Negotiating Rapture: The Power of Art to Transform Lives

Conceived as a series of journeys akin to those of saints or shamans,
Negotiating Rapture brings together the work of Francis Bacon,
Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars, Lucio Fontana, Shirazeh Houshiary, Anselm
Kiefer, Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, and
Bill Viola. These artists are exhibited together in order to reveal
their diverse expressions of a shared longing: the basic and enduring
human urge to transcend the ordinary and experience the
sublime.Juxtaposed with a range of works by Old Masters and examples
from architecture, literature, and anthropology, the works in
Negotiating Rapture show how artists, as creators, move beyond
common experience to a state approaching religious ecstasy and how we,
as viewers, can in turn discover a deeper involvement in our own
humanity.

Major essays by Homi K. Bhabha, Georges Didi-Huberman, David Morgan, and
Lee Siegel, as well as a series of focused contributions by Yve-Alain
Bois, Wendy Doniger, Kenneth Frampton, Martin E. Marty, John Hallmark
Neff, Annemarie Schimmel, and Helen Tworkov, consider how rapture
resonates both in a cultural context and within the experience of a
single human being. A "Travel Guide to Negotiating Rapture,"
written by curators Richard Francis and Sophia Shaw, explores how each
artist in the exhibition has sought to define rapture and, by guiding
the viewer/reader, initiates scrutiny of transformative experiences.

The art world achieved a milestone of sorts with the opening this spring of Chicago's new Museum of Contemporary Art?distinguished as the largest single structure housing contemporary art in North America. This catalog documents one of the museum's inaugural exhibits of paintings, sculpture, and installations. The title refers to artists' attempts (represented here by Francis Bacon, Joseph Beuys, Agnes Martin, and others) to go beyond ordinary experience and approach a state resembling religious ecstasy through their work. Richard Francis, who conceived and organized the exhibit, has compiled essays by a dozen scholars that include copious references to saints, philosophers, artists, and poets of earlier times who were similarly concerned with artistic or religious ecstasy (e.g., St. John of the Cross, Friedrich Nietzsche, Pieter Breughel the Elder, and W.H. Auden, to name a few). Unfortunately, the writing is also notable for the frequent dense prose and "art speak." Still, this well-illustrated book will be an important addition to art libraries.?Margarete Gross, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.