Description
Book SynopsisThe book explores the complex relationship between contemporary art and religion. It focuses on the ways artists re-appropriate religious motifs as a means to reflect critically on our desire to believe in images, on the history of seeing them, and on their double power â iconic and political.
Trade Review"Breaking Resemblance is a consistently thoughtful, well-informed, original examination of modern art and some of its principal debts to the visuality of Christianity." -- -David Morgan Duke University "This fascinating book examines the presence and meaning of religious motifs, and references to religion, mostly Christian and especially Catholic, in various examples of contemporary dating from the 1990s to the present day in Europe and the United States. Especially exploring how religious motifs are appropriated and recycled, Alexandrova considers how and why contemporary artists transform and in some cases defuse religious imagery." -- -Erika Doss University of Notre Dame
Table of ContentsList of Figures Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction: Situating Contemporary Art and Religion 1. Veronicas and Artists 2. Breaking the Religious Image: Re-Inventing Religion in Art 3. Between Critical Displacements and Spiritual Affirmations 4. Images Between Religion and Art 5. The Video Veronicas of Bill Viola 6. Images That Do Not Rest: The Installations of Lawrence Malstaf 7. Illusionism Cut: the Painting of Victoria Reynolds 8. The Body Recast: The Sculpture of Berlinde de Bruyckere Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index
