The November-December issue of frieze tackles religion and spirituality. Dan Fox’s ‘State of the Art’ editorial asks if the art world’s wariness of religion is a contradiction: ‘Religious conviction is taken to be a sign of intellectual weakness, and yet meaning in art is often a question of belief.’
Philosopher Simon Critchley, in a feature interview, suggests that art, faith and politics have long been intertwined. ‘Artistically and politically, the avant-garde has always been concerned with ideas of the group based around a kind of faith’. He argues that religion allows us to think about forms of community. ‘What I want is religion without God, where religion is understood as a form of association.’
Following her celebrated 13-hour performance The Darktown Cakewalk: Celebrated from the House of FAME, artist and musician Linder looks back at the beliefs that have structured her life and work, from growing up in 1960s Liverpool and attending the local Methodist church to feminist politics and punk in the 1970s and recent forays into the worlds of Sikhism and the sculptures of Barbara Hepworth.
