Issue 135
Nov – Dec 2010

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.

From this issue

Religion versus spirituality in contemporary art

BY Dan Fox |

Manhattan’s changing skyline

The emotive language used to describe art-world narratives

BY Sean O'Toole |

New approaches to evoking the idea of death

The complex relationship between science and the spirit – and how to represent it

BY Mark Pilkington |

The changing shape of the mosque in Britain

BY Pádraig Belton |

In an ongoing series, frieze asks an artist, curator or writer to list the books that have influenced them

Does theology hold the answer for revolutionary politics?

BY Paul Teasdale |

A screwed song urges the listener to internalize its dampened tempo, to stretch the existential qualities of the moment to match the music

BY Jace Clayton |

The evolution of an artist and musician

BY Linder |

Dan Fox talks to Simon Critchley about community, avant-garde rituals and being ‘religious without religion’

BY Dan Fox |

Kai Althoff’s enigmatic installations, performances and paintings resist easy answers in their explorations of sexuality and spirituality

BY Natalie Haddad |

Occultist, mystic, painter: the life and legacy of Hilma af Klint

BY Ronald Jones AND Liv Stoltz |

Machines, magic and music; perception, the body and beyond

Rules, strategies and conventions; role-play, photographs and cupboards

BY Kirsty Bell |

Fetish objects, totems and mementos; historical signs and the paranormal

BY Graham T. Beck |

French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy talks about subjects ranging from everyday life to film, the body and the soul

BY Erik Morse AND Robert Barry |

The psychologically charged paintings of 16th-century artist Lorenzo Lotto explore hermeticism and the ‘pure profane’

BY Jan Verwoert |

New Museum, New York, USA

BY Hari Kunzru |

ARC / Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris and palais de Tokyo, Paris, France

At BAWAG Contemporary, Vienna, Austria, the artist unravels the confinement of context 

BY Helen Chang |

The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, USA

BY Sean O’Toole |

Thomas Dane Gallery, London, UK

BY Martin Herbert |

Yvon Lambert, Paris, France

BY Mitch Speed |

Pilar Corrias, London, UK

BY Kate Forde |

Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles, USA

BY Jonathan Griffin |

Galerie Neu, Berlin, Germany

BY Mark Prince |

Aicon Gallery, London, UK

BY Sam Thorne |

Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia

BY Nicola Harvey |

Gagosian Gallery, New York, USA

BY Naomi Fry |

National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece

BY Tom Morton |

Maureen Paley, London, UK

BY Kari Rittenbach |

Alex Zachary, New York, USA

BY Dan Fox |

LABOR, Mexico City, Mexico

BY Gabriela Jauregui |

Tramway, Glasgow, UK

BY Steven Cairns |

RaebervonStenglin, Zurich, Switzerland

BY Quinn Latimer |

Various Venues, Seoul, South Korea

BY Nav Haq |

Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp, Belgium

BY Esperanza Rosales |

Galerie Lelong, New York, USA

BY Ara H. Merjian |

BFI Gallery, London, UK

BY Daniel Trilling |

Swiss Institute Contemporary Art, New York, USA

BY Marina Cashdan |

Do you believe in the existence of the soul? I believe in the existence of some kind of astral wildlife. I do not believe in the soul though.