Are art galleries and museums the new churches? What is the relationship between art and faith? Does art that can inspire us to that degree even still exist?

The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas. Image: artblat.com

Emily Carr, Wind in the Tree Tops, c. 1936-1939. Image: heffel.com

I was marveling with a friend the other day at how in the early 20th century - only 100 years or so ago - people were profoundly shaken by bright colours and loose brushstrokes in painting. I was speaking specifically about the reaction of Torontonians to the early work of A.Y. Jackson and other painters who had been influenced by the likes of Edvard Munch and the Impressionists in Europe.

A.Y. Jackson, The Red Maple, 1914. Image: yorku.ca

And then today on CBC Radio’s Q, today the Reverend Jennie Hogan spoke about the relationship between faith and art, and how the Mark Rothko room at the Tate Modern can have such a profound spiritual effect on people.  Is art, she asks, replacing religion?

James Turrell’s Roden Crater Project. Image: 1.pb.blogspot.com

At a time when religion indeed seems to be on the wane, is art able to replace it? Or is art that powerful (I’m thinking Rothko, Barnett Newmann, James Turrell, even Emily Carr, even still being produced?)  Much of today’s art, as Hogan put it, unfortunately seems to be no more than a knee-jerk reaction to things.

Maybe it’s architecture, though, not art. If museums are the new cathedrals, as Hogan argues in THIS Guardian article, then maybe it’s not the art but the architectural space that now provides the sublime experience.  This is something that was brought up after Gehry built Bilbao and architecture fans flocked there like catholic pilgrims to Lourdes.

If at first glance it seems unlikely that art has replaced religion, I can think of two artists who have the power to create a faith experience, one in the positive (inspiring belief), and the other in the negative. Canadian David Rokeby’s award-winning interactive sound installation Very Nervous System (1986 - 1990) is an  invisible computer interface that sets body movements to music. Imagine walking down the street and suddenly your body movements begin to create sound! Though I haven’t seen it in the flesh, on THIS video, it seems sublime. Click that link also to find out how it works.

Secondly, and on the other side of things, is Gregor Schnieder, possibly the greatest German artist of his generation. His numbingly claustrophobic, absolutely terrifying basement installation, Weisse Folter at the K21 in Dusseldorf in 2007 shook me so profoundly that it still haunts me now, years later.

Gregor Schneider’s Weisse Folter. Image: 3.bp.blogspot.com.

So great art hasn’t lost any of it’s power. It may seem like more of a challenge for art to generate an almost spiritual reaction, but it’s still there. Perhaps it’s just harder to see, with so many mediocre artists clouding our view of it.