International Times: Holing The Secular Ship

I've just had my first book review published by International Times. It's about 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord':

'Building on the editors’ Introduction, Jonathan A. Anderson adds to their mapping of the field with four useful interpretive horizons – anthropological, political, spiritual and theological – all grounded in specific examples of relatively recent exhibitions. Key contributors to the evolving debate such as Eleanor Heartney, Aaron Rosen and Daniel A. Siedell are included and take the opportunity to update and add to their distinctive contributions. Other significant interlocutors – Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, [James] Elkins ... Ben Quash and S. Brent Rodriguez-Plate – contribute in the colloquy which forms the Afterword.

While being of particular interest to practitioners and academics, the book – by summarising earlier research and through case studies of artists and exhibitions – provides an interesting and varied introduction to this field of study and practice; one which is increasingly featuring in the programmes of major museums and galleries.'

This book derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art (ASCHA) which was called 'A Strange Place Still? Religion in Contemporary Art'. I contributed to a later ASCHA symposium and my paper can be read on the ArtWay site - click here. My Artlyst interview with Jonathan A. Anderson can be found here, my review of Daniel A. Siedell's 'God in the Gallery' can be found here, and my exhibitions for the Visual Commentary on Scripture, which is directed by Ben Quash, can be found here and here. 

Several of my short stories have been published by International Times, the Magazine of Resistance, including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's mudcub sculptures, which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford last Autumn. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'.

My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

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Nick Cave and Nicholas Lens - Liturgy Of Divine Absence.