Newsletter: Painter Ariana Papademetropoulos takes us into esoteric worlds at Deitch

Alchemical art

Sometimes the internet can be a magical thing. For about a year, I’ve used an extension developed by the Art Institute of Chicago in Google Chrome that shows a new piece of art from the museum’s collection every time I open a new browser window. It’s a good way of seeing obscure stuff buried deep in the collection, such as unfinished drawings or a pre-Columbian amulet from Peru.

Last week, I turned up a set of witch balls from the mid-19th century, the hollow glass spheres used to ward off or trap troublesome spirits, which are also employed as a tool of divination, most commonly in England and in the United States. The object — delicate, translucent glass striated with threads of white — stopped me in my tracks. It also sent me down a bit of an internet rabbit hole. I found out that New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art also has witch balls in its collection, as does the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

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