The Neglected Place of Religion in Contemporary Western Art

Authors

  • Rina Arya University of Wolverhampton

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v6i1.27

Keywords:

contemporary art, religious expression, ritual, the human condition

Abstract

In this article I am going to examine some of the artwork of the American video artist Bill Viola to demonstrate the experiences of the religious to which it can give rise. Viola’s work is a meditation on the central questions and issues in life, which include: why are we here? Where are we going? And what it feels to be alive. His work is intensive and engages the intellectual, emotional and sensory aspects of our being. Contemporary art is a hitherto neglected arena of fieldwork in religious studies. Equally, religion is disregarded in critical debates on contemporary art, and regarded as passé and irrelevant to modern life. The resistance on both sides is to the detriment of the mutual study and development of both religious studies and art. Art has the propensity to convey religious ideas and to evoke sentiments, which can be described as religious. We can look to contemporary art to uncover notions about the religious in twentieth and twenty first century life. My study on Viola will demonstrate the prevalence of religious experiences that his work evokes. In a post-secular Britain, where religion no longer upholds universal significance, contemporary art provides a channel to revive religious understanding vis-à-vis the spiritual, and to make it contemporary and resonant.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

  • Rina Arya, University of Wolverhampton

    Rina Arya is a Reader at the University of Wolverhampton. She has published in the areas of theology and art, the art of Francis Bacon and critical theory. Her monograph Francis Bacon: Painting in a Godless World is forthcoming with Lund Humphries in 2012.

References

Adams, D. 2001 [1984]. “Theological Expressions through Visual Art Forms,” in D. ApostolosCappadona, ed. Art, Creativity and the Sacred. New York: Continuum, 311–18.

Apostolos-Cappadona, D., ed. 2001 [1984]. Art, Creativity and the Sacred. New York: Continuum.

Bellour, Raymond, with Bill Viola. 1985. “An Interview with Bill Viola,” October, 34, 91–119.

Dillenberger, Jane. 1965. Style and Content in Christian Content. London: SCM Press.

—2001. “Artists and Church Commissions: Rubin’s The Church at Assy Revisited,” in D. ApostolosCappadona, ed. Art, Creativity and the Sacred. New York: Continuum, rev. edn, 193–204.

Dillenberger, John. 1987. A Theology of Artistic Sensibilities: The Visual Arts and the Church. London: SCM Press.

Douglas, Mary. 2002 [1966]. Purity and Danger. London: Routledge.

Dronsfield, J. 2004. “On the Anticipation of Responsibility,” in C. Townsend, ed. The Art of Bill Viola. London: Thames and Hudson, 72–87.

Elkins, James. 2004. On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art. New York: Routledge.

Freeland, Cynthia. 2001. But is it Art? New York: Oxford University Press.

—2004. “Piercing to our Inaccessible, Inmost Parts,” in C. Townsend, ed. The Art of Bill Viola. London: Thames and Hudson, 24–45.

Gruchy, J. W. de. 2005. “Theology and the Visual Arts,” in D. F. Ford and R. Muers, eds. The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology since 1918. Oxford: Blackwell, 706–18.

Harries, Richard. 2004. The Passion in Art. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Howes, Graham. 2007. The Art of the Sacred. London: IB Tauris.

Jasper, D. 2004. “Screening Angels: The Messenger, Durham Cathedral, 1996,” in C. Townsend, ed. The Art of Bill Viola. London: Thames and Hudson, 180–95.

McDannell, Colleen. 1995. Material Christianity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Morgan, David. 1998. Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious Images. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

—2000. “Visual Religion,” Religion, 30, 41–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/reli.1999.0228

—2004. “Spirit and Medium,” in C. Townsend, ed. The Art of Bill Viola. London: Thames and Hudson, 88–109.

Neuimaier, O. 2004. “Space, Time, Video, Viola,” in C. Townsend, ed. The Art of Bill Viola. London: Thames and Hudson, 46–71.

Pelizzari, Maria A. 1996. “Writing on White Paper,” Performing Arts Journal, 18.3, 20–25.

Plate, S. Brent, ed. 2002. Religion, Art, and Visual Culture. New York: Palgrave.

Promey, Sally, and David Morgan, eds. 2001. The Visual Culture of American Religions. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Rahner, Karl. 1982. “Theology and the Arts,” Thought 57, 224, 17–29.

Stonard, John-Paul. 2009. “Viola, Bill.” Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 21 September 2009: http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T096533.

Tillich, Paul. 1959. Theology of Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Townsend, C. 2004. “Call Me Old-fashioned, but…,” in C. Townsend, ed. The Art of Bill Viola. London: Thames and Hudson, 6–23.

Williamson, Beth. 2004. Christian Art: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Wollheim, Richard. 1980. Art and its Objects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2nd edn).

Wolterstorff, N. 2001. “Art, Religion, and the Elite: Reflections on a Passage from André Malraux,” in D. Apostolos-Cappadona, ed. Art, Creativity and the Sacred. New York: Continuum, (rev. edn), 262–74.

Zippay, Lori. 1985. “Untitled Review,” Art Journal, 45.3, 263–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/ 776862

Published

2012-01-20

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Arya, R. (2012). The Neglected Place of Religion in Contemporary Western Art. Fieldwork in Religion, 6(1), 27-46. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v6i1.27