Brushes with Faith: Reflections and Conversations on Contemporary Art - Hardcover

by Aaron Rosen (Author)

Contemporary artists are engaging more deeply than ever with religious imagery, themes, practices, and audiences. With a bracing, jargon-free style, Aaron Rosen--a leading scholar, art critic, and curator--takes readers into studios, galleries, and worship spaces as he paints a compelling picture of art and religion today. Focusing on individual artists, from eminent names to emerging stars, Rosen's essays and interviews tackle key questions, from how art might sustain communities to how it might offer new approaches to conflict resolution. Drawing on years spent developing relationships with artists around the globe--from Algeria to India to the United States--Rosen gets artists to talk, often for the first time, about how religion impacts their practice. Whether inspiring or unsettling, these brushes with faith challenge and invigorate the artists in question, and those who ponder the results. Replete with more than seventy color images of works ranging from video art to outdoor installations, this volume is indispensable reading for those looking to see contemporary art in a new light.

Author Biography

Aaron Rosen is professor of religion and visual culture, director of the Henry Luce III Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and visiting professor at King's College London, where he taught previously. He began his career at Yale, Oxford, and Columbia, after receiving his PhD from Cambridge. He has curated exhibitions around the world and written widely for scholarly and popular publications. He is the author and editor of many books, including Art and Religion in the 21st Century and Encounters: The Art of Interfaith Dialogue.