Contemporary debate: Is there a return of religion in art today?
Is there a return of religion in contemporary art?
The article explores how controversial debates about the Catholic Church and Islam are becoming more important in our cultural identity.
Anselm Franke says that there is not a wave of religious works in contemporary art, however artists are engaging and citing religion more in their work. He refers to Bruno Latour’s hypothesis. He says that “faith,” as it is known today in secular societies, is an invention of modernism, precisely because it is perceived to be detached from another reality.
Although I am not religious myself, just investigating the concept, I'm not sure that I agree with this hypothesis. Is faith really an invention of modernism? Surely you can have faith in anything and anyone at any period of time. I do accept that we live in a secular world however I don't think that faith has been a recent invention, but a concept shared throughout the ages.
Jörg Heiser says that 'Art and religion are the antithesis of one another, like water and oil (although emulsions are possible). The thirst for knowledge is constrained by belief and its claims to power, and art is instrumentalized in the service of religious incarnations.
This point of religious symbols being cultural rather than religious is quite thought provoking. The main differences between culture and religion are that religion is an organised and filtered system of beliefs followed by people, whereas culture is shared ideas of knowledge and beliefs that don't neccissarily have to be followed. So what would you have to do to make the work religious rather than cultural? Would a religious person have to make the piece of work in order for it to be truly religious? And if so would it be taken seriously or would it be a mockery?
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