Am I just imagining it, or is this religious?
One of the most frequently asked (and unasked) questions visitors to the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art have is, “What makes this religious art?” Others are, “What’s the difference between religious and spiritual?” and, “Can’t anything be spiritual for someone?”
MOCRA has spent the past fifteen years exploring these questions, not with theoretical conjectures, but by way of concrete example. From Australian Aboriginal art and Alvin Ailey to contemporary Chinese and Latin American photography, from the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and contemporary illuminated manuscripts to Andy Warhol’s “Silver Clouds” – with each new exhibition we consider another way in which contemporary artists are in dialogue with the spiritual dimensions of life, using the full vocabulary of contemporary artistic production.
Now we invite you to a free public conference that will explore some of these questions. “Art and the Religious Imagination” will feature a panel of distinguished museum directors and theologians discussing the roles that secular and religious art museums can play in the presentation of art with spiritual and religious content. A panel discussion and audience Q/A will follow the individual presentations, so if you have an interest in this topic – or even if you’re skeptical about the whole idea of contemporary religious art – please come and add your voice.
The talk takes place in Xavier Hall Theatre on the SLU campus, and we’ll 
have a brief reception afterward next door at MOCRA, so you’ll have a chance to see our current exhibition, “Good Friday.” You can find a list of the panelists and the titles of their talks on MOCRA’s website. Please join us on Sunday, March 29, from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m. and add your voice to the proceedings.
