Faculty Member Talks Religion and Contemporary Art with the Observer

SAIC faculty member James Elkins (Art History, Theory, and Criticism) was recently quoted in an article in the Observer. The article, titled “Keeping God Out of the Gallery,” discusses the ways religion is kept out of contemporary art. Elkins has experience with the topic, having previously written a book titled On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art.

“Since the 1960s, avant-garde visual art has been understood as primarily oppositional,” Elkins tells the Observer. “Therefore, religious art that does not present itself as critical of the religions it evokes would be seen as failing to participate in the more interesting streams of Postmodern and Contemporary practice.”

In addition to Elkins, the article includes a myriad of voices and perspectives on the topic of religion and contemporary art.