Full Description
In recent decades curators and artists have shown a distinct interest in religion, its different traditions, manifestations in public life, gestures and images. Breaking Resemblance explores the complex relationship between contemporary art and religion by focusing on the ways artists re-work 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. It discusses a number of exhibitions that take religion as their central theme, and a selection of works by Bill Viola, Lawrence Malstaf, Victoria Reynolds, and Berlinde de Bruyckere—all of whom, in their respective ways and media, recycle religious motifs and iconography and whose works resonate with, or problematize the motif of, the true image.
Contents
List of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Situating Contemporary Art and Religion 1. Veronicas and Artists 2. Breaking the Religious Image: Re-Inventing Religion in Art 3. Between Critical Displacements and Spiritual Affirmations 4. Images Between Religion and Art 5. The Video Veronicas of Bill Viola 6. Images That Do Not Rest: The Installations of Lawrence Malstaf 7. Illusionism Cut: the Painting of Victoria Reynolds 8. The Body Recast: The Sculpture of Berlinde de Bruyckere Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
