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Amy Hale

@amyhale93

6.2K

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Writing and speaking about Art, Culture, Magic
Magic in Contemporary Art, Tate Publishing 2026!
Ithell Colquhoun Bio/ Strange Attractor Press
ATL/UK.

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What absolute joy I had at @treadwellsbooks last night for the first launch of Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art. My dear Christina was not able to attend, but Leo filled in on the famous orange couch fabulously and we had great conversation with a sold out house, followed by flowing wine and laughter! I was so happy to see several of the artists in the book, and to hug friends more established and new. I finished up the night surrounded by a group of just the most magical women! Feeling very fortunate and happy today, and looking forward to the event on Tuesday at Tate Modern. by @amyhale93

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4 hours ago

Side quest! Spent a truly magical time in the Italian Alps with some very lovely people. Can't wait to share more! Now, off to Turin. by @amyhale93

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5 days ago

🌟🌟🌟🌖This one’s for all my witches!🌔🌟🌟🌟This month, @tate @tatepublishing will be releasing this amazing book, Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art, by the ever-lovely and brilliant Dr. Amy Hale @amyhale93
I’m soooooo completely chuffed to be included in her selection of artists featured in the book, many of whom I greatly admire, and I can’t wait to see the whole dazzling thing.
If you are in London on October 20th, Tate Modern will host a book launch and talk by Amy in conversation with Jamie Sutcliffe.
As Amy wrote on her Substack, Chasing the Supernatural: “For me, this is more than just a book about a topic that is often characterized in the media as ephemeral or trendy, it’s an opportunity to reconsider magic as an enduring and universal practice. I feel there has been a tendency to frame magic in art, especially when using the broader and perhaps more sanitized framework of “esotericism”, as a hidden current of knowledge or wisdom that is revealed through the use of symbol or correspondences. I am not delegitimizing this framework, because this is certainly how many esoteric, magical and occult artists would understand their practice. However, I want to demonstrate that magic takes many forms from the tactical to the transcendent, and that we can understand it as a creative response to the human condition.”

Cover art by @nvmoody

I will have to wait for my contributor copies in the mail, but please let me know if you do get a chance to go! 🖤

Tate Modern, Tuesday 20th October, 18.30 – 21.30 – Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/magic-beyond-the-supernatural-in-contemporary-art

There will also be a second, more intimate event at Treadwell’s Books @treadwellsbooks in London on 15 October, with a talk and soirée:

Treadwell’s Books, Thursday 15th October, 19:00-21:00 - Magic in Contemporary Art: Talk & Soirée
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/treadwellsltd/2414404
#magic #magical #magicandart #tatemodernmuseum #thewitchinthelabcoat taken in Tate Modern by @amyhale93

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7 days ago

Launching at Tate Shops this autumn, Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art is a lavishly illustrated volume and a potent talisman, exploring the threads between magic and contemporary art across the globe.

From witchcraft and alchemy to AI, tarot and astrology, anthropologist, folklorist and author Dr Amy Hale explores how magic and occult practice continue to shape contemporary art. Drawing on a global survey of artists, the book reveals how ancestral knowledge, altered states and magical practices offer enduring ways of understanding the complexity of human experience.

Celebrate the launch at Tate Modern on 20 October, when Amy joins Jamie Sutcliffe in conversation to explore the book and the artists rewriting the rules of modern art history. For art lovers, students of the occult and anyone curious about the boundaries of human creativity, the evening offers a fresh perspective on contemporary art.

The conversation will be followed by a Q&A with both speakers and a book signing with Amy.

Featuring:

Alessandro Keegan
Alice Bucknell
Barry William Hale
Bert Gilbert
Betye Saar
Bianca Bondi
Chantall Powell
Charlotte Rodgers
CrossLucid
Edgar Fabián Frías
Elijah Burgher
Elizabeth Insogna
Emily Hunt
Fredrik Söderberg
Heather Freeman
Hilma’s Ghost
Jesse Bransford
Joey Holder
John Abell
Kamala Ibrahim Ishag
Kate Walters
Lezley Saar
Lucy Stein
Mark Tichner
Mary MacGregor Reid
Max Razdow
Myrlande Constant
Steve Dilworth
Renée Stout
Saya Wollfalk
Tai Shani
Zach Blas
Zadie Xa
Edgar Calel
WhiteFeather Hunter
Tabita Rezaire
Chiara Fumai
Louise Despont
Suzanne Triester
Himali Singh Soin
Bones Tan Jones
Grace Ndritu
Loni Johnson
Ann McCoy
Natasha Viosna Moody

#TatePublishing #TateShops #TateModern #ContemporaryArt #ArtAndMagic #magic taken in Tate Modern by @amyhale93

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14 days ago

Frighteningly excited to share that Amy Hale’s MAGIC ~ Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art ~ is out this October ❤️‍🔥

I’m over the moon to have one of my Ph(y)toforms gracing the cover. After almost a decade of writing academically and making art about magic it’s such a joy to see the word plastered across my work in all its holographic glory.

Before we’d met, Amy’s work was my main source of guidance whilst writing my MA thesis, Reclaiming the Occult: The potential of rejected knowledge in envisioning the future through an ecofeminist art practice, so it is such an honour to be included in and on the book itself!

Please join us in celebrating this wonderful publication - a grimoire of 45 international artists working within and around the realm of magical practice

Launch events 🧚‍♀️
15th October Treadwells Bookshop
20th October Tate Modern
@treadwellsbooks @tate

Links for RSVP in bio

Thank you @amyhale93 & @tatepublishing for including me in this beautiful project

🌒 by @amyhale93

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14 days ago

I am so excited to finally, officially announce my forthcoming book with @tatepublishing, Magic: Beyond the Supernatural in Contemporary Art, out October 22!! This book is a global survey of 45 diverse contemporary artists incorporating magical practice into their artistic practice. Part of my goal with this book was to reassert magic not as fad or trend, but as a universal and creative response to the human condition.

“Building on Hale’s extensive research into occult feminism and surrealism including her landmark biography of Ithell Colquhoun, the title offers a beautifully illustrated assessment of a major cultural shift that is driving unprecedented public interest in modern esotericism.

At the heart of Magic: Beyond the Supernatural, is an unparalleled look at the physical and conceptual portfolios of contemporary creators. Readers will encounter comprehensive critical surveys of artists working directly with living magic, alongside multiple international artists who use their practice to blur the lines between the material and the immaterial. Through performances, painting, photography, sculpture and ritual spaces, Hale uncovers a vibrant network of artists for whom magic is neither archaic nor abstract, but immediate and operative. These artists invoke ancestral knowledge, experiment with altered states, and reimagine spiritual traditions for the future, embedding them into the very fabric of their work. What emerges is not a hidden history, but a present reality: a field of practice where the boundaries between art and magic dissolve and creativity itself becomes an act of enchantment.”

The big launch will be held at Tate Modern October 20th where I will be in conversation with my dear pal Jamie Sutcliffe @intron_depot! The link is in my bio and my link tree.

More details on artists and events soon!

Front cover @nvmoody
Back cover @alessandro_keegan by @amyhale93

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15 days ago

Ok, folks, its starting! In three weeks I'm back to the UK to start promoting my new book with @tatepublishing , Magic: Beyond the Supernatural! You will be hearing much more about this book over the next few months, and I will be sharing some of the art and artists I worked with on this amazing publication. Official cover reveal soon!

First up in events, join me on Thursday October 15th as I share a conversation about the book with one of my dearest friends and colleagues Dr. Christina Oakley Harrington on the @treadwellsbooks couch, followed by a magical soiree! Tickets are in my linktree in my bio, and I hope to see some of you there.

Image: @bondi_bianca Bianca Bondi, The Daydream, 2021. by @amyhale93

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25 days ago

Today is the final day of Holding a Bright Untroubled Sky at the @ctlgalleries. What a beautiful run! This really was a dream come true, and I am eternally grateful to Adam Justice and Matt Belcher for EVERYTHING you did to bring this show into reality. And thank you to all of the wonderful artists who gave their time and work to create spaces and experiences where we transformed perspectives, inspiring wonder to everyone who encountered them.

Hopefully this show will have an incarnation in another location, but what we all built together was pure magic.

@edgarfabianfrias
@taishani
@hilmasghost
@dannielletegeder
@sharmistharay
@alessandro_keegan
@heatherdfreeman
@marktitchner
@john.abell
@angelafraleigh
@akenar330
@erikwaterkotte
@lonijae305
@crosslucid
@alicebucknell by @amyhale93

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a month ago

Where does time go?

It's hard to believe this is the final week to see 'Holding a Bright Untroubled Sky: Visioning a Better World Through Magic.' We have so loved living with this exhibition in Rowe Galleries.

Swipe through to see highlights from the exhibition and memories of our time spent with visiting artists last month.

A big THANK YOU to curator @amyhale93 and all participating artists for their work and vision to make this exhibition a reality!

@edgarfabianfrias
@taishani
@hilmasghost
@dannielletegeder
@sharmistharay
@alessandro_keegan
@heatherdfreeman
@marktitchner
@john.abell
@angelafraleigh
@akenar330
@erikwaterkotte
@lonijae305
@crosslucid
@alicebucknell

@clt_coaa taken in UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture by @amyhale93

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a month ago

A WALKING FLAME edited by Amy Hale
Edited by folklorist and anthropologist Amy Hale, A WALKING FLAME collects almost 40 of Ithell Colquhoun’s rarer essays in a comprehensive whole that spans her surrealist and occultist life’s work. With both published articles and unpublished pieces from the artist’s archive, the book shows the breadth and depth of Colquhoun’s interests and expertise, from Kabbalah, alchemy, and esoteric colour theory to Celtic mysticism. As a single repository, these writings show how Colquhoun’s deep dives into magic and esoteric philosophy in turn informed her surrealist art and, indeed, her life.

*****
No 22 of our September TBR recommendations: links below

https://tinyurl.com/September2026TBR
https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/super-september-recommended-new-releases-from-indie-presses-republic-of-words

*****
Slaking your thirst for the occult, the esoteric and the gothic:
* Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil - VE Schwab
* Home Sick - Rhiannon Grist
* Possessed - Rosalie and Edward Synton
* Ithell Colquhoun - Emma Sharples
* Sex Magic - Amy Hale
* Ithell Colquhoun - Amy Hale
* The Art of the Occult - S Elizabeth
* Surrealism & the Occult - Nadia Choucha
* The Hearing Trumpet - Leonora Carrington

#AWalkingFlame #IthellColquhoun #AmyHale #StrangeAttractorPress #NewBookRelease #Surrealism #EsotericHistory #OccultBooks #Bookstagram #BookstagramUK #ReadersOfInstagram by @amyhale93

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a month ago

I got the T Shirt! Working with @cezarbononi_ and @henriquehansen.coach is the best investment I have ever made in myself. It's been a year and 8 months and I will be a lifer. I don't fear aging like I used to, I am challenging myself every day and still rocking the curves. I can't say enough good things about Cezar, his training program, and the community he has built. #cezargang #sweatequityfit by @amyhale93

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a month ago

What an amazing two days at the reception and activations for Holding a Bright Untroubled Sky! We had 9 artists attend and some powerful activations, a super panel discussion and great conversations with students. There was such good energy, I loved watching people connect and have fun. We shared laughter, sacred moments and a magical eclipse! Memories for a lifetime. Thank you all from the bottom of my happy heart. Let's keep it going!

1. @lonijae305
2. @john.abell
3. @hilmasghost
4. @angelafraleigh
5. @edgarfabianfrias (look at that beautiful human!!)
6. @alessandro_keegan
7. @r.puckett
8. Adam Justice, Matt Belcher and @bloomordoom
9. The Dream Team in front of @marktitchner's amazing mural.
10. We have no bananas. by @amyhale93

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2 months ago