Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery is pleased to present The Struggle of the Magicians, the first solo show of New York artist Timothy Marvel Hull. The show will feature graphite and ink drawings on paper, wall diagrams, video and sound, and will also have atmospheric elements to heighten the mystical placement of visitors to the gallery.

The Struggle of the Magicians explores the ideas, personality, environment and audience that surround the mystical thinker and orator, G.I. Gurdjieff (1877-1949). Neither an indictment nor a celebration of Gurdjieff, this project is a view into the dynamics of the cult of personality, the plausability of esoteric knowledge, notions of orientalism, charismatic icons, diagrams, and mysticism. Gurdjieff can be seen as a point of departure in understanding these concepts.

Hull uses Gurdjieff as a symbol or an indicator for the incidence of new age gurus and the search for truth and reality vis-a-vis Eastern knowledge in early Twentieth Century Europe. Through a multitude of formal techniques, mediums, and art practices, the work seeks to analyze and historically contextualize the milieu of Mr. Gurdjieff. This process includes the complex conceptualization of mystical identity, patterning as reference point and metaphor, spiritual collectives, and revisionist cultural history. Pulling from sundry strands of references, the work seeks to be evocative of a particular era and feeling, thus creating new associations either linked to or wholly inconsequential to the subject matter.

Timothy Marvel Hull lives and works in New York City and Warwick, NY