ABSTRACT
Art is etymologically rooted in artificiality, thus to imitation, while according to Alfred Gell it forms a close nexus with magic, enchantment and technology through their joint search for effects, thus has close affinities with tricking and the trickster. This chapter will argue that while modern art and artists desperately struggle to be something more than imitative or mimetic, modern art to a large extent became a par excellence trickster art, entrapped in the effort to make effects, instead of helping to recognise the beauty and grace inherent in the real. Trickery and tricksterhood is not limited to minor artists or certain artistic movements, but encompasses the greatests as well. As an example, the chapter presents Picasso, focusing on the particularly innovative but also tricky way he further developed Cézanne’s concern with ‘passages’ (which is a modality of liminality), in particular using African and Polynesian masks. It also reveals a series of Magi-Trickster features in Picasso, including his misogyny and the programmatic destructiveness of his creative work.
