Past Exhibitions

Browse the chronological list of past exhibitions at the Saint Louis University Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCRA), or search for a specific exhibition. Click “View” for more information about an exhibition. If you need further information about an exhibition, please contact us.

Name

Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu

Dates

September 13, 2015 to December 6, 2015

Description

Drawing on her Hindu and Muslim background, and combining expertise in Arabic calligraphy with Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting, Salma Arastu creates large, evocative canvases that invite viewers into quiet contemplation on texts from the Quran, the poet Rumi, and other sources.

Salma Arastu was born in Rajasthan, India, and graduated with a Masters in Fine Arts from The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India. She presently resides in the San Francisco Bay area. Arastu works in a variety of media, including painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture. Her works are found in numerous private and public collections, such as the 9/11 Memorial Museum, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, Hyderabad, India; the National Gallery of Art, New Delhi, India; the Islamic Museum of Australia, Melbourne; and the State Museum of the Arts, Harrisburg, PA.

Raised in Hinduism, Arastu later embraced Islam through her marriage. While living in Iran and Kuwait, she was fascinated by the beauty of Arabic calligraphy and began incorporating passages into her work. The development of calligraphy using Arabic script is tightly woven into the fabric of Islam. Over the centuries distinctive artistic forms of Arabic letters have been developed both to honor the holy texts and as a form of creative expression. Arastu continues this tradition by employing passages from the Quran in many of her works.

The MOCRA exhibition includes works from two of her most recent series. "Celebration of Calligraphy" harmoniously blends traditional Arabic calligraphy with Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting, featuring lyrical, dynamic passages from the Quran flowing across dense layers of rich color. “Unity of Sacred Symbols and Texts” comprises several distinct elements, including circular mandala-like paintings; works by texts of thirteenth-century Persian poet Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi and sixteenth-century Hindu saint and mystic poetess Meera Bai; and paintings invoking four major faith traditions through texts in Arabic, Hebrew, English, and Sanskrit. Painting Prayers also features a companion display of manuscript leaves from the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries, drawn from the Saint Louis University Libraries Special Collections.

Download an information sheet about Painting Prayers.

I paint to express the prayers of my heart, and intend for the energy of the calligraphy, powered by the positive messages from the texts, to reveal the joy and celebration that I experience while creating them. Each verse I portray gives me strength and peace, and I hope to instill these feelings in my viewers. | Salma Arastu

above:
Salma Arastu, Healing Prayer, 2014. Acrylic on canvas. MOCRA collection. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Related programming

So That You Know Each Other: Intercultural Reflections on Art, Beauty, and Islam

Related MOCRA Voices episodes

Watch So That You Know Each Other: Intercultural Reflections on Art, Beauty, and Islam

Media

Watch a PBS "Arts America" segment on Painting Prayers

Listen to an interview with Salma Arastu on St. Louis Public Radio's "Cityscape"

Exhibition
Bernard Maisner: The Hourglass and the Spiral February 3, 2017 to April 2, 2017 Bernard Maisner (b.1954) is regarded internationally as one of the greatest contemporary masters of calligraphy. Maisner first became familiar with illuminated man...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre January 26, 2016 to May 8, 2016 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-...
Erika Diettes: Sudarios September 25, 2016 to December 11, 2016 Colombian artist Erika Diettes draws upon her training as both an artist and an anthropologist by bringing forth work originating in the direct testimonies of the families of victims of decades of ongoing violence in her country, as well as in objects belonging to them. For her 2011 series Sud...
Regina DeLuise: Vast Bhutan – Images from the Phenomenal World January 24, 2015 to May 10, 2015 The images in this exhibition, taken in Thimpu, Bhutan in 2010, center on the ordinary surroundings of a culture both remarkable and mysterious (Bhutan only opened its borders in the 1950s and still strongly restricts tourism). Bhutan’s history is intricately woven with Tibetan Buddhism. There ...
Calligraphic Art of Salma Arastu September 13, 2015 to December 6, 2015 Drawing on her Hindu and Muslim background, and combining expertise in Arabic calligraphy with Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting, Salma Arastu creates large, evocative canvases that invite viewers into quiet contemplation on texts from the Quran, the poet Rumi, and other sources....
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part Two, The Second Decade February 16, 2014 to August 1, 2014 MOCRA celebrated a milestone anniversary with a two-part exhibition surveying works by artists displayed during MOCRA's first twenty years. Part Two of Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 embraced the variety of artistic expressions exhibited throughout MOCRA's history and included works by thirty-six...
Rebecca Niederlander: Axis Mundi September 14, 2014 to December 14, 2014 MOCRA's first site-specific installation, created by Los Angeles-based artist Rebecca Niederlander, utilizes multiple elements to create an abstracted environment of color, form, and contemplative space exploring the necessary connection among ourselves, others, and the world around us. ...
Jordan Eagles: BLOOD / SPIRIT January 20, 2013 to May 12, 2013 For over a decade, artist Jordan Eagles has garnered public and critical attention for his unique, signature use of animal blood in his works. Through an experimental, self-invented process, the artist combines blood with Plexiglas, UV resin, copper, gauze, and other media to produce arresting wo...
Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 - Part One, The First Decade September 22, 2013 to December 15, 2013 MOCRA celebrated a milestone anniversary with a two-part exhibition surveying works by artists displayed during MOCRA's first twenty years. Part One of Thresholds: MOCRA at 20 embraced the variety of artistic expressions exhibited throughout MOCRA's history and included works by forty-one ...
Archie Granot: The Papercut Haggadah February 26, 2012 to May 20, 2012 Haggadah (הַגָּדָה)‎ is Hebrew for “telling,” namely, the telling of the Exodus story at the Seder service during the Jewish festival of Pesach, or Passover. The term also signifies a book that contains the ritual guide to the Seder, along with scripture passages, commentary, prayer...
A Tribute to Frederick J. Brown June 12, 2012 to August 26, 2012 Frederick J. Brown (1945-2012) was one of America's finest and most prolific expressionist artists. His paintings draw on many sources, including his African-American and Choctaw ancestry, his religious upbringing, and the folklore of the South. He referenced religious, historical and urban theme...
Patrick Graham: Thirty Years – The Silence Becomes the Painting September 23, 2012 to December 16, 2012 Patrick Graham has been credited by critics and art historians with changing the face of painting in Ireland. Art historian, writer and curator Peter Selz, who curated this exhibition, says that Graham "confronts the viewer with drawings and paintings of shattering force . . . [he] makes us aware...
Adrian Kellard: The Learned Art of Compassion September 24, 2011 to December 18, 2011 MOCRA presents a selection of work by Adrian Kellard (1959-1991). After art studies at SUNY Purchase he moved to New York City and studied under the artist Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt. In his...
Good Friday: The Suffering Christ in Contemporary Art February 2, 2010 to May 16, 2010 MOCRA gives an encore presentation of one of its most popular exhibitions ever. Good Friday was originally presented in Spring 2009 as the second of two exhibitions celebrating MOCRA’s fifteenth anniversary. The exhibition includes works by over 30 artists of diverse backgrounds who have...
James Rosen: The Artist and the Capable Observer September 26, 2010 to February 13, 2011 Over his six-decade career, James Rosen has produced a body of visually arresting paintings, watercolors, and drawings, that gently invite viewers to stay a while. Rosen seeks "capable observers" who bring to bear their own intellect and imagination in order to observe poetic images that are cond...
MOCRA at Fifteen: Good Friday February 15, 2009 to May 17, 2009 On February 14, 1993, the world’s first interfaith museum of contemporary art opened its doors. Fifteen years later, Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) continues to serve as a forum for the ongoing dialogue between today’s artists and the major faith tradi...
Michael Byron: Cosmic Tears September 13, 2009 to December 13, 2009 In the evocative paintings of the Cosmic Tears series, Michael Byron explores the relationship of the individual to the universal. The works are based on a text by the artist that meditates on the inevitable mix of emotions that accompanies the act of creation; pain and joy together elicit...
Miao Xiaochun: The Last Judgment in Cyberspace February 3, 2008 to May 18, 2008 Chinese artist Miao Xiaochun asked himself an interesting question: "How would Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment appear from behind?" To explore this premise, Miao Xiaochun rendered a 3-D digital model of his own body. Then he mapped this model onto all 400-plus of the figures in Michelan...
MOCRA at Fifteen: Pursuit of the Spirit September 21, 2008 to December 14, 2008 On February 14, 1993, the world’s first interfaith museum of contemporary art opened its doors. Fifteen years later, Saint Louis University’s Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) continues to serve as a forum for the ongoing dialogue between today’s artists and the major faith tradi...
Oskar Fischinger: Movement and Spirit March 31, 2007 to June 24, 2007 Oskar Fischinger (1900–1967) was a significant figure in the early days of filmmaking, attracting attention for his technological innovations, imaginative anim...
The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture September 16, 2007 to December 09, 2007 A uniquely modern art form, film and its associated motion picture industry have taken Judeo-Christian scripture as subject matter from the very beginning of the medium and have continued that treatment to the present day. The Celluloid Bible: Marketing Films Inspired by Scripture examines...
Arshile Gorky: The Early Years – Drawings and Paintings, 1927–1937 January 22, 2006 to March 12, 2006 Arshile Gorky (1904-1948) is widely regarded as one of the most pivotal and significant artists in the development of 20th-century American art. After moving to America from Armenia in 1920, he quickly became a lightning rod for other artists in the late 1920s and early 30s, sparking the genesis ...
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds November 9, 2001 to February 10, 2002 MOCRA is pleased to bring Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds to St. Louis for the first time, in one of the largest-ever installations of this charming 1966 work. Silver Clouds is a visual, auditory and tactile experience that appeals immediately to the child in everyone. ...
Junko Chodos: The Breath of Consciousness March 18, 2005 to July 31, 2005 The Breath of Consciousness is Japanese-American artist Junko Chodos' first Midwest exhibition. It surveys the predominant themes and media in her oeuvre. The exhibition title references a recurrent image in her work, the lungs. In part originating in her personal history (a childhood batt...
DoDo Jin Ming: Land and Sea September 15, 2005 to December 18, 2005 "Respecting the awesome power and drama found only in the sea," writes curator Catherine Evans, "DoDo Jin Ming creates violent black and white images that transport the viewer to a precipice about to be submerged under a cascade of water. Printing her pictures from a combination of two negatives,...
Rito, Espejo y Ojo / Ritual, Mirror and Eye: Photography by Luis González-Palma, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Pablo Soria March 28, 2004 to June 13, 2004 MOCRA is pleased to present the work of three significant Latin American artists to St. Louis audiences. While their personal and artistic backgrounds vary, all three artists share a common interest in creating multimedia works that extend the traditional bounds of each medium. These particular w...
Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture: Richard Meier and Steven Holl September 10, 2004 to February 27, 2005 Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture is MOCRA's first exhibition dedicated to architecture. By means of photographs, drawings and plans, it brings together two of today's most important architects in an examination of their approaches to designing two houses of worship, one a ...
Daniel Ramirez: Twenty Contemplations on the Infant Jesus, an Homage to Oliver Messiaen September 10, 2004 to February 27, 2005 Concurrently with the exhibition Radiant Forms in Contemporary Sacred Architecture, MOCRA presents a series of etchings by Daniel P. Ramirez. First shown in 1981 at the Art Institute of Chicago, this set of 20 small abstract works are a response to a piano suite by French composer Olivier ...
Avoda: Objects of the Spirit – Ceremonial Art by Tobi Kahn September 2, 2003 to October 12, 2003 Avoda is the Hebrew noun for "work," as well as for "prayer/worship," and the active mode implied by this title reflects Tobi Kahn's interpretation of the rising interest and active participation in spiritual expressions. The Avoda exhibition consists of 42 Jewish ceremonial objects...
Tony Hooker: The Greater Good – An Artist's Contemporary View of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study February 23, 2002 to August 9, 2002 The Tuskegee Experiment began in 1932 when the United States Public Health Service initiated a study of syphilis in African American males in Macon County, Alabama. With whatever intentions the study was begun, it evolved into a 40-year study of untreated syphilis in 412 African American men that...
Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds, an encore presentation August 27, 2002 to December 14, 2002 MOCRA is pleased to bring back Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds (1966) in an encore presentation. Mercurial and buoyant, these pillow-shaped silver mylar balloons roam the air currents of MOCRA's spacious nave gallery and respond to the touch of the viewer. Silver Clouds is a visual, aud...
Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds: A Fortieth Anniversary Celebration September 10, 2006 to December 17, 2006 After introducing St. Louis audiences to Andy Warhol's Silver Clouds in 2001 and reprising the exhibit in 2002, MOCRA is pleased to bring back the Silver Clouds on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of their 1966 debut at New York’s Leo Castelli Gallery. Mercurial and buoyant, t...
Lewis deSoto: Paranirvana April 15, 2000 to November 05, 2000 Lewis deSoto’s Paranirvana, a 25-foot long image of the reclining Buddha made of a nylon skin and inflated with air, based on a well-known Sri Lankan sculpture. Paranirvana was created especially for the 1999-2000 Bay Area Now 2 exhibition, the second in a planned series of biennial exhibitions...
Robert Farber: A Retrospective, 1985–1995 November 18, 2000 to April 01, 2001 New York artist Robert Farber turned to art in his mid-30s and pursued it until his death in 1995 at the age of 47. His work has been shown in such distinguished insti...
Bernard Maisner: Entrance to the Scriptorium November 14, 1998 to June 28, 1999 The late art historian George Kubler wrote in The Shape of Time, "[Works of art] are like gateways, where the visitor can enter the space of the painter, or the time of the poet, to experience whatever rich domain the artist has fashioned. But the visitor must come prepared: if he brings a...
Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses March 8, 1998 to May 8, 1998 Curated by the distinguished art historian Peter Selz, Tobi Kahn: Metamorphoses brings together 37 paintings and 20 sculptures of an artist who extends an American tradition-the distillation of the natural world into elemental forms. Kahn's antecedents in landscape painting include Albert ...
MOCRA: The First Five Years May 26, 1998 to October 25, 1998 MOCRA celebrates its fifth anniversary with selections from its first fifteen exhibitions. Artists in the exhibition include: Dan Addington \| Alvin Ailey \| Seyed Alavi \| Peter Ambrose \| Frederick J. Brown \| Heidy Sumei Chuang \| Jon Cournoyer \| Michael David \| Eleanor Dicki...
Steven Heilmer: Pietre Sante \| Holy Stones February 7, 1997 to March 16, 1997 Expertly carved in Carrara and Vermont marble, the sculptures of Steven Heilmer juxtapose raw stone with highly finished sculpted fabric. In a dramatic partnering of surfaces, the “cloth” variously presents, wraps, confines, conceals and reveals roughly hewn marble, tangibly evoking the myste...
Utopia Body Paint Collection and Australian Aboriginal Art from St. Louis Collections April 4, 1997 to July 31, 1997 A vigorous cultural revival is evident today throughout Aboriginal communities in Australia. Artists at Utopia -- a tract of Aboriginal freehold land in the central desert of Australia -- have produced some of the most vital, exuberant, and distinctive imagery of the contemporary Aboriginal art m...
Manfred Stumpf: Enter Jerusalem September 26, 1997 to December 21, 1997 Born in 1957, German artist Manfred Stumpf studied in Frankfurt, New York, and Vienna. He is a versatile artist whoo has worked in the media of drawing and painting...
Frederick J. Brown: The Life of Christ Altarpiece December 2, 1995 to April 19, 1996 In 1992, prolific expressionist artist Frederick J. Brown offered to execute a large, multi-paneled altarpiece based on the life of Christ for the new Museum of Contemporary Religious Art. A generous gift of UMB Banks and the Crosby Kemper Foundations helped make that project a reality. ...
Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter June 30, 1996 to June 30, 1996 When appraising the long career of an artist, we tend to focus on the mature style, or the works best known by the public. Edward Boccia: Eye of the Painter seeks to render another view of the artist's career, by presenting not only the large-scale allegorical works for which Boccia is kno...
Consecrations Revisited December 1, 1996 to February 5, 1997 Consecrations was the first group exhibition that put AIDS within a spiritual framework. Its 28 diverse artists, working in a range of media, expressed their experience with the disease in ways that reflected a profound empathy for anyone who has been touched or will be touched by the real...
Keith Haring: Altarpiece – The Life of Christ April 8, 1995 to May 7, 1995 Keith Haring's work is known throughout the world for its unique and immediately recognizable pictorial language. His often light-hearted art reaches beyond the confines of museums. It can be found in subways, churches, schools, on T-shirts and watches, and even at one time on the Berlin Wall. Ha...
Ian Friend: The Edge of Belief – paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, 1980–1994 May 19, 1995 to July 2, 1995 MOCRA is honored to present the first American retrospective of Australian artist Ian Friend. Common concerns thread their way through the diverse works in the exhibition: a sense of awe for landscape; an appreciation for ritualistic and protective instruments (e.g., the spears from New Guinea, t...
Eleanor Dickinson: A Retrospective August 26, 1995 to October 22, 1995 Throughout Eleanor Dickinson's work, the human form is seen as a reflection of the soul. Walter Hopps, former director of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, has called Dickinson "one of the country's most powerful artists committed to figure drawing." The current exhibition presents works from three of...
Post-Minimalism and the Spiritual: Four Chicago Artists May 3, 1994 to June 27, 1994 The Minimalist movement, appearing in the mid-1960s and continuing well into the 1970s, is characterized by a reduction of forms to simple, basic geometric shapes, devoid of any ornamentation. Figuration was removed, and in some expressions of Minimalism, the artifacts look as though they were pr...
Consecrations: The Spiritual in Art in the Time of AIDS October 15, 1994 to February 19, 1995 Consecrations is the first group exhibition that seeks to put AIDS within a spiritual framework. The 28 artists in Consecrations represent the religious, ethnic, cultural, sexual and geographical diversity of this country. Several of the artists are expressing first-hand experience ...
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part One February 14, 1993 to April 11, 1993 MOCRA’s two-part inaugural exhibition features more than 100 works from an wide-ranging roster of artists working in styles ranging from traditional Western figuration to minimalist and geometric abstraction. The artists, generally in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, tend to be disillusioned with the c...
Body and Soul: The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater October 24, 1993 to December 19, 1993 Body and Soul celebrates 35 years of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and its exceptional contributions to contemporary culture. ...
Transformations: Highlights from the MOCRA Collection April 26, 2017 to April 8, 2018 Transformation is an essential element of the creation and experience of art. Artists manipulate materials and perceptions in ways that bring their work, viewers, and themselves to new physical, psychological, and spiritual states of existence. Recognizing and talking about the spiritual and reli...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre March 8, 2011 to July 31, 2011 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre March 2, 2003 to May 11, 2003 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre January 18, 2000 to April 2, 2000 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-...
Georges Rouault: Miserere et Guerre March 21, 1994 to April 26, 1994 Georges Rouault was born in working-class Paris in 1871, and apprenticed as a youth to a stained glass workshop. In late 1890, he enrolled in the École des Beaux-...
Visible Conservation September 22, 2017 to April 8, 2018 In 2016 MOCRA acquired Michael Tracy's powerful 1981 work Cruz to Bishop Oscar Romero, Martyr of El Salvador. With Visible Conservation, we gave visitors a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the process of documenting and cleaning the work prior to its reassembly and first presentation at MOCRA. ...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection July 25, 2016 to September 3, 2016 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Doug DePice, Robert Farber, Luis González Palma, DoDo Jin Ming, Dean Kessman, Chris McCaw, Daniel Ramirez, and Susan S...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection May 30, 2015 to August 2, 2015 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Junko Chodos, Doug DePice, Luis González Palma, DoDo Jin Ming, Dean Kessman, Frank LaPena, Daniel Ramirez, and Susan S...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection: The Romero Cross April 21, 2018 to July 28, 2018 Seven months of conservation work culminate in the first public showing at MOCRA of Cruz to Bishop Oscar Romero, Martyr of El Salvador, a major mixed media sculpture by Michael Tracy (b. 1943), who first achieved international recognition in the 1980s, exhibiting in the 1982 Venice Biennal...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection March 28, 2006 to July 30, 2006 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Seyed Alavi, Luis González Palma, Steven Heilmer, Anne Minich, Shahzia Sikander, Kazuaki Tanahashi, and other artists. above: Sr. Helen David Brancato, Crucif...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection June 20, 2004 to August 29, 2004 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Peter Ambrose, Gryphon Blackswan, Daniel Goldstein, Steven Luecking, Gary Passanise, Susan Schwalb, Michael Tracy, and other artists. above: Anne Minich, Annie...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection November 4, 2003 to March 5, 2004 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Seyed Alavi, Nancy Fried, Donald Grant, Tobi Kahn, Virgil Myers, Shahzia Sikander, and other artists. above: Virgil Myers, Noah's Ark, 1999. Latex on wood ...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection January 7, 2003 to February 23, 2003 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Craig Antrim, Michael David, Sue Eisler, Adrian Kellard, Dean Kessmann, Anne Minich, Daniel Ramirez, and other artists. above: James Rosen, Sta. Cecilia, 1...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection May 6, 2001 to November 8, 2001 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems and some works on loan. Featuring works by Peter Ambrose, Lori Bert, Sr. Helen David Brancato, Daniel Goldstein, Carolyn Jones, Stuart Klipper, Horatio Hung-Yan Law, Thomas Skomski, and other arti...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection July 29, 1999 to December 22, 1999 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Michael David, Eleanor Dickinson, Steven Heilmer, Charlotte Lichtblau, J. W. Mahoney, Jeffrey Miller, and other artists. above: Michael David, Missing in Actio...
Highlights from the MOCRA Collection January 15, 1998 to February 22, 1998 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with lesser known gems. Featuring works by Gryphon Blackswan, Heidy Sumei Chuang, Greg Edmondson, Jeffrey Miller, Carl Tandatnick, and other artists. above: Gryphon Blackswan, Chasuble for Mass in the T...
Sanctuaries: Recovering the Holy in Contemporary Art, Part Two – Three Major Installations April 18, 1993 to August 29, 1993 MOCRA's two-part inaugural exhibition features more than 100 works from an wide-ranging roster of artists working in styles ranging from traditional Western figuration to minimalist and geometric abstraction. The artists, generally in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, tend to be disillusioned with the cel...
Beyond Words: Three Contemporary Artists and the Manuscript Tradition May 24, 2018 to November 12, 2018 MOCRA, in collaboration with the Special Collections division of the Saint Louis University Libraries, presents an exhibition in the Lambert Gallery at St. Louis Lambert International Airport as part of the ...
MOCRA: 25 September 16, 2018 to March 3, 2019 The Museum of Contemporary Religious Art began with an audacious assertion: many of today’s visual artists engage with the religious and spiritual dimensions in their work—even if they sometimes go about it in ways quite different from prior generations. Despite skepticism from mem...
Gary Logan: Elements March 19, 2019 to June 30, 2019 Trinidadian-American artist Gary Logan explores humanity’s relationship with the Earth and its elements through dramatic lighting, atmospheric ambiguity, vivid colors, and rich textures. He finds visual and conceptual inspiration in two rich sources that utilize landscape as a means of explorin...
Gratitude September 15, 2019 to December 15, 2019 Terrence Dempsey, S.J., Founding Director of MOCRA, retired from Saint Louis University on June 30, 2019, after nearly thirty years as a professor of Art History. With the exhibition Gratitude, he desires to express a deeply felt “thank you” — for the opportunity to establish a museu...
Surface to Source February 05, 2020 to November 22, 2020 For his first show curated as Director of MOCRA, David Brinker delves into the MOCRA collection, bringing out works that haven’t been shown in a number of years and juxtaposing them with perennial favorites. The works from the collection are joined by several works on loan. Meanwhile, the remov...
Quiet Isn't Always Peace February 03, 2021 to May 20, 2021 People everywhere were captivated as Amanda Gorman delivered her poem The Hill We Climb on the steps of the Capitol on Inauguration Day. Her cascading cadences of imagery alluded to orators of the past but unequivocally asserted her own voice in addressing the present moment. A short phrase from...
Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings September 03, 2021 to December 19, 2021 In July 2003, fine art photographer Tom Kiefer started working part-time as a janitor and groundskeeper at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility near Ajo, Arizona. In mid-2007, he was given permission to collect food confiscated from migrants and asylum seekers and donate it to...
Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections February 16, 2022 to May 22, 2022 Three museums and seven centuries of art Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections speaks to the unique role of art in Jesuit teaching as an instrument for finding meaning in life through imagination, feelings and reflection. The exhibition features 28 works ...
Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest August 24, 2022 to October 16, 2022 MOCRA is pleased to present three new collage-paintings by Lesley Dill, an American artist who works at the intersection of language and fine art in sculpture, printmaking, installation and performance, exploring the power of words to cloak and reveal the psyche. Dill transforms the emotions of t...
$Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE$ Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE October 26, 2022 to December 18, 2022 Medium and Message Jordan Eagles is the master of a most unlikely medium: blood. His signature preservation technique permanently retains the organic material’s natural colors, patterns, and textures. In recent years, he has produced works made with donated human bloo...
This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection August 24, 2022 to December 18, 2022 The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated harmful systemic inequities and our responsibility to name and respond to them. Simultaneously, we are recognizing the importance of attending to our own well-being in mind, body, and spirit, a holistic vision of human wellness that Ignatian spirituality refe...
Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos March 19, 2023 to June 25, 2023 Engaging a Living Tradition Artists Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado are forging new links in the chain of the continuing story of the people of New Mexico. Telles is firmly rooted in the Santero tradition (the making of santos, or images of saints), w...
Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual January 28, 2024 to May 19, 2024 Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual assembles the work of six intergenerational artists from across the country who use everyday materials, found objects, and elements of craft production to explore issues related to faith and spirituality, personal and cultural identity, and tradition and ...
Selections from the MOCRA Collection September 06, 2023 to December 17, 2023 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with recent acquisitions and lesser known gems. In particular, we pay tribute to the late James Rosen (1933–2023). In a career spanning more than six decades, Rosen demonstrated a keen under...

Past Exhibitions

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