“Spiritual World” is the first exhibition in RAINRAIN’s guest curator program and also the first collaboration with Naimark. Naimark is based in Copenhagen and has been the curator of the city’s space Salon 75. In a nice curatorial element, many of the wall works in “Spiritual World” are roughly the same medium to small size, creating a beautiful harmony in the large, airy gallery space. In EFA’s residency Summerworks, another Danish artist, Laurits Malte Gülöf, tackles religion. He collaborates with Robert Blackburn Print Studio to enlarge images of people reflected on the water from photographs taken by his grandfather during his travels in the Middle East, Syria, Lebanon and other places in the “Holy Land”. His grandfather, a devout Protestant and missionary, traveled there to collect material for his books. “There, people were portrayed as barbarians and the landscapes romanticized,” Gülöf explains deprecatingly. For the Danish, who have a stricter separation of church and state than the United States and a greater degree of liberation through independence from politics, education, and science, it is easy to approach personal faith as something that distances itself from institutional power.
According to a statement from the exhibition, the group show “Spiritual World” takes its cues from Alfred Stieglitz’s 1923 photograph of a gelding, “Spiritual America,” and the 2002 film “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.” Curator Theodor Naimark explains: everyone Has anyone in Denmark ever seen a film that glorifies the American West? I haven’t, but I find them a bit pretentious, like Nymark’s show, and a bit embarrassing, like his take on traditional religion. Mooooooo (fake cow) (2023/2024), like Stieglitz and the film, also comments on the taming of animal bodies and the earth, but with more humor. Black block letters silkscreened onto fake font describe the sensation of eating cow meat: “Chew on a charred clit clover (Who ordered that?)” and “Let your bulbous cos roam the streets.” Packaged meat, I think. In the window, MOOOOOO is written in metal letters used to brand cows. Kay Yun’s Shell of Probability (9#/13) (2023) is made up of car parts mounted on the wall that transform into Korean ceremonial bowls that emit singing sounds when the viewer strikes the metal with a small hammer. Pearl Street Station Model Elegantly framed in magenta pastel, the painting depicts Thomas Edison’s first commercial power plant in Manhattan’s Financial District, but the spirit of the painting is inhabited by the agricultural, industrial and energy sectors.
The topic of the week was Trump’s attempt to encourage Christians to vote at an event held in West Palm Beach by the conservative group Turning Point Action. “Christians, I love you. I’m a Christian. I love you. Go out and vote. In four years, you won’t have to vote anymore. We’ll fix it, and you won’t have to vote,” Trump said. In the United States, democracy and Christianity are deeply intertwined, and Christian groups have even trumped the democratic process. The most influential branch of the Christian conservative movement, which has won more than 15 Supreme Court cases related to reproductive health and LGBTQ, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade, is the Alliance Defending Freedom. American artist Lara Joy Evans says she’s stopped relying on the Bible and that technology is the way to go. Communication Relic No.03 (2024) chromogenic print of a satellite dish. Other artists in Naimark’s exhibition, Joe Van Keo, Amitai Lom and Quay Quin Wolf, offer similarly poignant comments that shift the focus from religion as an institution to science, or even personal concerns that could be described as spiritual, within Naimark’s context.
Religion and spirituality are clearly on the rise in the contemporary art world, and I appreciate a secular perspective on this subject.
Spiritual World | Hosted by Theodor Naimark It runs until August 9th at RAINRAIN, 110 Lafayette Street #201, New York.
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