Reliqte, Reloaded

Reliqte, Reloaded

On the legacy of christian image worlds today

Rarely before has it been so hard to discuss religion. What is the situation in terms of how we deal with the legacy of a visual culture defined by Christianity?

What remains of the religious world of images that for centuries dominated Europe? For a long time, relics of this legacy were found above all in contexts of pop culture, very much though in the field of music. Meanwhile the subject of Christian iconography and motifs is regarded as passé, outgrown or – beyond ironical treatment – at least as impossible to lend form to.

It would seem that no serious discussion takes place outside of the academic or theological world. The public sphere tends to dodge the subject of religion, narrowing it down to fundamentalism, at best drawing on the general concept of spirituality or even pushing this legacy on to the sidelines of history.

Yet different and new forms of artistic analysis of this rich bedrock have once again begun to emerge in recent years. The question is thus what motivates these artists to re-examine these relics from the basement of history. In the “Reliqte, Reloaded” exhibition, Kulturzentrum bei den Minoriten joins QL-Galerie to examine this phenomenon, asking about the failure to enrich the current debate on religion with the relics, traces and legacies of European, Christian culture.