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 Pollock’s 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 Paik’s 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.