Sacred Space, Holy Place: Groping Toward a Thesis

What makes a space we enter a sanctuary? What makes it sacred, holy?  What exactly is it about certain spaces that resonates with the human spirit so it just knows, truly knows that the place is hallowed?

For the Roman Catholic, entering a Cathedral is began with a specific decorum, continued with ritual movements meant to humble oneself before the central element in the representation of architectural and sculptural framework.  Every wall, decoration, pew.....it all means something in telling the greater story of faith and God.  And they do so with a specific aesthetic which varies from the aesthetic of the Protestant or the Orthodox Christian denominations, in building layout and in the choice of decoration. And what of commercialized religion, the architecture of the mega-church which is solely an object of function for the masses?  What does their building say about their faith?  Islamic architecture finds elaborate adornment within the confines of it's own law, and has created a visual calligraphic language of pure decoration that captures the imagination with its unique flavor. And for as much of the world which celebrates life's mysteries with the communion of a large body, so too do people choose their sanctuary as a location meant only for one.  For the Neopagan, sanctuary is a wild thing which belongs to the natural forces and is marked off by the imaginary boundaries of an imaginary circle.  Buddhist and Hindus take their everyday practice to the everyday sanctuary within the home, often in a room set aside with an alter, upon which sits statuary or a scroll of meditation.

What is worship, exactly?  Most associated with songs of praise and shouts of joy, worship can exist in all that we do as humans toward our God, as long as our lips are at the moment of worship filled with divine words and our hearts with divine love and our minds with divine thoughts, and we are making ourselves less so that God may grow within us..  We worship collectively under the umbrella of some sort of religious institute or personally in our own home.  The quest for God draws people together.  And so does art.

Artists are spiritual beings who are more keenly aware of this fact than perhaps the rest of this.  As the nature of religion has changed in the last two hundred years, so too has the role of the artist, who, in a postmodern context has succumbed to the role of a secular prophet in the West, no longer just a craftsman.

Daniell Siedell, whose writing God in the Gallery: A Christian Approach to Modern Art has been an invaluable resource in my study of what it means to be bring the sacred in to the gallery setting perhaps put it perfectly when he explained the changed role of art in the context of religion in a postmodern world of plurality and doubt:  According to him, the premodern

understanding of transcendence privileged intellection, self-reflection, and the dislocation of mind from body.....as premodern discourses privileges religious institutions as the framework within which or the foundation upon which transcendence was understood in and through social, cultural, and political practice, modernity increasingly privileged the experience of the arts, particularly the visual arts, as the purest expression of transcendence for the modern world.

But this aesthetic limited itself to the visual arts until now when current movements are slowly breaking the barrier and drawing

closer to religion, as a complex set of practices that produce experience, that constitute belief, rather than merely living shape to preexistent experience and belief. (81)

But is this return to the Spiritual in art an honest groping of mankind or simply the appropriation of the religious symbols to tell a very different story?  Can we still come face to face with the same sense of wonder and awe and humility before a painting displayed in an art museum as we do before a sculptural crucifix?  And should we even bother?  

I can’t remember who called the Christian church the living church, the art galleries the church for the (spiritually) dead, but I believe the statement falls in line with the idea that in a world that was supposed to have gone completely secular by now, the Art Gallery replaces the church as the voice of the human spiritual search. Luckily for us, our society is not truly secular, but it in the middle of an identity crisis somewhere between being people of faith and people of set completely apart from an institution of thought whatsoever.  We have lost sight of the Truth in the wake of a thousand screaming voices that all need to be heard, and NOW.  For those individuals who have completely stepped away from organized religion, the importance of the Art Gallery raises in importance as the messengers of Spirit to an audience who is groping for some truth at the altar of the unnamed God.

I find it amazing and intriguing there are Churches out there that are also Art Galleries that play with the concept of worship space as art space, such as Gallery SALT Art Space in New York City which does not shy away being an environment where both art and worship do Happen.  Then there is the interdenominational Rothko Chapel in Houston Texas, which is more than just a sanctuary for his artwork, you are invited to meditate there, pray there and even get married there if you don't want any pictures.  I've read comparisons of the Musee de l'Orangerie, which hangs Monet's famous Water Lilies, with that of a scared space; for the arts anyway. has been described as a Chapel, in mood and feel to his work.   

Other artists have explored the concept of Sacred Space in both  meditative and mundane ways.  Native American artist Whitehawk has an installation called This Sacred Space which explores the definition of sacred space from her unique cultural vantage point, a project meant for healing that appeared in the Tampa Museum of Art and the the Bareiss Gallery in New Mexico.  Robert Gober of the Mathew Marks Gallery in New York take a much more avant-garde approach to using a religious language of symbols in his work which marries them with a political and personal message.  One large scale installation, which has just recently been purchased by MOMA, integrates the Catholic mass imagery specifically, with a headless crucifix at the center.

Then there's the Jewish Exhibit I mentioned last week.

Each of these displays has a different purpose, in the sens of high art or in the more obvious intention toward worship.  In both cases, though, the concept was birthed by an Artist, with an intention toward Truth or his own truth, and the conversations begun by these people is valid regardless of the voice or intent.  As Gober’s work acknowledges, sacred can be found in the grossly mundane, even slightly profane if only we look beneath the surface.

Do not confuse me, though.  I do not mean that we should Worship Art. But Art has this power to point to echoes of God that words often fail at, and all art, made by a Christian or not, is equally valid in that search for our Creator for that end.  Even in our inherent brokenness as people can Grace pour through, as even in the brokenness of postmodern art can grace also be painted and whispered of.  Gallery or High Art, though, is a modern version of the Alter to the Unnamed God found in Acts......the worship is there, but Truth has not yet been found. 

I find myself increasingly attracted to the liturgical installations of Nancy Chinn, which are of such a quality that to have them hang in the museum setting would be an interesting experiment, considering the temporal and impermanent nature of her work which plays a direct role in the role of Worship. 

I have also looked at a series of photographers who have for subject matter the worship spaces of their specific cultures.  But the sand Mandala tradition also interests me in its sense of impermanence.

To get back to my opening.  What makes a space a sacred space?  Is it because us humans say it is so, or because it is marked by divine decoration setting it apart?  Or is it the people you see when you are in the space?  I want to know what you think.  How does one approach a not-a-show toward such an angle?