I have been teaching at Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Czech Republic, (including the Faculty of Fine Art), for the past two decades. On discovering artist Tanja Stark’s work we subsequently included this as part of the recommended reading list for JAMU/Scenography students. Her work provides a fascinating and creative way for students to gain insight into the enduring relationship between ancient archetypal mythology (scenography, scenery, setting) and visionary art, modern pop iconography and new myths in the contemporary arts.
Martin M. Mrskos Lecturer Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Czech Republic
“Tanja Stark is an artist and deep thinker who lectured on Bowie during the Australian leg of David Bowie Is… the travelling VA exhibit….Tanja Stark’s remarkable essay is must reading …for all artists and dreamers!”
Ann Magnuson, Avant garde artist, Manager Studio 57 MoMA retrospective exhibition.
“Here’s an interview I did with Brian Eno a couple of years back, on how the arts and religion help us surrender and go beyond the ego. And here’s one I did with David Byrne on how the arts help us achieve a post-religious ecstasy and catharsis. And finally, here’s a great essay by Tanja Stark on the influence of Jungian psychology on Bowie’s work.…Tanja’s work on depth psychology and creative expression in contemporary arts is very well researched, original and insightful and a level above most rock academic criticism. I found it a useful resource in my own research into ecstatic experiences and rock and roll.”
Jules Evans author Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations.
Policy Director Centre for the History of the Emotions, Queen Mary, University of London.
“I owe a special thank you to Nomi Kluger-Nash for letting me know about Tanja Stark’s essay on Bowie, [Crashing Out with Sylvian, 2015] which gave me the idea for this essay.”
Dr Michael Escamilla : Psychiatrist, Scientist and Jungian analyst. B.A. (Harvard); M.D. (University of Texas Southwestern Medical School);
post-doctorate work psychiatry and psychiatric genetics (University of California), Jungian training (C.G. Jung Institute of Zurich (Küsnacht); Professor and Founding Chair of Psychiatry and Director of the Centre of Excellence in Neurosciences (Texas Tech University Health Sciences Centre)
“The conflation of the sacred and the profane or banal – here Jesus Christ superimposed on a stove-top element – opens up a range of semiotics/conceptual possibilities that you can reflect upon. … Icarus-like and perpetually in ascent but also nailed to the cross (and, in fact, an abstraction of the tortured body-in-pain) Jesus here reflects a movement between transcendence and keeping grounded, … Materializing and domesticating spirituality, transcendence, God ….for me it is the backdrop of a stove-top element that is most interesting…bringing into the public realm of Church, the material objects of the domestic…” Dr Shelley Kulperger University of Queensland
Discussion of the esoteric aspects of Bowie’s life and work can be found readily online, with speculation unsurprisingly booming after Bowie’s recent passing. Much of this material is tainted with tosh…However, there are several writers who have produced well-developed analyses of Bowie’s esoteric dimensions that are available online. Mark Dery is an American cultural theorist [who] contemplates the star’s appeal in relation to the Messianic mysticism of Christianity, while Australian artist Tanja Stark has written extensively on Jungian interpretations of Bowie’s work (‘Jung the foreman’ being a lyric in Drive-In Saturday from 1973’s Aladdin Sane). “
Dr Dean Ballinger, University of Waikato
Dept of Screen and Media Studies via Brian Eno’s Website.
