An Artist's Guide to Psychedelic Mushrooms

Ryan McGinness· Guest0:00

[gentle music] You get a sense of, like, seeing, you know, behind a curtain and like, "Okay, this is, this is what it's really all about." But on a [laughs] higher dosage, you come to realize, "Oh, there's no sausage factory. There's nothing." Like, it's all a construction of your mind.

Ben Davis· Host0:16

[upbeat music] I'm Ben Davis, and this is The Art Angle, a podcast from Artnet News. There is an enduring association with creative experiment and psychedelic experiences. More recently, psychedelics have become more mainstream, explored not just for their far-out spiritual associations, but as medicine, as therapy, and even just to make you more productive. How should we think about psychedelics and how they relate to art and art-making now? Ryan McGinness has had a long and well-known career as an artist. His densely layered, colorful, abstract paintings have been shown at museums and galleries around the world. He's also long explored world-building through his art, expanding his designs into maze-like environments and staging sprawling events and parties. Recently, however, McGinness has showed a new side of his creative journey. He has just published an art book, Trip Advisor: Notes from Over 25 Years of Psychedelic Voyages, from Blurring Books. The colorful tome collages