The Taming of Irreligion. Essay on the Abuse of the Non-Sacred Idea
Journal Title: Art Inquiry. Recherches sur les arts - Year 2014, Vol 0, Issue
Abstract
I am going to outline the problem of the disintegration of the Latin hierarchical opposition religio/irreligio, showing the taming process of irreligion in the (post)modern culture. This marginal phenomenon – situated by ancient Romans in the domain of negativity – is a reactive cultural trend perceptible only in context. According to modern sociology, irreligion is an attitude towards religion which is not a complete rejection of belief (disbelief), but rather a selective lack of belief – unbelief. How did it come about, is it possible today to consider the hypothesis that the above-mentioned opposition functions as an operational unit, generating contemporary sociomorphism – often unconsciously, within the framework of antagonistic cooperation? In this view irreligion is not only a contamination of the source of the Latin tradition (religio), but it is subject to demarginalization and adopted as a tool of controlling religion – as its negative or its undeserved, unwanted assistant in the realization of its soteriological mission. I would argue that the increasingly numerous and less and less surprising micro-provocations of the irregulares – some of which were presented during the Brussels exhibition of Irreligia/ Irreligion (2001/2002) – although often intended to be iconoclastic (lately in a soft version), have targeted only the idolatrous and imperial dimension of religion. Therefore, they cannot desecrate the revealed faith.
Authors and Affiliations
Kazimierz Piotrowski
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP168260
- DOI -
- Views 104
- Downloads 0
Margins and marginalizations in a postsocialist urban area. The case of Łódź
As a result of post-socialist political transformations and globalization-related processes, the architectural landscape of Central and Eastern European cities is undergoing significant metamorphosis. Their architecture...
Participation in the Present and the Spacing of Time: On Kawara, Nancy, Levinas
This paper focuses on the close examination of the notions of presence, participation, and time in the conceptual art of On Kawara, in which the rhetorical figure of art works through the spacing of time. In this way, th...
“Theoretical turn” in post-avant-garde art and the aesthetics of de-differentiation
In this article I use the term “theoretical turn” to refer to phenomena in contemporary art that incorporate theory into their body and mode of action. I understand this incorporation similarly to Arthur Danto, Robert Ja...
The “linguistic turn” and twentieth-century possibilities of conducting research on old architecture. Perception and reception of architectural pieces in South America
Language plays a leading role in describing, arranging and construing the social world, which also incorporates broadly understood culture. Research on language and its associated methodology is already the subject of in...
Can we talk about contemporary avant-garde outside Western cultures? The case of contemporary art in the Republic of South Africa
The appreciation of the importance of the avant-garde, and of its re-thinking of the sociocultural reality, ensues from its fundamental role for 20th and 21st century art practice and theory. However, in the contemporary...