ArtWay

Quality is the first norm for art, but its final norm is love and truth, the enriching of human life, the deepening of our vision.

NEWS WINTER 2025

ARTWAY NEWS, CURRENT EXHIBITIONS, SYMPOSIA AND LECTURES, PODCASTS, VIDEOS, BOOKS
 
VESSEL ONLINE TALK WITH CURATOR JACQUILINE CRESWELL AND ARTISTS
23 January, 19:00 - 20:00 GMT  | Online
Hear about the project’s conception, the partnership with Friends of Friendless Churches, the process of choosing and curating the art, and the community engagement and evaluation. Three of the artists will join for the talk – Barbara Beyer, Andrew Bick, and Steinunn Thorarinsdottir. You can get a taste of the trail by viewing the videos at: https://vimeo.com/showcase/11320756
 
JONATHAN ANDERSON: IN/DWELLINGS
15 January - 27 March 2025  | Vancouver, BC, Canada
Visit the Dal Schindell Gallery from January 15 to March 27, 2025, to view In/dwellings, a selection of artworks by Professor Jonathan Anderson. You’re also invited to a reception with Jonathan on Wednesday, January 15 (4–7 pm) and an artist talk on Monday, January 27 (6–7:30 pm).
 
CAA 2025: RECONSIDERING RELIGION IN MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART: METHODS AND APPROACHES
15 February, 09:00 - 10:30 AM Eastern Time | New York City, USA
This session at the CAA 2025 Annual Conference presents papers that consider the current 'state of the field' of art and religion, proposing or engaging methodological approaches that are rigorous enough to provoke and further current scholarly discourse.
While religious ideas and commitments inform much of modern and contemporary art-making, such sensibilities remain stubbornly under-explored within serious scholarly and art-critical writing. Such hermeneutic reticence is, however, provokingly challenged in recent publications such as Jonathan Anderson, The (In)visibilities of Religion in Contemporary Art (Forthcoming from Notre Dame, 2025); Erika Doss, Spiritual Moderns (University of Chicago, 2023); and Bernier and Smith, eds., Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord (Routledge, 2023).
What opportunities, strategies, and methodologies are available to cultivate serious writing that responsibly engages with religious sensibility in contemporary art history? How might we, as chroniclers and interpreters of modern and contemporary art, continue to re-think and re-write a more complete, nuanced story? 
 
OPEN CALL: MORPHE ARTS RESIDENCY
Morphē has announced applications are now open for the Morphē Arts residency in East London. “After the success of our first year, this second round of residencies runs for six months from Easter and includes a studio, weekly seminars on art and Christian theology, tutorials, final exhibition and personal mentoring. Oh, and did we mention the weekly lunches?”
 
CALL FOR PAPERS AND SYMPOSIUM ANNOUNCEMENT:
Contemporary Art as/in Pilgrimage and Sacred Site
Tuesday February 11, 2025  | New York City, Faculty House at Columbia University
This one-day symposium seeks to explore contemporary art as pilgrimage and sacred site as the foundation for a new interdisciplinary project that draws into relationship the wealth of research arising out of pilgrimage and ritual studies, contemporary art history and criticism, anthropology, and religious and theological studies, with a particular focus on how artists perceive and conceive notions of sacred journey.
Proposals due 15 December.
 
EXHIBITION: TOWARDS EASTER SUNDAY 2025 by GERT SWART
23 Feb - 27 Apr ‘25 | Pietermaritzburg, South Africa
Towards Easter Sunday 2025: Who am I? is the title of South African sculptor Gert Swart’s upcoming exhibition at the Tathum Gallery in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. Dr Jorella Andrews writes that, the exhibition “will focus on portals and thresholds, a theme that has been of great importance to him throughout his life as an artist […] At first sight, the space may seem overwhelming; a space in which one is likely to get lost. But as you find yourself drawn to a particular portal and as you begin to engage with it, the idea is that you will begin to find yourself in some way. Perhaps you will re-find a dimension of yourself that was somehow mislaid. […] You might decide to tackle other portals that felt less immediately intuitive or appealing. […] In any case, here is the promise of another scene - a scene of display - that will be alive, active, exploratory and challenging...”
 
EXHIBITION: SEEING THE UNSEEN
Reality and imagination in the art of Stanley Spencer
7 Nov ‘24 - 30 Mar ‘25 | Cookham, UK
Launching on 7 November, the Stanley Spencer Gallery offers an exhibit that looks at what inspired this important 20th century artist and shows how his reality and imagination merged.
 
THE STORYTELLERS, ART INSTALLATION AT WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL
11-15 March 2025 | Winchester, UK
Tickets are now on sale for the World Premiere of The Storytellers at Winchester Cathedral. Luxmuralis created this immersive light and sound show about the greatest stories ever told.
 
AN INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM FOR THEOLOGY AMD THE ARTS AT DUKE UNIVERSITY
Early-bird registration now open
4-7 September 2025 | DURHAM, USA
Launching on 7 November, the Stanley Spencer Gallery offers an exhibit that looks at what inspired this important 20th century artist and shows how his reality and imagination merged.
 
CALL FOR PAPERS
Flesh and Blood Theologies: Society for the Study of Theology Conference
7 Apr - 10 Apr 10 ‘25 | Warwick University, UK
The Society for the Study of Theology holds an annual conference every Spring at Warwick University. For 2025, there will be a seminar strand on Arts and Theology convened by Ben Quash and Devon Abts.
 
ART EXHIBITION: BRUCE ONOBRAKPEYA, The Mask and the Cross
21 Jun ‘24 - 21 Jan ‘25 | Washington DC, USA
A father of African modernism, Bruce Onobrakpeya (b. 1932) is one of Nigeria’s most celebrated artists, and I was thrilled this month to visit his first solo show in the US, which, as it turns out, is centered on his Christian-themed linocut prints! (The artist is Anglican.) Onobrakpeya’s career spans over six decades, and this Smithsonian exhibition is not meant to be representative of the breadth of his oeuvre, which also includes painting and sculpture and various subject matters; rather, it presents two foundational bodies of work from the late sixties, both commissioned by the Catholic Church, that helped launch the artist’s long and esteemed career.
 
VAN GOGH: POETS AND LOVERS
14 September ‘24 – 19 January ‘25| London, UK
The National Gallery brings together the most loved of Van Gogh’s paintings from across the globe, some of which are rarely seen in public. They will be paired together with his extraordinary drawings.
See up-close his ‘Starry Night over the Rhône’ (1888, Musée d’Orsay) and ‘The Yellow House’ (1888, Van Gogh Museum), as well as our own ‘Sunflowers’ (1888) and ‘Van Gogh's Chair’ (1889), among many others.
 
REUNITED: THE LAMENTATION ALTARPIECE
21 March ‘24 - 28 February ‘25 | Compton Verney Art, UK
For the first time in thirty years, a rare masterpiece will be reunited. Bringing together the central panel from The National Gallery of Scotland’s collection, with the original wings in Compton Verney’s collection, the magnificent Lamentation Altarpiece dated c. 1515, will take center stage in the Northern European collection of Compton Verney.