Ann Hamilton’s inclusion in this piece perplexed me. I felt if her art addressed the issue of spirituality, it was in an extremely abstract way. While I understand that definitions of spirituality vary more than species of insects on Earth, her art seemed to deal much more with the way we interact with our physical space than with what many people would define as spirituality. Perhaps, this was intentional by the director or producer. If so, I find that fascinating. I don’t know if I have had enough time to truly digest that possibility to form a conclusion from it.
John Feodorov was, by far, my favorite artist that was highlighted in this piece. His ability to combine ancient religions into a simultaneous indictment of both those religions and the modern “religion” of money, consumerism, and the elevation of one’s own social status was both comical and thought provoking.
Shahzia Shikander’s circular (I would say cyclical) viewpoint of life, culture, and religion, was incredibly on point. Her ability to adapt without losing her roots when moving from Pakistan to Texas, came through in the evolution of her art. It was amazing to watch her explore her own growth as an artist moving from, what seemed like, an incredibly disciplined craft of miniature painting to owning the discipline as her own art to blowing it up on a grand scale in the show she was working on in the end. To go from a time frame of 3-4 years of show prep to 4 days is quite a change. She seemed to tie in some traditional Islamic themes and her description of the Arabic the the Quran was fascinating, but I didn’t really get the impression that her art was spiritual-centric, so to speak.
Lastly, we got to see a look inside James Turrell’s work. Turrell worked with light in many aspects. His life’s work seems to be creating an observatory of sorts inside a crater, where you experience the sky and celestial bodies from a different perspective.
After a brief reflection on all of these artists, it is apparent why the director chose them. I believe that most of their art might not be traditionally viewed as “spiritual art,” but I think that’s the point. That spirituality is an obscure concept. That it means many different things to many different people. It will quite possibly change for every individual at one point in their life or another. I’m pretty sure that all of these artists find at least something spiritual about their art and to fully respect their work, we need to take a look at it through that lens as well.
Great point about how spirituality is such a complicated term. It was interesting seeing these artists and their work and then trying to connect it to the idea of spirituality. I agree I think that the point of the collection may have been to try and get us thinking about the idea of the spirit as opposed to trying to reinforce any one idea. I do think that there is a chance that many people will change their ideas of spirituality over time, but at the same time I think that this is something that is taught to us at a young age depending on our cultures. Many times the idea of a spirit is embedded at a young age, and therefore it becomes the idea that we live with for most of our lives.