demons, exhibited at Mirror Neurons, the Hatton Gallery, Newcastle University July 3 – August 3 2024. The exhibition presented an overview of current research by 31 permanent staff and research fellows in Fine Art at Newcastle University, at the beginning of the second century of its teaching. The exhibition starts from Lewis Hyde’s idea that “a work of art is a gift, not a commodity … where there is no gift there is no art … The two senses of gift refer not only to the creation of the work – what we might call the inner life of art; but… to its outer life as well, to the work after it has left the maker’s hands.” Hyde praises novelist Joseph Conrad’s idea that “the artist appeals to that part of our being … which is a gift and not an acquisition – and, therefore, more permanently enduring.” In other words, an artwork is like both a blessing or form of extended care or hospitality, and it is an invitation to reciprocate or respond in kind.

We can now see such processes in neuroscientific terms. The most fundamental function of art is to stimulate our ‘mirror neurons’: the cells that help us recognise or understand others, and which are activated most sharply by acts of gifting, not zero-sum forms of exchange. To extend Conrad’s image, the effects of encountering art are ‘permanently enduring’ because we are changed by our experience of art. That enduring change is achieved through the heightened responses demanded of our mirror neurons by artworks.