'100 Artists See God'
Through June 27, Contemporary Jewish Museum

FROM THE FUNDAMENTALISM of both Islamic and Christian varieties to the amorphous affirmation of New Age mysticism, religion has returned to the modern world with a vengeance. So when I saw the announcement for the current exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, "100 Artists See God," I was skeptical. I anticipated videos of Bill Viola dissolving into sheets of baptismal rain. However, despite the language of the curators that often seems to treat the works presented as diverse expressions of faith, the show is rich with art that approaches religion with suspicion and attempts to see God – through the fear and narcissism of humankind – for what "He" is. Some of the works ironically present the fetishes contemporary culture elevates to sources of salvation. Damien Hirst reconstructs a cabinet full of medical supplies, pointing to the psychopharmacology of the soul and the desperation with which we cling to science in the face of death. Christopher Williams offers a carefully crafted photograph of dishes in a dishwasher, evoking the promise that commodities will redeem us from the toils of labor. Other works critically explore the sources of religious sentiment. Photographs by Richard Prince and Andreas Gursky present scenes of crowds from pop-culture love fests. Raymond Pettibon and Liz Larner approach the divine in terms of a child's (often ambivalent) feelings for his or her mother. And while the show also has its kitsch elements, like rays of light piercing through clouds, even some of the more pious pieces are subtle and compelling. My favorite work includes Tony Oursler's video projection of "the face of God" onto a Styrofoam ball with scraggly white hair. The video is both terrifying and absurd, presenting God, pontificating about his divinity and the universe, as the shadow of some self-important, alcoholic stepfather. Jen Liu's techno-pop music video declares, "architecture is the real battleground of the spirit" and stages a video game-like confrontation between Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Buckminster Fuller, and Adolf Loos, with cities violently destroyed and reconstructed in rapid succession. And Paul Pfeiffer's video, Fragment of a Crucifixion, presents a black basketball player isolated on a court repeating expressions of terror and rage, whose violence and physical intensity draw on the history of religious art and speak more directly to contemporary social-political conflicts. Sun.-Thurs., noon-6 p.m., 121 Steuart, S.F. $5, $4 seniors and students, free for 12 and under and members. (415) 591-8800, www.thecjm.org. (Clark Buckner)