Alena Alexandrova
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823274475
- eISBN:
- 9780823274529
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823274475.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art Theory and Criticism
During the past two decades curators and artists have shown a distinct interest in religion, its different traditions, manifestations in public life, gestures and images. Since the early 1990s in ...
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During the past two decades curators and artists have shown a distinct interest in religion, its different traditions, manifestations in public life, gestures and images. Since the early 1990s in Europe and the United States many artists critically re-appropriated religious, motifs, themes and images to produce works that cannot qualify as ‘religious,’ but remains in a dialogue with the visual legacy of mostly the Western, and more specifically the Catholic, version of Christianity. The book explores the complex relationship between contemporary art and religion. It focuses on the ways artists re-appropriate religious motifs as a means to reflect critically on our desire to believe in images, on the history of seeing them, and on their double power – iconic and political. When embedded in contemporary artworks, religious motifs become tools to address issues that are central to the infrastructure of, and the distinction between, different eras or regimes of the image: the rules that regulate the status of images and their public significance, their modes of production, circulation and display. The book examines the important motif of the acheiropoietic image (not made by human hands). Its survival and transformation in contemporary image-making practices provides a conceptual matrix for understanding of the reconfiguring relationships between art and religion.
The book discusses a number of exhibitions that take religion as their central theme, and a selection works by Bill Viola, Lawrence Malstaf, Victoria Reynolds and Berlinde de Bruyckere who, in their respective ways and media, recycle religious motifs and iconography, and whose works resonate with, or problematise the motif of the true image.Less
During the past two decades curators and artists have shown a distinct interest in religion, its different traditions, manifestations in public life, gestures and images. Since the early 1990s in Europe and the United States many artists critically re-appropriated religious, motifs, themes and images to produce works that cannot qualify as ‘religious,’ but remains in a dialogue with the visual legacy of mostly the Western, and more specifically the Catholic, version of Christianity. The book explores the complex relationship between contemporary art and religion. It focuses on the ways artists re-appropriate religious motifs as a means to reflect critically on our desire to believe in images, on the history of seeing them, and on their double power – iconic and political. When embedded in contemporary artworks, religious motifs become tools to address issues that are central to the infrastructure of, and the distinction between, different eras or regimes of the image: the rules that regulate the status of images and their public significance, their modes of production, circulation and display. The book examines the important motif of the acheiropoietic image (not made by human hands). Its survival and transformation in contemporary image-making practices provides a conceptual matrix for understanding of the reconfiguring relationships between art and religion.
The book discusses a number of exhibitions that take religion as their central theme, and a selection works by Bill Viola, Lawrence Malstaf, Victoria Reynolds and Berlinde de Bruyckere who, in their respective ways and media, recycle religious motifs and iconography, and whose works resonate with, or problematise the motif of the true image.
Alena Alexandrova (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823274475
- eISBN:
- 9780823274529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823274475.003.0005
- Subject:
- Art, Art Theory and Criticism
This chapter discusses the different ways contemporary artists re-use religious motifs and the effects of such citations. In the majority of cases their artworks function as a context to turn that ...
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This chapter discusses the different ways contemporary artists re-use religious motifs and the effects of such citations. In the majority of cases their artworks function as a context to turn that religion into a topic, and an object of discussion. The critical potential of contemporary artworks that deal with religious themes lies somewhere apart from art’s rejection or mocking of religion, as blasphemy retains its proximity to the specifically religious power of images. When contemporary artists reuse religious motifs they become counter-motifs. The interest in religion, in its various traditions and guises, indicates a desire for self-understanding by re-staging the past. The multifaceted relationship between contemporary art and religion is examined through a detailed discussion of twelve exhibitions organised between 1999 and 2010, which approach religion and religious art from a variety of perspectives. Many of the curators claim that they are emphatically not religious, nor trying to send a religious message. Including religion in the infrastructure of display associated with contemporary art creates a different visibility in the public space and asks questions concerning such visual practices as iconoclasm; the relationship between commercialism, mass media and religion, and the afterlife of religious art, among many others.Less
This chapter discusses the different ways contemporary artists re-use religious motifs and the effects of such citations. In the majority of cases their artworks function as a context to turn that religion into a topic, and an object of discussion. The critical potential of contemporary artworks that deal with religious themes lies somewhere apart from art’s rejection or mocking of religion, as blasphemy retains its proximity to the specifically religious power of images. When contemporary artists reuse religious motifs they become counter-motifs. The interest in religion, in its various traditions and guises, indicates a desire for self-understanding by re-staging the past. The multifaceted relationship between contemporary art and religion is examined through a detailed discussion of twelve exhibitions organised between 1999 and 2010, which approach religion and religious art from a variety of perspectives. Many of the curators claim that they are emphatically not religious, nor trying to send a religious message. Including religion in the infrastructure of display associated with contemporary art creates a different visibility in the public space and asks questions concerning such visual practices as iconoclasm; the relationship between commercialism, mass media and religion, and the afterlife of religious art, among many others.
