Encountering the Spiritual in Contemporary Art

Now available for purchase from Yale University Press and Amazon.

An in-depth and current investigation of how the spiritual is manifestly present in contemporary art.  With essays by Ladan Akbarnia, Stephen Gilchrist, Eleanor Heartney, Mary Jane Jacob, Karen Kramer, and Karen E. Milbourne.

The spiritual is everywhere evident in contemporary art, yet rarely acknowledged in scholarship or criticism. Encountering the Spiritual in Contemporary Art addresses the subject in depth for the first time in over three decades. It significantly broadens the scope of previous studies to include new media and non-Western and Indigenous art (in addition to that of the East and West), presents art from diverse cultures with equal status, promotes cultural specificity, and moves beyond notions of “center” and “periphery,” celebrating the plurality and global nature of contemporary art today. Major essays based on cultural affinities are interspersed with brief thematic essays (Art-Making as Spiritual Process, Materials/Form/Color, Sources of Inspiration, and The Artist’s Body as Signifier of Spiritual Content) to provide two different perspectives and will expand the knowledge of academic and general audiences.

Encountering the Spiritual in Contemporary Art provides an alternative to the main currents of presentation and interpretation prevalent in contemporary art, appealing to believers, agnostics, and inveterate skeptics alike. This essential publication demonstrates that the need to address the fundamental questions of life are both innate and ongoing.