MOCRA Presents "Meditations" on Art, Abstraction, and Spirituality
ST. LOUIS - Saint Louis University's Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) will hold a program on Saturday, May 3, exploring how the wide-ranging lexicons of spirituality, abstraction and Black cultural production are intertwined.
MOCRA presents “Meditations: Black Expression, Abstraction, and the Spirit - Live” from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on May 3.
“Meditations” explores the intersection of spirituality and the artistic practice of Black creatives encountering ideas within the wide lexicon of abstraction. The series takes inspiration from the final panel in artist Frederick J. Brown’s five-painting work Life of Christ Altarpiece. Brown’s portrayal of The Descent into Hell is an abstracted meditation on the spiritual and emotional sublime within lived experience.
Drawing from the example provided by Brown, the artists featured within the series are invited to consider how spirituality, abstraction and Black cultural production are intertwined. As such, “Meditations” seeks to offer a critical narrative within the discourse of not only Black cultural production, but Western art history by opening the dialogue of the contribution of Black artists beyond the politics of representation, underscoring the importance of abstraction as a tool to express qualities of the Black experience that exist beyond the body politic.
The panel includes Bentley Brown, Dail Chambers, Damon Davis, Olubukola Gradegesin, Summer Sloane-Britt and Sydney Vernon.
Frederick J. Brown, The Descent into Hell from The Life of Christ Altarpiece (1994–1995). Oil and mixed media on canvas. MOCRA collection, a gift of the Enid and Crosby Kemper Foundation and UMB Bank. At left, the painting proper. At right, the reverse of the painting.
“Meditations”
- When: 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, May 3.
- Where: SLU's Anheuser-Busch Auditorium, Cook Hall, 3874 Lindell Blvd.
- Cost: Free.
There is also an option to join online for those unable to attend in person.
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