A series of questions are provided in the seminar guide for each week of the course. These questions are intended to act as a guide for the weekly reading, and will provide the foundation for seminar discussions. As part of the weekly preparation for the course, the student is asked to prepare a written response to the reading based on these questions. Since the scope of the questions posed is in some cases very broad, students should focus on one or more related questions as a basis for the written response. Each of these weekly responses should be at least 100 words in length, and should critically engage with the written and visual material.

How students should prepare for Seminars:

1. Students are expected to read the required reading (supplied in the subject reader) each week.

2. Issues and questions for each week are identified in this guide. The student should prepare a response to these questions, on the basis of general impressions of the readings and seminar discussions.

3. The questions are intended to prepare students for further discussion and not as a 'test' of knowledge. If a student finds a text difficult or inaccessible they should think through the reasons for this and note them down.

Assessment Tasks

1. The following table lists the two assessment tasks for students.

Task	Due	Length	% of overall
Class paper/ Research Essay	One week after class paper	2000 words	grade 60%
Take-home exam	Two weeks after last lecture	1500 words	40%

Seminar Guide and Reading Material

The material provided in the Reader has been contained to 20 -30 pages of primary and secondary material for each week. It is anticipated that one to two hours a week would be given over to acquainting oneself with this material. Much of it is derived from art books and journals, and thus is heavily illustrated and fairly breezy. This secondary material is provided so as to provide students with both a description or account of and a sense of the reception of the work. One reading per week is usually provided for the purposes of situating the work covered in a broader historical or critical framework. There is a more extensive bibliography that can be used to expand on any of the issues covered in the weekly reading. The texts included in this bibliography do not necessarily represent the best available writing on the material covered, but are intended to provide a broad view of prevailing readings that employ a variety of methodologies. Students will find these texts useful to help define terms, to gauge different approaches to art historical and theoretical writing and to generate one’s own position. The texts included in this section can be used to support readings listed in the weekly seminar sections.

References:

The following text offers definitions of key terms and general historical information on individual artists and styles.

Atkins, Robert. Artspeak: A Guide to Contemporary Ideas, Movements and Buzzwords. New York: Abbeville, 1990.

Background Texts: The following texts will provide students with either a background to and surveys of artistic practice since 1990, definitions of key terms, or general narrative histories of the period covered by the course.

Archer, Michael. Art Since 1960. Rev. Ed. London & New York: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Cream: Contemporary Art in Culture: 10 curators, 10 writers, 100 artists. London: Phaidon, 1998.

Fineberg, Jonathan. Art Since 1940: Strategies of Being. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995.

Foster, Hal. The Return of the Real: The Avant-garde at the End of the Century. Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Pr., 1996.

Goldberg, Rosalee. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. Rev. Ed.; London: Thames & Hudson, 2001.

Harris, Jonathan. The New Art History: A Critical Introduction. London & New York: Routledge, 2001 .

Heartney, Eleanor. Postmodernism. London: Tate, 2001.

Hopkins, David. After Modem Art: 1945-2000. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.

Lucie-Smith, Edward. Movements in Art Since 1945. Rev. Ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.

Meecham, Paul and Julie Sheldon. Modem Art: A Critical Introduction. London & New York: Routledge, 2000.

Rose, Margaret. The Postmodern and the Postindustrial: A Critical Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.

Taylor, Brandon. Avant-Garde and After: Rethinking Art Now. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995.

Modernism, Postmodernism, Realism: A Critical Perspective for Art. Winchester: Winchester School of Art Pr, 1987.

Journals: There is a number of journals that will provide students with a constant source of useful material. It is also worthwhile browsing through particular editions; this will give the student a broader sense of contemporary practice beyond those examples covered in lectures or seminars. The names and location of these journals are:

Artforum (RM1498 IEIQR Biblioteca della Fondazione La Quadriennale di Roma - Roma - RM - [consistenza] 1987-2013)

Art and Christian Enquiry (http://acetrust.org/art-and-christianity-journal)

Art in America (NA0313 NAPSE Biblioteca di storia dell'arte Bruno Molajoli - Napoli - NA - [consistenza] 1967-1987; 2004 lac.)

Christliche Kunstblätter (RM0117 BVEBA Biblioteca di archeologia e storia dell'arte (BiASA) - Roma - RM - [consistenza] 1955-1970, lac.)

Flash Art (RM1623 RMSS5 Biblioteca della nonviolenza - Roma - RM - [consistenza] 1)

Image Journal — Art · Faith · Mystery (http://www.imagejournal.org/journal/)

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (MI0185 MILNB Biblioteca nazionale Braidense - Milano - MI - [consistenza] 1(1941/42)-3(1944/45); 10(1951/52))

Kunst und Kirche (RM0117 BVEBA Biblioteca di archeologia e storia dell'arte (BiASA) - Roma - RM - [consistenza] 1(1971)-3(1973).

October Journal (https://www.jstor.org/journal/october)

Religion and the Arts (VE0195 VEAAC Biblioteca IUAV - Venezia - VE - [consistenza] 1(1996/1997)-19(2015)- - [collocazione] PERCORR RELIGION AND RELATA)

Lecture and Seminar Programme

Week 1.

Lecture: The Tradition of Art in the Church

Seminar: Discussion of the Various Roles of Art in the Church

Week 2.

Lecture: Introduction to Contemporary Art and its Relevance for today

Seminar: Theology of the Body in Contemporary Art - Virtual Tour of an Exhibition

Week 3. Class papers start

Lecture: Sacred Spaces – What makes a Good Church?

Seminar: Bill Viola and Yayoi Kusama

Week 4.

Lecture: The Religious Experience and how it is evoked through the experience of art

Seminar: John Pawson and James Turrell

Week 5.

Lecture: The Experience of Art in the Church

Seminar: Joseph Beuys and Marina Abramovic

Week 6.

Lecture: Priorities of Ritual-Aesthetic Experience

Seminar: Ai Weiwei and Damien Hirst

Week 7.

Lecture: How to select artworks and engage artists in the Church

Seminar: Anselm Kiefer and Christian Boltanski

Week 8.

Lecture: The exhibition as a pilgrimage

Seminar: Wolfgang Laib and Maurizio Cattelan

Week 9.

Lecture: Art as Language

Seminar: Janet Cardiff & George Burges Miller and Rachel Whiteread

Week 10.

Lecture: Theology in Art

Seminar: Gavin Turk and Patricia Piccinini

Week 1

Lecture: Introduction - The Tradition of Art in the Church

An overview of the significant shifts in Church art from the Catacombs to the Venice Biennale. Particular attention will be given to moments when the Church had difficulty accepting certain developments in art. The purpose of this introductory lecture is to give students a sense of how the Church’s tradition of commissioning art has consistently welcomed new approaches, adapting to innovation and reflecting the changing character of art.

1. The distinction between Sacred Art and Secular Art and the difference between Liturgical,
Devotional and Contemplative functions in art.

2. Early Christian to Gothic – Rules, Regulations, Iconoclasm and the Defence of Art

3. Renaissance and Baroque - Scandals and Hypocrisy in Church commissions

4. 19th and 20th Century Art – Art’s emerging Autonomy and break from the Church

5. 21st Century – Art’s Return to the Church

Seminar: Discussion of the Various Roles of Art in the Church

• Introduction to the subject and the topics covered during the semester

• Introduction to the Reader, assessment tasks and using the online library resource

• Introduction to the subject's major themes, allocation of seminar papers

• Discussion of the distinction between Sacred Art and Secular Art and the difference between

Liturgical, Devotional and Contemplative functions in art.

While undertaking the readings on the Tradition of Art in the Church, students should consider the following issues:

1. When is a painting or sculpture considered sacred?

2. How did the decrees of the final session of the Council of Trent affect the direction of art?

3. For what reason was Paolo Veronese summoned to explain his painting of the Last Supper and what was the basis for the Dominican theologian Andrea Gilio da Fabriano’s criticism of Michaelangelo’s Last Judgement? How reasonable were the complaints?

4. What are some of the dangers that Clement Greenberg associates with kitsch?

Reading Material:

Blunt, Anthony. Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1660, chapter VIII, especially pp. 107-128, 1940 (refs to 1985 edition)

Greenberg, Clement. "Avant-Garde and Kitsch." Partisan Review. 6:5 (1939) 34-49.

Veronese, Paolo. Report of the sitting of the Tribunal of the Inquisition on Saturday July eighteenth, 1573 in Crawford, Francis Marion. Salve Venetia, New York, 1905. Vol. II: 29-34.

Yoon, Jungu. Spirituality in Contemporary Art — The Idea of the Numinous. London: Zidane Press 2010. pp.1-18

Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Art in Action: Toward a Christian Aesthetic. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1980. pp.65-69,183-191.

Week 2

Lecture: Introduction to Contemporary Art and its Relevance for today

In common conversation, we often use the phrase “contemporary art” to refer to current artistic production—the art being produced today. However, in the field of art history, the phrase denotes a specific period of art and artistic practice starting in the 1990s and continuing today. This lecture focuses on key theories and theoretical debates in the critical discussion of contemporary art. Through close examinations of selected texts, exhibitions, and artworks, we will engage with a set of concepts and concerns that have shaped the discourse around cultural production in recent decades. Rather than presenting a comprehensive survey, the lecture will involve intensive investigation of certain key positions and debates and their relevance for thinking about artistic practice today.

1. Defining terms: Modern, Post-Modern, Contemporary
2. Relational Aesthetics – 1990s shift of the viewer’s position
3. Critical Themes in Contemporary Art

Seminar: Theology of the Body in Contemporary Art - Virtual Tour of an Exhibition

A number of readings for this week provide early accounts of 1990's practice and the demand of a work of art for an active relation with the space it inhabits. We will question the belief in the gallery as the prime site of encounter between the work and the world. The second seminar will also feature a virtual walkthrough of the 2014 exhibition Leiblichkeit und Sexualität in the Votive Church, Vienna. Students will be invited to share their impressions of the artworks included in the exhibition and discuss the potential for the works to have multiple meanings.

While undertaking the reading on Art since 1990, students should consider the following issues:

1. How do you think the field of Contemporary Art as a whole adds to, or is different from, previous art historical periods?

2. How has the ‘white cube’ affected the way art is made and displayed?

Reading Material:

Bell, Julian. ‘Contemporary Art and the Sublime’, in Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding (eds.), The Art of the Sublime, Tate Research Publication, January 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/julian-bell-contemporary-art-and-the-sublime-r1108499, accessed 28 March 2016.

Heartney, Eleanor. "Art in the Nineties: A Mixed Prognosis." Critical Condition: American Culture at the Crossroads. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge UP, 1996. 49 -56.

O’Doherty, Brian. Inside the White Cube. The Ideology of the Gallery Space. Expanded edition. Berkely, Los Angeles, London, University of California Press; 1999. (1976) pp.87-92

Sandler, Irving. "Into the 1990s." Art of the Postmodern Era: From the Late 1960s to the Early 1990s. New York: Harper Collins, 1996. 544-556.

Taylor, Brandon. "Narrating Identity: the Early 1990s." Avant-Garde and After: Rethinking Art Now. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995. 142-169.

Week 3. Class papers start

Lecture: Sacred Spaces – What makes a Good Church?

This lecture involves an analysis of sacred architecture, exploring the commonalities and differences between architectural sacred spaces made in a variety of time periods and places. Particular attention will be given to discussing features including hierarchies of space, control of light, integrity in the materials, deliberate approach and progression, articulated boundaries, geometry and proportion.

1. Four theories describing the process of a space acquiring its sacredness
2. Architectural Features of Church design
3. Comparisons of old and new churches

Seminar: Bill Viola and Yayoi Kusama

Since the early 1970s, Bill Viola has used video to explore the phenomena of sense perception as an avenue to self-knowledge. Since the late 1970s, Yayoi Kusama has been living in a psychiatric hospital across the street from her painting studio in Tokyo. Both artists have been exploring mysticism in their art and both create works that either immerse or envelop the viewer.

While undertaking the reading on Bill Viola and Yayoi Kusama, students should consider the following issues:

1. How does the work of Bill Viola and Yayoi Kusama resonate with the idea behind Bruce Nauman’s neon artwork titled, “ The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths”?

Reading

Arya, Rina. ‘Bill Viola and the Sublime’, in Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding (eds.), The Art of the Sublime, Tate Research Publication, January 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/rina-arya-bill-viola-and-the-sublime-r1141441, accessed 28 April 2015.

Bernier, Ronald R. The Unspeakable Art of Bill Viola: A Visual Theology. Eugene: Pickwick, 2014. pp.1-10, 78-82

Bryan-Wilson, Julia. "Infinite Quest," book review of Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Net, Bookforum (Sept/Oct/Nov. 2011): 45

Morgan, David. “Modern Art and Christianity”. The Forge of Vision: A Visual History of Modern Christianity. 1st ed. University of California Press, 2015. 196–224

Viola, Bill. "Video Black--The Morality of the Image," in Doug Hall ed. Illuminating Video, pp. 477-486;

Yoon, Jungu. Bill Viola: Technology as Revelation in Spirituality in Contemporary Art — The Idea of the Numinous. London: Zidane Press 2010. pp.87-94

Yoshimoto, Midori. “Performing the Self: Yayoi Kusama and Her Ever-expanding Universe”. Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York. Rutgers University Press, 2005. 45–78.

Week 4

Lecture: The Religious Experience and how it is evoked through the experience of art

This lecture will examine four ways to experience beauty. One is the way of the aesthete; the second the way of the artist; the third the way of the moralist; the fourth, the religious way. The lecture will explore how human sense perceptions affect ways of being religious, and how the operations of religious traditions impact our sensual encounters.

1. Defining the Religious Experience - Contemplative, Devotional and Liturgical

2. Four Ways to Experience Beauty – Aesthete, Artist, Moralist and Religious

3. Neural Correlates of both Aesthetic and Religious Experience

Seminar: John Pawson and James Turrell

Turrell’s works are known for the calmness and stillness they engulf which penetrates the viewer because of the viewer’s perception of ‘over-identification’ from the sense of spirituality and absoluteness that is portrayed. John Pawson’s minimalist aesthetic in his design for the Cistercian monastery of Novy Dvur maintains a monastic austerity that both overwhelms and gently consoles.

While undertaking the reading on John Pawson and James Turrell, students should consider the following issues:

1. How do John Pawson and James Turrell use light in their design of sacred space?

Discussion following previous weeks lecture:

1. What makes a Church beautiful? What makes a Church ugly?

Reading

Bishop, Claire. Installation Art: A Critical History. New York: Routeledge, 2005. pp.82-90

Brown, Julia, ed. Occluded Front: James Turrell. Los Angeles: Fellows of Contemporary Art and the Lapis Press, 1985. pp.13-44

Daelemans, Bert S.J. Spiritus Loci: A Theological Method for Contemporary Church Architecture. Boston: Brill, 2015. pp.69-86

Haepke, Nadine. Sakrale Inszenierungen in der zeitgenössischen Architektur : John Pawson - Peter Kulka - Peter Zumthor. transcript-Verl: Bielefeld, 2013

Herbert, Lynn M. James Turrell, Spirit and light. Houston: Houston Contemporary Arts Museum, 1998. pp.12-13

Week 5

Lecture: The Experience of Art in the Church

An introduction to art from the position of the observer, the artist, the scholar, and the critic looking at a series of case studies examining the different ways that people respond to art in the church compared with the experience in a museum. The lecture will look at particular installations of contemporary artworks that have been in both Churches and Museums and discuss the potential the work has to carry more layers of meaning in sacred space. When artworks are installed in the church they acquire a religious meaning which is often entirely unintended and unexpected.

1. The roles of Religious and Non-Religious Art in the Church

2. Church vs. White Cube

3. Case Studies – Stories from visitors to exhibitions of contemporary art in Churches and

Museums.

Seminar: Joseph Beuys and Marina Abramovic

Joseph Beuys's diverse body of work ranges from traditional media of drawing, painting, and sculpture, to process-oriented, or time-based "action" art, the performance of which suggested how art may exercise a healing effect (on both the artist and the audience) when it takes up psychological, social, and/or political subjects. Seductive, fearless, and outrageous, Marina Abramović has been redefining what art is for nearly forty years. Using her own body as a vehicle, pushing herself beyond her physical and mental limits––and at times risking her life in the process––she creates performances that challenge, shock, and move us.

While undertaking the reading on Joseph Beuys and Marina Abramović, students should consider the following issues:

1. What can art be? Can a lecture or a public discussion be art?

2. How do Beuys and Abramović consider the role of the artist as a vocation?

Discussion following previous weeks lecture:

1. Is it possible to capture or reproduce a religious experience?

Reading

Abramović, Marina, Biesenbach, Klaus, and Museum of Modern Art. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2010.

Jones, Amelia. Body Art/performing the Subject. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998.

Martin, F. David. Art and the Religious Experience: The ‘Language’ of the Sacred. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1972.

Stachelhaus, Heiner. Joseph Beuys. Translated into English by David Britt. New York: Abbeville Press, 1991.

Temkin, Ann. "Joseph Beuys: An Introduction to His Life and Work." In Thinking Is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys. Philadelphia and New York: Philadelphia Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, 1993.

Week 6

Lecture: Priorities of Ritual-Aesthetic Experience

The majority of installations of contemporary art in churches feature works that are not explicitly religious. We will look at areas within the church which can accommodate the non-religious artwork by a method of zoning the sacred space. Through extensive research on the previous forty years of art in the Church, there has emerged a series of priorities in the relationship that the artworks have to the architecture and liturgy. Four main categories for these priorities include: Form, Content, Context and Affect.

1. The relationship between the artwork and the space. Form and Content Priorities

2. The relationship between the artwork and the viewer. Context and Affect Priorities

3. Zoning Sacred Space

Seminar: Ai Weiwei and Damien Hirst

Damien Hirst’s works are explicitly concerned with the fundamental dilemmas of human existence; his constant themes have included the fragility of life, society's reluctance to confront death, and the nature of love and desire, often clothed in titles which exist somewhere between the naive and the disingenuous. Ai Weiwei employs sarcasm, juxtaposition, and repetition to reinvigorate the potency and symbolism of traditional images and to reframe the familiar with minimal means. Ai Weiwei’s work addresses some of the most critical global issues of the early twenty-first century, including the relationship between tradition and modernity, the role of the individual and the state, questions of human rights, and the value of freedom of expression.

While undertaking the reading on Ai Weiwei and Damien Hirst, students should consider the following issues:

1. What are some of the religious themes that emerge in considering the work of Damien Hirst?

2. How has censorship affected the work of Ai Weiwei?

Discussion following previous weeks lecture:

1. How is the experience of art in a church different from a white cube?

Reading

Ambrozy, Lee. [editor] Ai Weiwei's blog : writings, interviews, and digital rants, 2006-2009. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2011

Luke White, ‘Damien Hirst’s Shark: Nature, Capitalism and the Sublime’, in Nigel Llewellyn and Christine Riding (eds.), The Art of the Sublime, Tate Research Publication, January 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/the-sublime/luke-white-damien-hirsts-shark-nature-capitalism-and-the-sublime-r1136828, accessed 28 March 2016.

Week 7

Lecture: How to select artworks and engage artists in the Church

This lecture addresses the challenge of navigating through the world of contemporary art to find works that are appropriate for the church.

1. What makes an artwork appropriate for the Church?
2. Permanent vs. Temporary Installations of Contemporary Art in Churches
3. Consolation, Disturbance, Blasphemy and Provocation

Seminar: Anselm Kiefer and Christian Boltanski

Anselm Kiefer’s artwork ranges from intimate books that explore post-war German identity to monumental public sculpture installations encompassing philosophy, history, literature, politics and moral issues. Kiefer urges the viewer to challenge received narratives about war, identity, religion, moralit, memory and history. Christian Boltanski collects photographs, clothes and objects arranging them in shrine-like installations which serve as mute testimony to human experience and suffering. His works exhibit a transcendental honesty, relaying emotions and “telling the truth more truthfully than with the truth itself.”

While undertaking the reading on Anselm Kiefer and Christian Boltanski, students should consider the following issues:

1. How does a generation born right after unspeakable traumas confront the events of their predecessors?

Discussion following previous weeks lecture:

1. Which of the ritual-aesthetic priorities would be most appropriate in and around the sanctuary?

Reading

Caines, Rebecca. Christian Boltanski: Representation and the Performance of Memory. afterimage, July/August 2004. pp.4-5

Jacob, Mary Jane. “From Introduction.” In Christian Boltanski: Lessons of Darkness, edited by Howard Singerman, 49-88. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1988.

López-Pedraza, Rafael. Anselm Kiefer : after the catastrophe. London [u.a.]: Thames and Hudson, 1996 ; 1. publ.

Saltzman, Lisa. Anselm Kiefer and Art after Auschwitz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Stoker, Wessel. Can Heaven Bear the Weight of History? The ‘Spirituality of Concrete’ in the Work of Anselm Kiefer. Literature and Theology, 2010, Vol. 24(4), pp.397-410

Week 8

Lecture: The exhibition as a pilgrimage

Since the fourth century, Churches have accommodated processions and pilgrimages, from the arrival of the emperor to the way of the cross. This movement through the church building has been an important feature of liturgical ritual. In order to demonstrate how a church plan can be organised to accommodate a pilgrimage, this lecture will involve a virtual tour of an exhibition.

1. The Pilgrimage

2. Virtual Tour of a series of installations within a church

Seminar: Wolfgang Laib and Maurizio Cattelan

Wolfgang Laib’s works are often made from one or a combination of two materials, accumulated from natural elements—such as milk, marble, pollen, rice, and beeswax—which have been selected for their purity and symbolic associations. His attention to human scale, duration of time, and his choice of materials give his work the power to transport us to unexpected realms of memory, sensory pleasure, and contemplation. Maurizio Cattelan creates unsettlingly veristic sculptures that reveal contradictions at the core of today’s society. While bold and irreverent, the work is also deadly serious in its scathing critique of authority and the abuse of power. Although an ironic humor threads much of his work, a profound meditation on mortality forms the core of Cattelan’s practice.

While undertaking the reading on Wolfgang Laib and Maurizio Cattelan, students should consider the following issues:

1. What could Wolfgang Laib mean when he says “it is not my task to explain this” when talking about his work?

2. Maurizio Cattelan’s works have been described as provocative, satirical, and blasphemous. Is there a place in the church for provocation?

Discussion following previous weeks lecture:

1. What are some of the obvious signs that an artist would not be appropriate for a church?

Reading

Bonami, Francesco. Maurizio Cattelan: The Unauthorized Autobiography. Open Road Media, 2013

Jeffrey, Celina. "To See the World in a Grain of Sand": Wolfgang Laib and the Aesthetics of Interpenetrability. Religion and the Arts. Volume 17, Issue1-2. 2013. pp.57-73

Lodermeyer, Peter. Time-Space-Existence: A Conversation with Wolfgang Laib. Sculpture, March 2008, pp.24-29

Pickstone, Charles. The Art of Blasphemy. Art & Christianity. Vol.51, July 2007. pp.2-4

Week 9

Lecture: Art as Language

From Banksy’s street stencils to the fragment of an ancient Greek vase, from painted altarpieces to the Sunday comics, words and images have long conspired to produce artworks that transcend the sums of their parts. This lecture will explore ways in which the Church building contributes meaning in the artworks. Students will be given a series of tools to make sense of contemporary art.

1. The vocabulary and grammar of contemporary art

2. Tools for making sense of contemporary art

3. The Church as Translator

Seminar: Janet Cardiff & George Burges Miller and Rachel Whiteread

Janet Cardiff and George Burges Miller’s immersive multimedia works create transcendent multisensory experiences which draw the viewer into often unsettling narratives. Through various levels of engagement, the viewer becomes a participant, either witnessing a phenomenon or becoming immersed in a scenario and vitally activating it. Rachel Whiteread’s sculptures inspired by the physicality of the human body, her works are poignant for their exploration of intimate domestic spaces and household objects. Her casting of negative spaces has viewers reimagine their space through voids.

While undertaking the reading on Janet Cardiff & George Burges Miller and Rachel Whiteread, students should consider the following issues:

1. Discuss the experience of subjectivity in the art of Janet Cardiff and George Burges Miller.

2. How do the works by Rachel Whiteread deal with memory and commemoration?

Discussion following previous weeks lecture:

1. How can the contemporary art exhibition function as a pilgrimage?

Reading

Benjamin, Walter. The Task of the Translator in Bullock, Marcus (ed.) Walter Bejamin: Selected Writings. Vol.1. 1913-1926. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1996. pp.254-263

Egoyan, Atom. “Janet Cardiff”. BOMB, Spring 2002. pp.60-67

Holm, Michael Juul (ed.) and Marcus, Mette. Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller interviewed by Michael Juul Holm. Louisiana Contemporary. Exh. cat. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Humlebæk, 2006

Lingwood, James ed. Rachel Whiteread: House. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1995.

Whiteread, Rachel and Rose, Andrea. ‘Rachel Whiteread Interviewed by Andrea Rose’, Rachel Whiteread: British Pavilion, XLVII Venice Biennale, London: The British Council, 1997, pp.29-35.

Week 10

Lecture: Theology in Art

This lecture explores the role of aesthetic experience in our perception and understanding of the holy. Two interrelated threads that have been primary in theological aesthetics through the ages, namely the beauty and vision of God and the theology of the image. The incarnation not only encouraged and sustained the hope for the vision of God, it provided the very basis for theologies of the image throughout Christian history. The lecture will explore how best to understand what is essential, expendable, or deceptive about truth, beauty, goodness, and their opposites in relation to works of contemporary art and will feature an examination of the power and limitations of these concepts.

1. Contemporary art as a visual homily – Using art in preaching

2. Aesthetical and Mystical Theology in Contemporary Art

3. Dogmatic and Moral Theology in Contemporary Art

4. Theology of the Body in Contemporary Art

Seminar: Gavin Turk and Patricia Piccinini

Gavin Turk stages or remakes iconic artworks from the past, borrowing from the history of art and fused with references to contemporary popular culture. In doing so he emphasises the power of artists to transform ‘things’, while questioning the uniqueness of creativity. Patricia Piccinini makes unsettling hyperreal sculptures that are confronting and ambiguous, pushing the boundaries of what is human and animal. She tackles issues of genetic engineering, bioethics, the naturalisation of technology and the prognosis for human existence in our contemporary world.

While undertaking the reading on Gavin Turk and Patricia Piccinini, students should consider the following issues:

1. Patricia Piccinini said, "with creation...comes an obligation to care for the result." How does her work raise bioethical issues?

2. What are some of the underpinning philosophical ideas in the work of Gavin Turk?

Discussion following previous weeks lecture:

1. What does it mean to describe the Church as translator?

Reading

Collins, Judith. Gavin Turk. London: Prestel, 2013

McDonald, Helen. Patricia Piccinini: Nearly Beloved. Sydney: Piper Press, 2012

Wider Reading List

This Reading List is in no way extensive. It presents a range of historical and critical readings that will inform weekly Tutorial discussions. The texts listed in the bibliography do not necessarily represent the best available writing on the material covered. Instead, they are intended to provide a broad sample of prevailing readings that employ a variety of methodologies. You will find these texts useful to help define terms, to gauge different approaches to art historical and theoretical writing and to generate your own position. Listed material that is not included in the Reader will be

included on the online library resource (app.box.com)

Andrew, E. Writing the Sacred Journey: The Art and Practice of Spiritual Memoir, Boston, Massachusetts And Enfield, Skinner House. 2005

Anon. Yves Klein Now: Sixteen Views, London, South Bank Centre. 1995

Art Gallery Of Ontario. The Sacred and Profane in Symbolist Art, Toronto. 1969

Ashton, D. The Unknown Shore. A View of Contemporary Art. [With Reproductions.], pp. Xvii I. 265. Studio Vista: London; Printed In U.S.A, 1964

Ashton, D. About Rothko, New York, Da Capo Press. 1996

Avgitidou, A. The Artist As Subject In Creative Stasis And Drasis, Explored Through Performative Subjectivity In Media Art And Diary Practice. [Phd Thesis], London, London Institute. 2003

Baas, J. Smile Of The Buddha: Eastern Philosophy And Western Art From Monet To Today, Berkeley, California And London, University Of California Press. 2005

Barnes, S. J. The Rothko Chapel: An Act of Faith, Houston, Texas, Rothko Chapel, Austin, University Of Texas Press. 1989

Baxendall. M. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1972

Bellah, R. N. Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World, New York and London, Harper And Row. 1976

Benezra, Neal and Olga M. Visa. Distemper: Dissonant Themes in the Art of the

1990s. Washington; New York: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,

Smithsonian Institution & OAP, 1996. 7 -21.

"Best of the '90s: A Special Issue." Artforum 38.4 Dec. 1999

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