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Johanna Seidel’s painting depicts moments of transition. Transitional phases are often linked to rites of passage. Following Arnold van Gennep, the anthropologist Victor W. Turner has described these as moments of detachment from an existing order as an unstructured, ambiguous, and paradoxical state lacking in status. Initiation rites in secret societies, but also the approaching of motherhood, the act of marriage, and coming of age may be examples of these kinds of moments. Exhibition openings may also appear like rites of passage to artists and the public. The transition from a profane …