Mushrooms: More Than Meets the Eye

The era of mushrooms is upon us, not appearing suddenly like Sylvia Plath's poetic reference but rather emerging through press releases and making a noticeable presence in various aspects of our culture. From art exhibitions to skincare products, festivals to coffee enhancers, mushrooms are increasingly taking center stage. However, for some, particularly those deeply involved in the world of mushrooms—mycologists, oncologists, herbalists, dermatologists, foragers, botanists, bartenders, shamans, biochemists, and more—what's truly noteworthy is the world's awakening to the mysterious, underground realm of mushrooms.

IThese "mushroom people" constitute a fascinating and diverse group. Among them, you'll find Roger Phillips, a renowned expert with a penchant for distinctive red berets resembling fly agaric mushrooms. There's Atilla Fődi, a Hungarian academic diligently working on translating the oldest known mushroom guide from Chinese to English. Alexandra Sazonova and Chloe Ting, both Saint Martin's graduates, organized Fungi Fest 2019, a day-long celebration of all things mushroom. Ethnographer Anna Tsing, public intellectual Paul Stamets, and my father, Martin Powell, a biochemist and Chinese herbalist with a clinical guide on the medicinal uses of mushrooms, are also part of this eclectic community.

Growing up, mushrooms were an integral part of my life. They adorned my father's shop in Neal's Yard, dried specimens filled jars in our living room and kitchen, and even financed our family activities. Eventually, they became a part of my work, involving summers spent encapsulating concentrated extracts into gel pills, labeling, and shipping them. If you've ever wondered how your supplements are made, sometimes it's the work of a fifteen-year-old girl in a small lab by the sea, covered in mushroom spores. Once you become a mushroom enthusiast, you can't escape it. Last winter, I went into the woods in search of mistletoe and returned with handfuls of Auricula auricularia mushrooms. My father couldn't have been prouder.

Surprisingly, despite my deep exposure, I had never contemplated the visual or aesthetic aspects of mushrooms and fungi. Perhaps it's because mushrooms, fundamentally, have a somewhat comical appearance—bulbous, fleshy, and profoundly organic, lacking the gravitas of "cooler" organisms. When they take on phallic forms, they seem absurd, and when they don't, they're still challenging to take seriously. Even the iconic mushroom cloud from an atomic blast maintains a perpetual tension with its practically comic mushroom-shaped cloud. Microscopic enlargements of spores can be mesmerizing, spore prints can be beautiful, and some species boast vibrant colors, even glowing in the dark. Yet, mushrooms retain a hint of kitsch, possibly due to influences like Victorian fairy tale illustrations and the world of Super Mario.

What sets apart "Mushrooms: the Art Design & Future of Fungi," a new exhibition at Somerset House, is its ability to offer various visual explorations of mushrooms that defy this kitsch stereotype. As my father, who accompanied me to the exhibition, noted, making mushrooms appear contemporary is essential for their integration into modern culture and imagination. Works such as Seana Gavin's collages and Haroon Mirza's delicate spore prints on copper, and even Cy Twombly's older, scratchy drawings, all manage to evade kitsch. Others, like Graham Little's sentimentally charged painting and David Fenster's absurdly serious costumed monologue, embrace the mushroom motif with such enthusiasm that they emerge unscathed. Crafting such artworks that successfully navigate this fine line is indeed a formidable challenge.

Much of the most visually captivating work involving mushrooms is associated with the "magic" varieties, as artists have long been drawn to psychedelics. While many of the more audacious theories connecting fungi to human consciousness, spirituality, or artistic inspiration are academically questionable, these stories have undeniably influenced generations of artists in search of a primal narrative of "hallucinogenic enlightenment." For many, mushrooms offer a plausible connection to ancient mysteries, safely distant from the notion of a deity or ultimate source.

Attending exhibitions with experts is always a peculiar experience. They possess an abundance of knowledge that may astonish others, including facts such as our shared single-cell ancestor with mushrooms or the intricacies of mycological identification. Experts engage in on-the-spot identifications and debates, such as whether Lois Long's exquisite illustration of Coprinus comatus is missing a crucial identifier or merely depicts a particular stage of decay. Aside from their somewhat dismissive stance toward the seismic impact of John Cage's work, experts are a trove of fascinating information.

For instance, according to Fődi, people in Hungary have been creating materials from mushrooms for centuries, but this knowledge is orally transmitted and slowly fading. At the Transylvania Mushroom Festival, individuals display felted and embroidered mushroom sculptures as part of the spectacle. Mushrooms occupy different regions of the world with varying degrees of intensity. In the UK, our interest in mushrooms dates back only to the nineteenth century and has been sporadic since then. In Qingyan, an entire shrine honors the man behind shiitake cultivation, while Castilla's six-thousand-year-old Selva Pascuala cave mural likely depicts mushrooms, if not definitively as magical entities.

Having a couple of experts on hand helps provide perspective during these periods of heightened interest. Most of the mushroom enthusiasts I know are pleased with the growing visibility of fungi in our cultural landscape but are also acutely aware of the superficiality of some of these representations. As mushrooms become the trendy ingredient in everything from coffee to facial cream to non-alcoholic "spirits," it's crucial not to forget that they transcend mere aesthetic objects or marketing hype. Boutique brands in LA may sell minuscule quantities of mushroom extracts, promising immortality, and historical narratives may overemphasize the significance of psilocybin, but these approaches often reduce mushrooms to materials that conveniently fit into our individualistic consumption model.

Fungi have far more to offer, as emphasized by many artists, curators, and intellectuals who engage with them. From the lessons we can glean from the symbiotic "wood wide web" and the multifaceted world of a thousand genders to the complexity versus simplicity debate in evolution, mushrooms possess the potential to be much more than vehicles for repeating old patterns—they could serve as incredibly exciting critical tools.

If we fail to maintain a firm focus on the scientific, ethnographic, agricultural, and historical aspects of mushrooms, we risk obscuring their true significance and potential beneath a deluge of extravagant claims, wishful thinking, and speculative history—all of which have their place in art but should not overshadow the essence of mushrooms. Despite their appearance, it increasingly seems that there's no "just" about mushrooms. They have existed longer than us and may hold the secrets to prolonging our existence. Promising research is emerging regarding the use of fungi in environmental remediation, Alzheimer's treatment, carbon sequestration, reforestation, and more. Even if we run out of time, Jae Rhim Lee's burial suit reminds us that mushrooms will continue to sustain life long after we're gone. Fungi represent the future, and it appears they've already established their presence.