A Progressive View on Religion and Modern Art

This article examines the Religious Art of Today exhibition, originally held in 1944 at Boston’s Institute of Modern Art and then reformulated for the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio. The exhibition was eclectic in that it included a wide range of artists and a diversity of faiths, and engaged the deba...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fowler, Cynthia (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2015
In: Religion and the arts
Year: 2015, Volume: 19, Issue: 5, Pages: 488-530
Further subjects:B religious art Catholic art Jewish art Navajo art modern art expressionism figuration German expressionism Boston-based artists Institute of Contemporary Art Institute of Modern Art
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:This article examines the Religious Art of Today exhibition, originally held in 1944 at Boston’s Institute of Modern Art and then reformulated for the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio. The exhibition was eclectic in that it included a wide range of artists and a diversity of faiths, and engaged the debate held among museum professionals about the relationship between religion and modern art. The article focuses closely on Catholic, Jewish, and Navajo art included in the exhibition. The IMA’s commitment to the figurative tradition afforded artists the opportunity to explore their identities—as Jews, as Catholics, as Navajos—using recognizable religious subjects. That the works in the exhibition were selected as representative of modern art resulted in a convergence of discourses related to modern art with those of religious/cultural identity.
ISSN:1568-5292
Contains:In: Religion and the arts
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685292-01905002