Beyond Belief

Beyond Belief 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art, jointly organized by the Contemporary Jewish Museum and the SF Modern Art Museum, was a small exhibit of of how spirituality has manifested itself in modern and contemporary art. Humans, since painting on walls, have tried to make manifest in various ways the ineffable reality of spirituality, as if to punctuate the blessedness of being alive and create meaning. As a person of faith, I thought the show was not as expansive has the themes articulated in the exhibition. Regardless it did have works that invited contemplation (Mark Rothko) and reflection. But what I appreciated more than the art was the ideas and questions it posed and challenged me. How do you create meaning? How do you seek solace in the face of loss?

Janine Antoni Coddle

I grew up Catholic and have been studying religion my whole life. I’ve secretly felt that all my art at some level came from that place.

--Janine Antoni

Bruce Conner Burning Bush

 The most important tool the artist fashions through constant practice is faith in his ability to produce miracles when they are needed.  

--Mark Rothko

The angel is a very traditional idea, but it never seems to lose its meaning, because it symbolizes a connection between spirit and matter…. The angel is a dark optimism in the midst of pessimism.

--Stephen De Staebler

Helen Lundeberg Oracle

 The strongest evidence of life is creation and the most immediate form of creativity is art.

--Martin Buber

Georgia O’Keeffe Black Place I

 When your eyes are open, you see beauty in anything.

--Agnes Martin

 Art, like religion, can give you an experience of transcendence…. But art and religion are not the same thing. Religion makes the experience repeatable. Art brings us the news. It tells us there is something out there we had never imagined.

--Alan Lee, Zen Rabbi

Wilfredo Lam The Oracle and the Green Bird

Jay DeFeo The Veronica

 Everything means something. Anything in life or in art, any mark you make has meaning and the only question is, “What kind of meaning?”

--Philip Guston

This "prayer rug" was made of stainless steel pins

Teresita Fernandez

Felix Gonzales-Torres Untitled

My work is all my personal history…. I cant separate my art from my life.

--Felix Gonzales-Torres

Paul Klee  Red Houses

The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.

--Mark Rothko

Paul Klee

Like art, religion has been an attempt to find meaning and value in life, despite the suffering that flesh is heir to.

--Karen Armstrong.