This panel convenes an introduction and three critical responses to The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (Notre Dame Press, 2025), followed by an author’s reply. The book argues that religion and theology, though deeply entangled with modern and contemporary art, have been rendered structurally invisible within dominant art-historical narratives. Respondents engage the work from diverse perspectives, raising questions about interpretive communities, disenchantment, political theology, aesthetic norms, religion’s “strangeness,” and the status of theology as discourse. The author’s response clarifies the concept of multiple interpretive “horizons” and defends a dialogical, non-totalizing approach to theological criticism. Together, the session advances methodological reflection on how religion and theology function within contemporary art studies and explores future directions for scholarship at the intersection of art history and religious studies.
This panel engages Jonathan Anderson’s forthcoming book, The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025), a major contribution to contemporary debates at the intersection of art history, religious studies, and theology. Anderson argues that religion—particularly theology—has been rendered functionally invisible within dominant narratives of modern and contemporary art. Through historiographical analysis and close readings, he proposes new methodological approaches for interpreting contemporary art in more rigorous dialogue with theology. Bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines, this roundtable examines the book’s central claims, its implications for art-historical method, and the broader question of whether “contemporary art and religion” can be understood as a coherent field. Panelists will address key tensions concerning theology, criticism, judgment, and disciplinary boundaries. The discussion concludes with Anderson’s response, opening a broader conversation about the future of art history and religion.
This paper responds to The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025), affirming its landmark demonstration that religion remains present in contemporary art despite its marginalization within academic interpretation. While endorsing the book’s historiographical rigor and methodological clarity, the paper raises two broader questions: How much authority do academic interpretations of contemporary art retain in the algorithm-driven attention economy? And is the category of “religion” sufficient to address the deeper aesthetic and metaphysical assumptions shaping contemporary art institutions? Focusing on the book’s analysis of Kris Martin’s Altar, the paper argues that institutional validation often favors reductive and disenchanted forms of religious art while marginalizing works grounded in beauty and metaphysical richness. It asks whether making religion visible in interpretation is enough—or whether contemporary art must also confront its underlying commitments to disenchantment.
This paper responds to The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025), a landmark study that diagnoses religion’s marginalization in modern art history and proposes theology as an interpretive discourse for art criticism. While affirming the book’s monumental historiographical and methodological achievements, the response argues that certain forms of theology remain “invisible” within its framework—particularly poetic, political, and experimental theologies shaped by thinkers such as Walter Benjamin. It questions whether theology should function solely as a disciplined interpretive method or also as a creative, constitutive discourse akin to art criticism itself. By examining Benjamin’s images of theology and his relationship to Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus, the paper suggests alternative models of theological engagement with art that move beyond close reading toward companionate and generative encounters. The aim is not to critique but to extend the field the book so compellingly maps.
This presentation responds to Jonathan A. Anderson’s The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025), a landmark study that reframes contemporary art’s engagement with religion and theology. While Anderson argues that theology has been rendered hermeneutically invisible within dominant art-historical narratives, this response explores the political stakes of that claim. If contemporary art history prioritizes power, ideology, and critique, might political and liberation theologies provide a more direct point of contact than Anderson’s broader theological horizon? Focusing on Anderson’s analysis of Kris Martin’s Altar, the presentation asks whether theological interpretation can persuade secular art historians or whether it risks speaking primarily to theology itself. By pressing the question of whether the theological horizon is already a political horizon, this session extends Anderson’s field-defining intervention and probes the future of contemporary art and religion as an interdisciplinary domain.
This paper responds to four critical reviews of The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art (University of Notre Dame Press, 2025). Addressing questions about interpretive communities, the political and theological horizons, the status of theology as discourse, and the risk of totalization, it clarifies the book’s central claims and corrects several misunderstandings. The theological horizon is presented not as a disciplinary enclosure or ontotheological system, but as a hermeneutical field of questioning open wherever the question of God remains live. The response defends the dialogical, nontotalizing aims of the project and reiterates that its purpose is to expand contemporary art history’s interpretive resources rather than to supplant them. Ultimately, the paper argues that the book’s value lies in its capacity to provoke further inquiry, sustaining rigorous dialogue about religion’s visibility and intelligibility within contemporary art discourse.