THE S - WORD: The State of ‘ Spirituality ’ in Contemporary Art
In the Main Gallery: A group exhibition of work exhibited in Southern California
by contemporary artists from 1979/80 to the present.
Curated by Prof. Ronald E. Steen, Art Historian and Art Educator
Including work by 25 artists Lynn Aldrich, Sandow Birk, Wes Christensen, Rob Clayton, Einer & Jamex de la Torre, Daniel Martin Diaz, Kim Dingle, John Frame, Tim Hawkinson, F. Scott Hess, Bari Kumar, Laura Lasworth, David Ligare, Jim Morphesis, Raymond Pettibon & Ed Ruscha, Mark Ryden, Betye Saar, Aaron Smith, Fred Stonehouse, Jon Swihart, Ruth Weisberg,
Patty Wickman and Peter Zokosky
A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
PUBLIC OPENING RECEPTION: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2006, 5-8 p.m.
Exhibition Continues: Monday, October 9, 2006 through Friday, January 5, 2007
Gallery hours: Mon.- Fri. 10 to 3
It can be said, in general, that the history of visual art from the Prehistoric, has also been the history of spirituality in visual terms. Up to the 19 th century, that is. In the 19 th century, spiritual issues in fine art were replaced with secular themes of modern life, causing art to be produced no longer primarily for sacred environments or for devotional purposes. The 20 th century artist expanded on secular issues in art by developing an art focused on form and/or color as modes for expressing human aspects including but not limited to social, political, personal, psychological, gender and ethnic issues other than spirituality. This change away from issues of spirituality occurred out of necessity. The reason for this shift has been presented in depth in many publication, are well known and are too numerous to represent here.
It appears that themes of spirituality did not die entirely in the 20 th century. It operated in basically two different tracks and minimally. First spirituality in fine art produced not for sacred environments or for devotional purposes as in the work of Kandinsky, Matisse, Rothko even in a bit of Picasso’s works to name just a few, as well as in the not well known, other than to art world elite, career of Stanley Spencer and a few others. Second spirituality in art continued to be created for sacred environments and for devotional purposes. The Arts and Crafts movement sustained this category in well crafted stained glass for new or refurbished sacred environments. In painting however for a lot of reasons, including the fact that many American fine art artists abandoned the field for the art gallery arena, figures became delicate and sweet for the most part with the stance of heads up, eyes rolled back, developed with no new twist on its format from what is considered the last great artist of its type Guido Reni. He lived in the 17 th century Italian Baroque, which says a lot about the state of affairs. There are other reasons for this decline in both areas. Some examples can express this idea, existentialism, nihilism, the growth of commercial and consumerism and the concept of God is dead, all of which are specifically 20 th century concepts.
This exhibition “The S-Word: The State of Spirituality in Contemporary Art” reveals something other than late 20 th century and early 21 st century secular concerns in art and that issues of spirituality are currently in evidence in the production, presentation and in viewing and collecting habits. This exhibition presents the work of 24 artists. They are Lynn Aldrich, Sandow Birk, Wes Christensen, Rob Clayton, Einer & Jamex de la Torre, Daniel Martin Diaz, Kim Dingle, John Frame, Tim Hawkinson, F. Scott Hess, Bari Kumar, Laura Lasworth, David Ligare, Jim Morphesis, Raymond Pettibon & Ed Ruscha, Mark Ryden, Aaron Smith, Fred Stonehouse, Jon Swihart, Patty Wickman, Ruth Weisberg, and Peter Zokosky.
Initially a hypothesis was not created for this group exhibition with the idea of fitting artists and their works into it, nor was an armchair curatorial stance taken. What was sought was existing fine art produced and supporting data on artist’s careers from professional, for the most part long standing and significant contemporary fine art galleries and substantial art collections from which an objective assessment could be made, over a protracted amount of time. Career resumes and discussions with artists, gallery directors and collectors yielded that a subtle shift occurred away from secular and inner personal themes presented abstractly via form and color, to the embracing of themes of personal and not always institutional spirituality. What did manifest itself was a type of art having or utilizing recognizable spiritual imagery or unmistakable spiritual content in the work and not tangential to it. Also another type was discerned, not addressed here, and possibly needing its own day of assessment in the gallery, of abstraction where spirituality is tangential to and not visibly present in the work of art, sort of New Age. Obviously spiritually in contemporary art suggests that the art gallery, the art viewer, the collector, the curator, the critic and the general public, needs to walk delicately and thoughtfully through the discernment of all of these existing terrains, which maybe is an aspect of its strategy!
What this initial assessment further yielded was a body of art produced, exhibited and collected in Southern California from about 1979/1980 to the present. It was also discovered that the production and collecting of this type of art was not limited to Southern California, but was and is being produced in other local, national and international communities. However, this exhibition was delimited to Southern California as a way of initially embracing and assessing with focus and objectivity this type of work but is careful to acknowledge the possibilities of a larger picture. Three quick examples of a larger picture are Christians in the Visual Arts (C.I.V.A.) a national organization which is all embracing and over 25 years of age and the more recent Museum of Biblical Art, New York as well as a group known as the Transvangardia in northern Italy whose art has as a seriousness of intent, quality of execution and subtext of moral and ethical concerns.
The selection of work in this exhibition represents artists who have been working and exhibiting for some time are therefore mature artists and who work on this theme full time, such as Lynn Aldrich, Laura Lasworth and Patty Wickman. In addition the exhibition presents the work of artists who are concerned and work on the theme most of the time but not all the time such as Einer & Jamex de la Torre, Daniel Martin Diaz and Bari Kumar. Artists who produce work on this theme at a lower percentage such as David Ligare, Jim Morphesis, Aaron Smith, Fred Stonehouse, Jon Swihart, and Ruth Weisberg. It also encompasses work by artists concerned with the theme but who manifest it in there work only from time to time, but importantly such as Sandow Birk, Wes Christensen, John Frame, and Tim Hawkinson and Betye Saar. There is another facet included, that is, artists who work on the theme minimally but who created one or a few works in there career of such astonishing quality and spiritual focus that it appears that a good percent of their thinking on this topic while it did not manifest itself on an ongoing basis appears to have burst forth to produced a focused work, such is the work by Kim Dingle and Peter Zokosky. Another catagory is that the theme manifested itself later in the artists career, such as the recent work of F. Scott Hess and the collaborative work of Raymond Pettibon and Ed Ruscha, which says a lot about aspects of time and spirituality and/or perhaps influence. In another case, it is not interior spiritual concerns that interests the artists but the free borrowing of traditional religious imagery put in complex, impactful combinations, such as the work represented by Rob Clayton (of the Clayton Brothers) and Mark Ryden. All of this data can be supported by career statistics. This is not done in order to pigeonhole the art, artists or careers but to illuminate the rich combinations and various ways that this theme has manifested itself.
In this group exhibition each work and artist were included as representative of and as a sign post to the variety of themes being produced in contemporary art or were included as defining some aspect of contemporary art making, since the art appears to include them. They are, issues of virtue presented conceptually by Lynn Aldrich, great volumes of spiritual literature reinterpreted, drawn and printed with a modern secular sensibility by Sandow Birk, the reclamation of a sacred ritual combined with modern concerns presented as an enticingly small detailed, diligently drawn and colored illuminated manuscript by Wes Christensen, a Gicle é print formatted as a panoramic landscape loaded with rich intense vibrant color that only a modern technological printer could create and filled with moral and ethical choices by Rob Clayton, the spiritual crosses we have or carry which are as fragile as glass by Einer and Jamex de La Torre, the longing for a savior staged by Daniel Martin Diez, spiritual questions and struggles conceptually organized by Kim Dingle, a blind everyman sculpted betwixt flight and descent, devil and angel, wisdom and carnality, prayer and watchfulness by John Frame, a photographic series singly mounted as a loose spiritual reference to resurrection or the rapture of the saints by Tim Hawkinson, the Egyptian seven laughter’s of God as source material for a rumination on contemporary art in a series of paintings by F. Scott Hess, spiritual truncation at a young age recalled and marked by Bari Kumar, the deep study and long reflection on two people of enormous spiritual intellect past and present presented in diptych format as a comparison and an evolution of spiritual philosophy by Laura Lasworth, the soup kitchen work of charity depicted as an offering by David Ligare, the raw emotional textures and colors of any significant crucifixion by Jim Morphesis, the artful collaboration of the printing of significant spiritual literature by Raymond Pettibon and Ed Ruscha, combinations of religious Gicle é printed imagery as a boxed set producing some kind of inner reflection by Mark Ryden, the flaming Sacred Heart is included as a part of the riddle of reality by Betye Saar, the blessing gesture of compassion for those suffering spiritual marginalization conceptually organized and painted by Aaron Smith, the citing of past secret primitive religious societies by Fred Stonehouse, a devotional triptych placed in and encountered with nature by Jon Swihart, a modern interpretation of an Old Testament narrative drawn forth and painted over in layers by Ruth Weisberg, the serial stages of an awakening to a spiritual epiphany or announcement by Patty Wickman, and finally men martyred, not women, expressing their physical and, who ever heard of such a thing in the visual arts, spiritual pain, in dialogue with each other on possibly the path of life by Peter Zokosky.
Group exhibitions are generally conceived of as an opportunity for some comparison, assessment and enlightenment. Since it has been ascertained that this type of work has been in existence for at last 26/27 years, which is longer than some 20 th century art movements, some assessments can be made. Pronouncements however should and can be made in the future when more objectivity can be brought to bear on the subject. What then is the state of spirituality in current contemporary art? Here it is significant to enumerate that the work presented in exhibition is not limited, as it would be in the past, to any one gender and includes work by people of different ages and ethnic cultures, which is not new in today’s art world, but as it should be. It is personal, yet not reclusive, represents various faith systems, but is not commissioned, nurtured or supported by any particular religious organization, is not devotional, and therefore is not intended for any sacred environment. The work is not always part of someone’s ongoing developing spiritual interest but also part of a searching and questioning process. Themes and subjects are diligently researched and studied but not theological per se in there presentation. All of the works suggest thoughtfulness of conception, painstaking production, exemplifying the quality of careful craftsmanship and having the B-word (beauty) as a substantive aspect. There is a new visual spiritual language being developed which is independent of the past yet beholding to it, which appears to reach back to connect to aspects of traditional spiritual image making and at the same time move forward. Therefore, this type of art has a significant contemporary art presence, which didn’t much exist prior. It is obvious that the work has been displayed in professional art galleries having longevity, longevity certainly as in modern terms. Has been viewed, admired and purchased by discerning collectors and local art foundations, which display, maintain and preserve it as fine art having material and importantly immaterial value. There is evidence of staying power represented by the fact that the artists represented here have extensive ongoing well supported, by courageous galleries and collectors, full scale careers in this field. While these aspects are self evident, time will discern if these works will have lasting museum quality and historical significance. It has a new rich visual vocabulary and is part of an engaging dialogue for artists, viewers and collectors. In short the spiritual in contemporary art does have a presence and is healthy! Maybe the soft and small s-word of the past is currently the larger, the S-Word!
Finally is there a historical context or larger picture that this art has sprung from or is engaging and addressing? It is obviously part of a historical continuum. For anyone living during the span of time that this art covers a larger historical picture is self-evident. More future time and further objectivity, which are hoped for outcomes of group exhibitions of this nature however, will make aspects of this specific.
ART EDUCATION PROGRAM
Discussion: “The State of Spirituality in Contemporary Art” with the Artists Lynn Aldrich, Sandow Birk, John Frame, Laura Lasworth, Jim Morphesis, Aaron Smith & Patty Wickman
Saturday, October 28, 2006, 4-6 p.m.
Free. Advance Reservations Required, Call Mon.-Fri. 9-1 (800) 445-8376
Illustration:
Still Life with Grape Juice and Sandwiches ( Xenia), 1989
by David Ligare
oil on linen
20” x 24” |
Current Exhibit
Archived