Professor’s Book Explores the Intersection of Religion and Contemporary Art

A book co-edited by Wentworth Institute of Technology Professor Ronald Bernier sets the theoretical frameworks and interpretive strategies for exploring the re-emergence of religion in the making, exhibiting, and discussion of contemporary art.  

Featuring essays from both established and emerging scholars, critics, and artists, Religion and Contemporary Art reflects on what might be termed an "accord" between contemporary art and religion.  

Explored are the common strategies contemporary artists employ in the interface between religion and contemporary art practice. It also includes case studies to provide more in-depth treatments of specific artists grappling with themes such as ritual, abstraction, mythology, the body, popular culture, science, liturgy, and social justice, among other themes. 

Co-editor Rachel Hostetter Smith is Gilkison Distinguished Professor of Art History at Taylor University. She publishes widely on aspects of religion and the arts, including two edited volumes of Religion and the Arts and several exhibition catalogues. 

Bernier is a professor of Humanities at Wentworth. His books include The Unspeakable Art of Bill Viola (2014), Beyond Belief (2010), and Monument, Moment, and Memory: Monet’s Cathedral in Fin-de-Siècle France (2007). His research interests are modern and contemporary art and religious studies.