Contemplatives in Conversation: 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.

This piece, featured in Genealogies of Modernity, is based on my conversation with Taylor Worley on Zoom.