Believe is an exhibition about the penetration of religion and spirituality into everyday life. It is about the objects, monuments, narratives and images that transform the experience of faith into a palpable manifestation. The works of Jaishri Abichandani, Shelly Bahl, Onel Naar, Rashaad Newsome, and Mikal Levon Calloway propose that we are all touched by religion, in one way or another. Indeed, their works suggest that religion is often an integral part of an individual¹s primary identity or a society’s basic structure. It may frame his or her perception of the world; it may be the very condition for the aspirations, choices, and possibilities in his or her lifetime.

Jaishri Abichandani’s video, Happily Never After (2005) is an exploration and critique of religious rituals that influence the destiny of a woman’s life. Shot at night, in an unmarked place, the video shows a fortune-telling robot hypnotically delivering seven choices to the viewer. These variations, based on ancient legends of Hindu women saints, are all impossible to accomplish. Through the collapse of time and space, which entraps the viewer in a subjugated relationship with the robot, the work asks why anyone would want to follow these unreasonable choices. Since their acceptance leads to an unhappy end, we are lead to wonder how religion is able to lure the faithful to act in ways that seem irrational.

In Ceremonial II (2006), a sculpture made of wax figurines, Shelly Bahl meditates on the fate of religious iconography in a modern culture dominated by commodities. By transforming images of dancing women found in medieval Hindu temples into kitsch objects, Bahl suggests that the religious and the commercial spheres are not so far apart. In fact, the arrangement of the mass-produced figurines in a floral pattern suggests that images of devotion in one cultural context have become akin to domestic bibelots or home décor in another. Coming full circle, however, the presence of these figures within a contemporary gallery space suggests that the “white cube” is also a form of sacred space, with its own rituals and customs.

Onel Naar’s Babylon the Great as a Prostitute (2006) is an incisive investigation of self-destruction in both American and Middle Eastern cultures. With the image of Jim Morrison as a central ornamental motif and attributes such as his leather jacket, hair, and microphone brought into relief Naar directs the viewer to consider the relation between the rock’n’roll life, the cult aspects of musical devotion, and the often self-destructive tendencies of both icon and fan. At the same time, the repeated geometric design, hand-placed by the artist to resemble tiles at a mosque, suggests an opening toward an Islamic world-view. By transposing these two cultures, Naar evaluates current notions of violence as they are symbolized in the popular imagery of the West and the Middle East.

The video Elysian Fields (2005) is Rashaad Newsome’s study of the moment of spiritual euphoria, or “holy ghost”, as it is expressed in the Southern Baptist faith. The gestural archive of these instances in which worshippers are literally possessed by the spirit suggests that religion can create a means of escapism. The protagonists experience a moment of intensity when they are both inside and outside their body. This estrangement is further emphasized by the accompanying gospel sung by The Barrett Sisters. Played backwards, it adds another layer of detachment to the already isolated motions of the worshipper and the separation from any kind of knowable context. This defamiliarization offers a way to reflect on the physical language that constitutes ritual in traditional models of organized religion.

Also hailing from the south, Mikal Levon Calloway makes sculptural dolls, which transmit the stories, spirits, and people that comprise his colorful family—a mélange of native-American, African-American, and Caribbean. Fabricated out of found objects, beads, sequins, clothing, buttons, feathers, and other materials, each doll is a testament to a history dating back to the early 19th century when Calloway’s family lived in Cairo, Georgia. His sculptures of “conjure women” and “root men,” church ladies, spirits, and mythical beings come directly from tales told him at the knee of his great grandfather, a Pentecostal preacher. These stories, passed down from generation to generation, in English, French and Patois, go all the way back to the forgotten tribal tongues of the African ancestors. Each doll is an embodiment of a complex narration, one that leads back to Calloway himself, the contemporary medium for his family’s oral tradition.

Abichandani, Bahl, Naar, Newsome, and Calloway recognize that even as the modern world develops, religion continues to play a pivotal role in shaping society. Communities far and wide assemble and define themselves around rites and rituals that give them a unique identity in an increasingly globalized historical moment. Within this perspective, the individual is left to negotiate a language of spirituality that may empower, or in turn, subjugate them to an ideological system known as religion.

—Nuit Banai, Guest Writer

Artists and curator talk: October 14, 2006, 4-6 PM