The Problem of the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
In a period of unprecedented societal change, many artists of the last century responded by seeking creative inspiration and new visions of reality in mysticism and religion. Many contemporary artists have similarly turned to spirituality in response to the cultural and social upheavals of our own millennium. The influence of spirituality in the evolution of modern and contemporary art has become more widely recognized in recent scholarship. Yet mainstream art criticism still tends to overlook sacred themes in art and reject spiritual understandings of the creative act. In these cases, some of art’s deepest meaning is lost. On December 11th, 2022, I met with Taylor Worley on Zoom to discuss some of the reasons for the lack of spiritual discourse in the contemporary artworld.
Taylor Worley is visiting associate professor of art history at Wheaton College and project director for “Thinking about Thinking: Conceptual Art and the Contemplative Tradition.” He completed a Ph.D. in the areas of contemporary art and theological aesthetics in the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews and is the author of Memento Mori in Contemporary Art: Theologies of Lament and Hope (Routledge, 2020).
The following is based on our conversation.
Arthur Aghajanian: Modern art often engages notions of an inner realm. Despite this, many people understand “spiritual” art only as a minor movement represented by artists like Morris Graves and Agnes Pelton. With modernist giants like Kandinsky, Malevich, and Mondrian, the influence of Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, Eastern philosophy, and the occult has typically been treated as subordinate to the artists’ formal innovations. And over time, we’ve inherited the idea that Christian art is a vehicle for religious ideology, rather than a practice that’s critically engaged with contemporary issues.
The fundamental problem is that spiritual discourse is largely invisible in most Western contemporary art. It seems to me one reason for this is the lack of mature spirituality in our culture. In the view of the art world, to be a Christian is to be subjected to judicial and moral restraints. It doesn’t help that Western theology tends to promote God’s sovereignty over His radiance, not recognizing that imagination and creativity are divine attributes. And many artists haven’t grown beyond spiritual adolescence, their ideas about Christianity limited to the ossified creeds and rigid doctrines with which they were raised. Since theological interpretation hasn't been incorporated or developed in the mainstream art world, many artists and critics lack the language and the concepts to speak about the spiritual in art.
Taylor Worley: Contemporary art is notoriously difficult to define. But I think one of the strengths, but also maybe a liability of contemporary art, is that as a specific discourse it's really focused on what art can be now, what it can be in this particular moment. So, its strengths are that it's relevant to the lived experience of artists and the audience of those artists. But because it has a more critical or investigatory nature, it's working in an interrogative mode. I think the concern for a kind of cultural or sociological unity of perspective is not even a target for contemporary art.
But concern for even an exploratory connection to a religious tradition is off the table. Spiritual concerns are left to the individual or the communal. There might be communities of spiritual interest or inquiry around movements of contemporary art, but it's not shared in a broadly cultural way.
We can view this decentered spiritual condition of contemporary art as either a predicament and a problem, or a possibility and an opportunity.
AA: Let’s discuss the current models for dialogue between art and spirituality. Many artists believe themselves to be conduits for the unknown, and contemporary art has seen a variety of methods for delving beyond the ordinary. Some artists seek to channel the unconscious with drugs or supernatural energy using hypnosis. Astrology, the occult, magic, and alchemy have seen a resurgence. Contemporary art is also influenced by the metaphysics of technology embodied in AI and cybernetics. I think the pervasive unrest our society is experiencing has made artists more open to spirituality. Theological aesthetics accord with concerns about social and economic justice, as well as environmentalism.
TW: I could probably borrow the categories of Jacques Barzun. One of them is art as a “destroyer.” Art’s connection to spirituality, especially in the modern mode, is meant to provide a corrective or liberating force, or a kind of deconstructive force to traditional religion. In this way, modern art—and by extension, contemporary art—can correct the errors of, as you were saying, oppressive religious regimes.
The other model would be the “new age” model. Art as replacement religion—art as a spirituality of its own. And that you see around critics like Suzi Gablik, for instance, and you still have practitioners of this in lots of places. Lia Chavez would be an interesting source for it. But I think those are the two dominant models for how art and spirituality are meant to interact. And neither of them are positive for anything resembling a spirituality in generative connection to its historical and theological roots.
AA: Having a conceptual and linguistic framework to perceive art’s spiritual dimension would assist artists in articulating larger concerns about the nature of being. Or addressing their religious upbringing, struggles with religious institutions, and what it means to have a relationship with God. To fully express what’s most real, and how we seek after it. It may help integrate art into more people’s lives, moving it beyond the sphere of a cultural elite.
From this perspective, imagine the possibilities offered by forms of multimedia and installation art that use interaction or immersion to bring about a heightened sense of physical awareness. Art of this kind may increase one’s sense of presence as it envelops viewers or influences spatial perception. Its sensory effects might link to an embodied spirituality yet remind us that we’re not isolated. That we exist interdependently in sentient environments and yet impact one another.
TW: Many contemporary artists do have the capacity for creating indulgent spectacles and simulating lots of presence. But other than just the spectacle and the notoriety of the artist, what do those scenarios serve? That's where I want to think about the difference between a kind of spectacular or simulated presence and an authentic presence.
I think about the fact that in a more “pure” conceptualist project, the person engaging the artwork is constantly having to renew their own mental contract with the piece and can never get lost in it. Now my imagination or what I would want to call contemplation is a kind of fragile contemplation. Because instead of the sensory overload of an immersive video art piece, instead of all the affect of the place filling up the imagination, in the rigor of conceptual work I'm having to stay invested constantly. I've really come to see that as an experience of visual dissonance.
I'm in an art gallery, and I come across a seemingly non-art object that's now placed in an art space, and that's not immersive or enchanting. That's a harsh, cognitively dissonant moment. And the onus is put on me as the participant to engage it imaginatively and get to the point where I'm having to engage fresh forms of reasoning and memories of past experiences. We have to continue asking the questions, “How is this art? What's going on here?” And for successful conceptual work the breakthrough is not seeing the thing as art, but what you do with it after you see it as art. What kind of associations, what kind of connections can I make? And for me, that work is more representative of what I see people like Thomas Merton and others acknowledging as the hard work of spiritual contemplation. You're not just in a trance, you're not taken to some other realm. You're firmly on the ground trying to perceive the eternal and transcendent in the immanent and present. And that for me is an authentic kind of presence.
AA: When we approach art theologically, we’re also confronted with questions of identity, something we tend to think about as conforming to an image. The spiritual dimension of identity relates to our understanding of the nature of being. Spiritual identity may also be reflected in an artist’s methodology, subject matter, or conceptual approach. One’s spiritual identity is also influenced by culture.
TW: For you or I or anyone that's studied or followed an artist's work over time, there's a sense in which we can interpret a spiritual identity for the work. With Joseph Beuys, Robert Gober, or someone like Kara Walker there's a spiritual tone or a spiritual identity to the work. Any work that's ascending to those levels of consideration and criticality usually has a consistency within it that can't be reduced to the material, political, or formal. There are deeper questions that we don't, as you said, have a framework for naming.
Warhol's a good example of this. I think of the recent Brooklyn Museum show “Andy Warhol: Revelation” where they're trying to pull in his religious work. He's a really complicated individual. He's not as flat as he might have wanted us to believe, or as flat as the connotations we have for Pop art might indicate. And I think most artists don't want their work to be reduced to instruments of different political agendas.
AA: The role of contemporary art in religious spaces is worth discussing as well. Many are asking questions about how to best support artists in church communities. To share the work of creatives in the larger body of the parish affirms the importance of art to the Spirit. And also ensures that artists of faith are not left adrift—misunderstood or unseen by both church and artworld.
When contemporary art and religious spaces are joined, the isolated cultural conditions that limit them both begin dissolving. In a sacred context, the spiritual nature of art would be apparent, and viewers could interact with images in new ways. Contemporary art in a religious space can invite more active participation and reach new audiences. No longer isolated within the white cube of a gallery, it can play a role in the life of the community and adds value beyond aesthetic contemplation. It may be incorporated into liturgical practice or social life.
TW: My mind doesn't go to a lot of North American examples. And I think what's at stake in this emerging development is the question of mutual surrender. For the work of contemporary art to come into the space of liturgical worship it has to surrender some of its austere criticality and preeminence. It might be a visual focal point, but it won't be the only or the exclusive experiential or meaning-making focal point.
But I would say on the other hand, in places where you see churches opening art galleries of their own there's a similar struggle underway or a similar challenge for the religious authority in that sense to cede some of its authoritarian role in articulating what matters or what questions are important, how much questioning can be allowed, or what can be critiqued by creating these spaces for contemporary art. So that mutual surrender goes both ways.
AA: It requires courage on the part of people on either side. There’s much conservatism and misunderstanding about art even in relatively progressive churches, since most people don't have a familiar relationship with contemporary art. And the artworld isn’t typically interested in the Church except as a subject of institutional critique.
TW: Yes, there's rigidity on both sides.
AA: Theological interpretation can accommodate existing modes of art criticism in rich ways. I believe it can encompass and add depth to theory. In addressing spirituality, theory will be inflected in ways that encourage awareness of the sacred in the context of social and political critique. This aligns well with the idea that social justice must be rooted in contemplative action if it’s to be lasting. Jesus’s teachings—far more radical than any modern or postmodern theory—aren’t limited by interpretive frameworks.
Art supports faith when it opens to experiences that enrich and attune our sense of divine presence, yet ignorance or suspicion of theological interpretation limits what we can know about our experience before works of art. The close relationship between language and concepts suggests that if we lack a means to identify and discuss the spiritual dimension of art, we will either mistake the sacred for something else—or miss it altogether. Bringing art and spirituality into dialogue nurtures an appreciation for the sacred nature of the creative act. Not as a luxury, but a fundamental aspect of human nature.
TW: For me what's important in giving a theological interpretation is really doing my homework on the formal successes of the work, the political engagements, and the social entanglements of the work. Really working through the various layers.
In my own work, I want to think about how theology operates as a vehicle for protecting the mystery and leaving room for the work to have its presence and to do what it does in its own way that sometimes violates theology's predictions or expectations.
Arthur Aghajanian is a Christian contemplative, essayist, and educator. His work explores visual culture through a spiritual lens. His essays have appeared in a variety of publications, including Ekstasis, Tiferet Journal, Saint Austin Review, The Curator, and many others. He holds an M.F.A. from Otis College of Art and Design. Visit him at https://www.imageandfaith.com/