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24/5/2005

Sacred Wild

Apexart, New York

Curated by Suzi Gablik

Sacred Wild will examine the way contemporary artists are drawn to sacred images and are using them in their everyday life. The six artists, based in Iowa, Virginia, and Illinois, incorporate or address the trend towards investigating one's personal spirituality over organized religious thought.

Artists: Jane Siegle, David T. Hanson, Hank Foreman, Kathy Pinkerton, Fern Shaffer and Othello Anderson

PUBLIC PROGRAMS:
Wed, May 25, 6-8 pm
Opening reception + brief presentations by the artists

Wed, June 15, 6:30 pm
Panel Discussion, The Ritual of Altars,
with Eddie Stern (co-publisher/editor, Namarupa, NYC)
Peg Streep (author, Altars Made Easy, NYC) and guest

Religion is getting a bit weird these days. As we face a world imperiled by fundamentalisms, it has been transformed into a war-making tool that has become incompatible with life itself. Deepak Chopra commented recently in Time magazine: "Religion has become divisive, quarrelsome, and idiotic." And that is putting it mildly. So how do we even begin to talk about art in the same breath with religion, or try to suggest that they can somehow come together again?

A culture is redefined by the creation of new narratives. The works in this show open the door to an intense revisioning of spirituality, and its shifting role in culture as it struggles against the insidious display of intolerance, rigidity, and extremism so rampant in the world right now. The artists here offer just the tonic that is needed. With intoxicating visual ravishment, they undermine everything that is fixed, hard, and rigid in favor of the improvisational spiritual journey and a "politics of process." The time has come, the Walrus said.

But for what? For becoming like a ship that can sail to any destination. For honoring each thing one by one, by being a champion of ebullience and loose ends. Annie Dillard says, "No angelic systems need to be dragged in by the hair to sprinkle upon objects a borrowed splendor." If you want to be a chip off the old sublime, just remember to always carry your kama sutra--you never know when you will need it. Lie down on a bed of marigolds. Above all, as these artists understand, maintain your quirkiness over all those who would mold you into more conventional modes. There are no clear impenetrable boundaries in the universe, but we live as if there are. So step into this free-wheeling, sunlit world, and you will know that the magical dimension of life is real. Dig in, and bathe in the new frequencies.

Suzi Gablik is an art critic, artist and teacher. She is the author of The Re-enchantment of Art and Conversations Beyond the End of Time.

Image: Fern Shaffer and Othello Anderson

apexart
291 Church Street
(between Walker and White)
New York

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