{"id":3071,"date":"2026-08-21T21:56:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T21:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/lou-beneschs-the-magicians-room-spins-tarot-into-surreal-mixed-media\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T21:56:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T21:56:49","slug":"lou-beneschs-the-magicians-room-spins-tarot-into-surreal-mixed-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/lou-beneschs-the-magicians-room-spins-tarot-into-surreal-mixed-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Lou Benesch\u0019s \u001aThe Magician\u0019s Room\u001a Spins Tarot into Surreal Mixed Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Step inside <strong>The Magician\u0019s Room<\/strong> and the imagery turns delightfully strange: a brawny horse bearing a coiled serpent, a flock of headless birds plunging toward a central star, and a fluffy white rabbit circled by unblinking eyes. This surreal, liminal space anchors a new body of work by Paris-based <strong>Lou Benesch<\/strong>, presented in a solo exhibition on view through <strong>August 22<\/strong> at <strong>Hashimoto Contemporary<\/strong> in San Francisco.<\/p>\n<p>Benesch takes the tarot\u0019s Magician card as a point of departure. Known as a trickster-wizard who connects the heavens and earth and is primed for movement and change, the figure\u0019s tilt toward action and mysticism becomes a framework for the artist\u0019s approach. The result is a suite of dreamy works rendered on found and antique materials that give each composition a timeworn charge.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:left\">Materials, symbols, and a charged atmosphere<\/h2>\n<p>Vintage board games and chalkboards serve as aged frames for energetic mixed-media compositions, where graphic symbols and hybrid creatures appear to flicker between realms. Antique paper supports bold, two-dimensional scenes of otherworldly happenings. Across the presentation, Benesch melds past and present alongside the spiritual and the physical, sustaining an atmosphere in which dreams and manifestation seem to take precedence.<\/p>\n<p>The motifs are vivid and uncanny: that muscled horse carrying a serpent like a living sigil; headless birds in formation, beakless and intent, arrowing into a radiant star; a white rabbit poised within a ring of watchful eyes. Titles from <strong>2026<\/strong> shown alongside the exhibition material include <em>Keepers<\/em>, <em>The Magician\u0019s Room<\/em>, <em>Distant Chaos<\/em>, <em>Spirit Compass<\/em>, <em>Flowers<\/em>, and <em>Awake II<\/em>, underscoring the project\u0019s blend of orientation and enigma.<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align:left\">Exhibition details<\/h2>\n<p><strong>The Magician\u0019s Room<\/strong> translates tarot\u0019s invitation to act into tactile, image-rich works that feel pulled from a cabinet of wonders: chalk-dusted surfaces, game-worn edges, and paper with a life before art. The exhibition remains on view at <strong>Hashimoto Contemporary<\/strong> through <strong>August 22<\/strong> in <strong>San Francisco<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>All images are courtesy of Hashimoto Contemporary, shared with permission.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>V\u00eda <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/2026\/08\/lou-benesch-the-magicians-room-antique-wood-works\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">thisiscolossal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paris-based Lou Benesch\u0019s solo exhibition The Magician\u0019s Room at Hashimoto Contemporary in San Francisco, on view through August 22, channels the tarot\u0019s Magician into surreal mixed-media works on vintage board games, chalkboards, and antique paper.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-happening-now"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.echoartfoundation.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}