Negotiating Rapture

Conceived as a series of journeys akin to those of saints or shamans,Negotiating Rapture brings together the work of Francis Bacon,Joseph Beuys, James Lee Byars, Lucio Fontana, Shirazeh Houshiary, AnselmKiefer, Agnes Martin, Bruce Nauman, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, andBill Viola. These artists are exhibited together in order to revealtheir diverse expressions of a shared longing: the basic and enduringhuman urge to transcend the ordinary and experience thesublime.Juxtaposed with a range of works by Old Masters and examplesfrom architecture, literature, and anthropology, the works inNegotiating Rapture show how artists, as creators, move beyondcommon experience to a state approaching religious ecstasy and how we,as viewers, can in turn discover a deeper involvement in our ownhumanity.Major essays by Homi K. Bhabha, Georges Didi-Huberman, David Morgan, andLee Siegel, as well as a series of focused contributions by Yve-AlainBois, Wendy Doniger, Kenneth Frampton, Martin E. Marty, John HallmarkNeff, Annemarie Schimmel, and Helen Tworkov, consider how raptureresonates both in a cultural context and within the experience of asingle human being. A "Travel Guide to Negotiating Rapture,"written by curators Richard Francis and Sophia Shaw, explores how eachartist in the exhibition has sought to define rapture and, by guidingthe viewer/reader, initiates scrutiny of transformative experiences.