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Bringing together such diverse artists as Kasimir Malevich, Jeff Koons, Piet Mondrian, Jan Toorop, Marlene Dumas, and Mike Kelley, almost 80 works from the collection of the currently homeless Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (scheduled to reopen after a renovation at the end of the year) have been assembled in De Nieuwe Kerk for "Holy Inspiration: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Art." As if the 15th-century church’s Gothic arches and and exhibition’s title leave any room for doubt about the show’s subject, the works are installed in a specially designed temporary structure in the form of a white — Suprematist? — cross. The exhibition concept taps into current sentiments and reflects the increasing prominence of religion, or perhaps more accurately, discussion about religion, in our post 9/11 society. Presenting its collection in this light seems an interesting choice for a museum whose existence and acquisition history is based on the profoundly secular premise of art’s autonomy. (A side-effect of the exhibition is that it shows the gaps in the collection. For instance, only two women artists are represented: Dumas and Marina Abramović.)

It is fitting that the first work is Gilbert & Georges Shitty 1994 (1994), where a cross made of excrement suggests how the artists feel about the influence of religion. It is flanked on the left by Francis Bacons From Muybridge (1965), with bodies struggling to be free of the crucifixion pose imposed on them,and on the right by Damien Hirsts Memento (2007), a collection of preliminary studies for his work For the Love of God (2007), which is more commonly known as the diamond skull. This first — very British — room immediately shows one difficulty with the chosen theme, namely that while religious painters need not paint Madonnas, religious iconography has been freely used in the last century by artists as a provocative protest against religion and in defense of secular culture. It is not always easy to identify who is on what side, and this is made even more difficult by the fact that the show spans works made during an increasingly secularized century in which certain messages embedded in religious tradition have acquired very different meanings.

What becomes increasingly clear as one progresses through the exhibition is that religious art in the pure sense — made by artists inspired by religion rather than commenting on or protesting against it — forms a minor part of the collection. This may highlight the secularization of society as a whole, but I would venture that it also reflects the museum’s past acquisition policies, particularly since the few religiously inspired works on show are neither the exhibition’s most interesting nor most recent ones. One exception is the Argentinean artist Sesostris Vitullos stunning gilded oak sculpture Dead Christ (1949), but then his Cubist-inspired contorted Christ is as much an ode to sculpture as to Christianity’s central figure.

At least the (predominantly Judeo-Christian) iconography is fairly easy to identify, even if its significance varies. The waters become much murkier when "spirituality" enters the mix. Religious art is spiritual, but spiritual art is a much broader and less-defined concept. It is almost a century since Wassily Kandinsky wrote his manifesto Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1914), hailing abstract art as the means by which a spiritual revolution in the viewer occurs. With four works, he is well-represented in the exhibition. But Kandinsky very clearly and openly related the spiritual in art to religious experience, an experience of inner life, something that would have been abundantly clear to his readers and viewers of the time. The world moved on, and "spirituality" is no longer necessarily related to religion; particularly when we see artists attributing their personal meanings to that word. One of the most impressive rooms is the one with works by Kasimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian, Mark Rothko, Yves Klein, and Barnett Newman. What to think in this context? Are these artists really all offering alternative icons to the viewer for reflection and contemplation (and surely that argument can be and has been made, including by some of the artists), or are some of them in fact more concerned with the inherent qualities of painting? Yet some of these works can offer a more profound experience than many other kinds of painting, though it’s difficult to locate the source of this pleasure.

How much can we stretch this concept of spirituality? The exhibition succeeds where it really questions the theme, but it sometimes pushes "spirituality" too far, as in the inclusion of Jackson Pollocks Reflection of the Big Dipper (1947). According to the accompanying booklet, when Pollock worked in his now-famous drip technique he reached a state of ecstasy that recalls Indian dance rituals. I felt my leg was being pulled. Another type of ecstasy seems to have influenced the "spiritual" of more contemporary New Age movements and the Zen Buddhism so popular in the West in the ’60s. Here, this is not just reflected, but also commented on, in Nam June Paiks very funny and many-layered TV-Buddha (1974), essentially a Buddha statue set in front of a TV, looking at a live image of himself. Again, the exhibition works best where it provokes questions, or makes you see work with different eyes. For example, Eurasia Staff (1967-68), a filmed performance of Joseph Beuys symbolically uniting the polarities between East and West, suddenly places this highly individualistic artist within a much larger ritualistic context. However, a lack of overall concentration does the otherwise interesting exhibition concept a disservice. Because if all art is defined as spiritual in the end, all choices are justifiable, and the questions lose their point.

"Holy Inspiration: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Art" originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' April 2009 Table of Contents.