Art Together, Prayer Together: Relational and Revelatory Practices of Joseph Beuys, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Leslie Iwai

Abstract

This paper investigates a theology of prayer embedded within social and artistic practice. It considers how conceptual art broadened social possibilities for art, and how for Joseph Beuys and later Leslie Iwai, these possibilities probe spiritual realities. Beuys’ democratic methodologies, considering everyone as performing the world-shaping work of the artist, were central to his practice and described by Beuys as representations of Christ. In Life Together, the artist’s contemporary, Dietrich Bonhoeffer offers his own approach to Christ’s presence within sociality. The book reflects on his time directing a seminary where communal life was not only shaped by spiritual exercises like prayer, but also enriched by the arts. Consequently, one may read Life Together as grounding for socially and spiritually attuned artistic endeavours. This has been the case in Leslie Iwai’s conceptually and communally motivated artistic practice, which has developed alongside prayer practices and her own readings of Life Together. Social-spiritual features of Beuys’ conceptual art—seeing Christ and one another concurrently—are extended in Bonhoeffer’s articulation of prayer—not only revealing God and each other but also a means of presenting one another to God. Affinities between conceptual art and prayer emerge: both may be disclosive, holding together seen and unseen realities. Iwai can be seen to work from a conceptual mode of social-spiritual disclosure, and from consonant revelatory and intercessory practices of prayer echoing those of Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.

1. Introduction

Conceptual artists offered manifold explorations of art beyond its materiality. The movement pursued sociality through an increasing awareness of human contexts, through participatory and performative forms, and by challenging traditional artist/viewer relationships. Conceptual art offered new ways to experience artworks, wherein participants significantly contributed to the formation of works and their disclosure of meaning. Various artists engaged sociality, but Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) is notable for pioneering in this area and even identifying spiritual foundations. His democratic methodologies, like “social sculpture” in which everyone performed the world-shaping work of the artist, were central to his practice and described by Beuys as representations of Christ. The artist’s contemporary, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) is best known as a theologian and for resisting Nazism, however he was also an avid musician and lifelong appreciator of the arts. In Life Together, Bonhoeffer offers his approach to sociality, at once a spiritual and physical reality, living and worshipping together. The book reflects on his time directing a seminary where communal life was not only shaped by spiritual exercises but also enriched by the arts. Consequently, one may read Life Together as grounding for socially and spiritually attuned artistic endeavours within Christian community, and beyond it. Such a grounding registers in contemporary artist Leslie Iwai’s conceptually and communally motivated practice, which has developed alongside her own appreciation and reading of Life Together at various times in her life.

The paper will begin by drawing on some art-historical and critical readings of conceptual art to examine how the movement broadened social possibilities for art, and how for Beuys these possibilities probed spiritual realities. The openings afforded by Beuys’ conceptual practice, engaging the spiritual in the physical, seeing Christ and one’s neighbour simultaneously, are areas that Iwai can be seen to work within. While both Beuys and Bonhoeffer recognize Christ within human sociality, in Life Together the latter uniquely develops this in the context of prayer in a manner which resonates with Iwai’s work. As such, affinities between conceptual art and prayer emerge: both may be acts of disclosure, holding together seen and unseen realities. Social-spiritual features of Beuys’ conceptual art—seeing Christ and one another concurrently—are extended in Bonhoeffer’s articulation of prayer—not only revealing God and each other, but also a means of presenting one another to God. Iwai can be seen to work from a conceptual mode of social-spiritual disclosure, and from consonant revelatory and intercessory practices of prayer echoing those of Bonhoeffer’s Life Together.

2. Social Orientations of Conceptual Art

In conceptual art, diverse explorations of media, context, and the artist’s role relative to their viewer had and continue to have implications for reconfiguring art within institutional and social settings. Conceptual works could be ephemeral or “dematerialized”1 as Lucy Lippard describes in her influential examination of this time period, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (Lippard 1973, pp. 5–6). The movement fostered engagement with the non-material, for example the human relations within an artwork or surrounding it. Through the work of conceptual artists, unconventional expressive media like photography, film, found objects, mixed-media, performance, and event became increasingly viable. Some of these forms were inherently communal. The use of media which largely prohibited exhibition and commodification can be seen as an effort to move away from institutions and commercialization of art. So too, the hegemony of the art world was challenged in the demystifying and democratizing of the role of artist as they engaged the public (Craven 2003, p. 4). Daniel Marzona suggests that conceptual art offered explorations of sociality by surrendering art’s autonomy through contextual embeddedness (Marzona and Grosenick 2005, p. 25). Through the use of performative media, working beyond the gallery or perhaps inviting the viewer into an event, innovative forms of human interaction become artistic subject matter and integral to artworks. Varied scales and forms of social engagement register in conceptual works, which could be materially-mediated or more performative and ephemeral. Some works were socio-political, others more intimate interactions of artist and viewer, with works navigating both poles simultaneously.

Conceptual artists were often quite attentive to their context and promoted a similar awareness in their audiences. These contexts frequently foregrounded human relations and could be overtly political; the 1960s, when conceptualism began to take shape, was a time of social upheaval and political dissent in North America and Europe. As such, Blake Stimson can frame his discussion of conceptualism considering its “core artistic issues through the prism of 1968 as an epochal historical and art-historical moment.” (Stimson 1999, p. xlvii). Lippard considers Adrian Piper to be a rare example of a conceptual artist with expansive social influence beyond the art world. She presented a statement as an artwork during Vietnam protests and the Civil Rights movement, a declaration of “the inability of art expression to have meaningful existence under conditions other than those of peace, equality, truth, trust, and freedom.” (Craven 2003, p. 4). In Brazil and Argentina, faced with oppressive dictatorial regimes, artists would offer their work as a contribution to liberation and protest, mobilizing large groups in participatory models and collective formations (Marzona and Grosenick 2005, pp. 23–24). Conceptual artworks drew public interaction, where the audience could become part of the art or the work might elicit response from the viewer. Artists and their works could intervene in the socio-political realm, in discrete or diffuse communities, interrogating human interactions in a room or on a street.

2.1. Joseph Beuys: Representing Christ in Social Practice

Joseph Beuys was a significant early conceptual artist and pioneer of socially-engaged art who also reflected on art and theology. Beuys’ works continually remind us there is more at play than what we immediately see, indeed for him art-making was a form of human sociality which represented Christ. Beuys’ practice was comprised of diverse and exploratory media, like objects, drawings, diagrams, photographs, and performances or “actions,” arguably the most communal of his forms. As Beuys observes, “there are art forms that one cannot create on one’s own, that one can only create in collaboration with others.” (Beuys and Harlan 2005, p. 13). His “actions” were among these forms2 and did not encourage passive participation. Rather in their evocative and sometimes unsettling materiality—fat, felt, gold or rust—in their potent yet elusive gestures, these works demanded something of those experiencing them. As Taylor Worley has observed, “[s]ituated in the moment of the work’s performance, these ‘actions’ involve the witness of those gathered in the gallery and remain open so that each one there might individually or collectively engage in the construction of the work’s meaning.” The performance work’s existence is predicated on its audience, insofar as a leader requires followers as one sees in an action like MANRESA (1966). This highly ritualistic and spiritually significant work involved Beuys wielding a staff as he walked between a half-cross and a wooden chest. The action was named after the village Ignatius of Loyola stayed prior to writing “Spiritual Exercises” (Worley 2020, pp. 99–100).

Beuys’ artistic practice was attentive to and engaged with his audience, who he regarded as fellow-artists, an attunement Iwai shares. Volker Harlan highlights the discursive, dialogical features of Beuys’ social practice, suggesting that no other artist has augmented their work with conversations, lectures, and interviews to the extent that Beuys did.3 Harlan considers Beuys’ conversations as examples of the artist’s highly democratic “social sculpture”, seeking to inspire, “to make things happen, to inform and transform—in conversation, in work and daily life, in government, locally and globally.” (Beuys and Harlan 2005, pp. 1–2). Beuys’ practice encompassed varied forms of social engagement, on a national and political level, in localized gatherings and communities. He had a significant impact in Germany, encouraging artists to consider the nation’s Nazi past, and even helped to form the Green Party and ran for political office (Temkin et al. 1993, p. 21). As such, Beuys demonstrates a fundamentally social orientation in his work, connecting with his audience in participatory and dialogical formation of meaning, as his “social sculpture” took shape among myriad gatherings.

Joseph Beuys’ social orientation had a simultaneous spiritual one; in a consideration of the theological foundations of Beuys’ practice, Worley identifies a common question posed by the artist and his contemporary, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “both inquire as to what purchase the enduring presence of Christ will find in this age.” (Worley 2020, p. 97). And one can see both forming answers to this question of how Christ is present, represented or revealed within a social matrix. For Bonhoeffer, Christ’s presence is bound up with his people collectively, “Christ existing as church community,” an intimate association between Jesus Christ and his body to be further considered in the context of Life Together. For Beuys, Christ is more diffusely present: Friedhelm Mennekes suggests that for the artist, Christ’s presence is imminent in individuals and communities (Worley 2020, 91). Beuys remarks that sociality finds its essence in Christ, and “[t]he idea of the social stems from love for one’s neighbour, which is the core of social thought.” Reflecting on the action Celtic +~~~ (1971), in which Beuys washed the feet of participants, the artist proposed that “[t]here is no other possibility for the individual except to assume the role of Christ…Christ lives on in every human being.” (Mennekes 2017, p. 84). Mennekes sees Beuys challenging the church and artists alike to recognize the Christological foundations of reality, as propelling our world (Mennekes 2017, p. 114), a theme Bonhoeffer likewise explores in Life Together.4

Beuys and Bonhoeffer share a concern for how Christ is present, and what form he takes in the world. Both pursue new expressions of Christianity, as Worley notes. For Bonhoeffer this derives from participating in Christ, and for Beuys, representing Christ in a participatory mode. The former proposes “a ‘religionless Christianity’ that exists on the merits of shared hope and shared risk among the community of saints.” (Worley 2020, p. 97). For Bonhoeffer, the church should serve others and thus participate in Christ’s orientation toward others.5 As Bonhoeffer’s prison writings interrogate “decaying and ruined tradition structures of institutional religion,”6 Worley suggests that this registers aesthetically in the artist’s work, “the visually arresting aesthetic of Beuys—an artist who forsook the superficial strength of traditional religious imagery for the more pertinent imagery of rust, rot, and industrial collapse.” (Worley 2020, p. 97). Beuys can be seen to seek new art forms in response to his age, reflecting critically on his earlier figurative representations of Christ: “This series of attempts of approaching the spiritual realm on the basis of traditional subject exhausted itself already around 1954 and that time actually marks the end of them. It became clear to me that what is Christian is not reached through depictions of the figure of Christ.” (Mennekes 2017, pp. 24–26).

Beuys went on to claim that his “expanded concept of art”—the central and thoroughly social aspect of Beuys’ practice wherein everyone is considered an artist7—was that which best represents Christ (Mennekes 2017, p. 72). Thus Beuys approaches the spiritual realm through this concept of art which perceives Christ through inner rather than external images, a representation of hidden, non-material reality. This is a practice which Beuys regards as overcoming the status quo, transforming thought and imagination (Mennekes 2017, pp. 74–76). He describes his holistic vision for art: “Thinking Forms—how we mould our thoughts or Spoken Forms—how we shape our thoughts into words or SOCIAL SCULPTURE how we mould and shape the world in which we live: Sculpture as an evolutionary process; everyone an artist” (Beuys and Harlan 2005, p. 9). Beuys’ capacious and socially-encompassing practice regards everyone as collectively performing the transformative work of the artist, and likewise assuming the role and representation of Christ. His methodology engages sociality as it points to spiritual realities beyond or perhaps within it. As such, Beuys and Bonhoeffer consider Christ to be present and represented within social and relational contexts, inquiries which Iwai’s artwork will be seen to examine.

2.2. Critique and Legacy of Conceptual Art and Its Sociality

Joseph Beuys and conceptual art more generally have been subject to extensive critique, evaluating their innovation and social impact relative to other movements and artists. In an early appraisal, Lippard decried the narrowness of conceptual art, its limited impact and reach toward the masses: “There are some exceptions, among them certain works by Haacke, Buren, Piper, the Rosario Group, Huebler. But, for the most part, artists have been confined to art quarters, usually by choice.” (Lippard 1973, p. 263). She went on to observe “…the artist’s well-founded despair of ever reaching the mythical ‘masses’ with ‘advanced art’; the resulting ghetto mentality predominant in the narrow and incestuous art world itself… all of these factors may make it unlikely that conceptual art will be any better equipped to affect the world any differently than, or even as much as, its less ephemeral counterparts.” (Lippard 1973, p. 264). While conceptualism may not have achieved a transcendence of art institutions nor a boundless social reach, nevertheless its transformed understandings of art can be seen to extend the social and public reach of subsequent practice. Artists like Leslie Iwai have taken a conceptual approach without the utopian aims, working from modest but still meaningful social ambitions, inviting us to attend to one another and to God.

One of Beuys’ most antagonistic critics, Benjamin Buchloh, opined that the artist did not innovate the status of the art object to the same degree as Duchamp. Claire Bishop contends that Beuys has advanced this discourse by considering sociality as artistic medium: “it is possible to assert that, at moments, Beuys’s practice engages in this question [of the art object] radically, since it posits dialogue and direct communication as artistic materials,” (Bishop 2005, p. 106) as Volker Harlan similarly observed. Lippard mused, “[a] lot of this business about object art and non-object art gets very confused...It isn’t really a matter of how much materiality a work has, but what the artist is doing with it.” (Lippard 1973, p. 6). Often what Beuys is “doing” with materiality is inextricably discursive and relational, notably in his performance works. Bishop suggests that artists have drawn from the democratic character of Beuys’ work, for example Rirkrit Tiravanija’s gallery meals, Santiago Sierra’s politically-oriented works, and Thomas Hirschhorn’s Documenta XI salon. As Worley reflects, “[w]ith each of these and others like them, Beuys inspires new trajectories of socio-cultural engagement or political commentary related to a more profoundly holistic sense of art’s abilities.” Worley observes most artists working from Beuys’ legacy do not operate with the same “material/spiritual dualism.” (Worley 2020, p. 91). However Leslie Iwai offers an example of an artist who does.

In conceptual art, Lippard suggests that materiality is “doing” something; thus its works may be characterized by materials deployed to some end, a pursuit of significance within or beyond physical qualities. We have considered this breadth in Beuys’ practice which offers expanded conceptions of sociality in art, as his engagement with the material offers a window onto the social and spiritual. Beuys’ theology may deviate from orthodoxy as Worley observes, and yet his work is rooted in Christian convictions (Worley 2020, p. 92), recognizing Christ and each human being as integrally linked in life as in artmaking. I hope to show how Iwai’s works may similarly disclose social and spiritual trajectories. Her practice will be considered in continuity with such social-theological exploration, interrogating with Beuys and Bonhoeffer how God and neighbour may be revealed. In her artistic practice, Iwai negotiates between the social and spiritual through prayer, in distinction from Beuys. For her as for Bonhoeffer, prayer may be revelatory, a means to see God and one another, and to bring each other to God.

3. Bonhoeffer on Art, Prayer and Life Together

Finkenwalde was a seminary serving the Confessing Church, formed in opposition to Nazi incursions into the church and directed by Bonhoeffer from 1935 to 1937 until its closure by the Gestapo. As Theodor A. Gill observes, Finkenwalde could be seen not only as a “new effort to give form to discipline and shape to the day…but [it] is also artistry” (Gill 1975, p. 7)—a somewhat Beuysian proposition akin to “social sculpture.” Life Together provides a rich account of this experiment in communal living and formation. Yet one feature of common life is largely overlooked in the text, even though biographers and seminarians noted its persistence, namely the arts. In addition to the formative spiritual disciplines, Bonhoeffer gave an important place to a variety of arts in daily life, often in communal forms and settings.

Music was a continuous element shaping Finkenwalde, from the hymn-singing we read of in Life Together to duets on the two grand pianos, and the African American spirituals resounding from the record player. In the seminary entry, Bonhoeffer displayed a rotation of Rembrandt prints (Bethge 1977, p. 348). Dürer’s four apostles, a Spanish portrait of Christ, and a Byzantine icon also found a home there. Mealtimes included literary readings: the fiction of Adalbert Stifter, George Bernano’s Diary of a Country Priest, Mozart’s memoire of a journey to Prague (Marsh 2014, pp. 231, 238–241). As Nazi interference in the church increased, recreation at Finkenwalde took on greater importance. Seminarian Eberhard Bethge describes “Bonhoeffer’s infectious joie de vivre…his delight in games, music and the summer in the country…The grand piano, far from falling silent, rang out more often than ever before.” (Bethge 1977, p. 450). Seminarian Gerhard Lehne reflects on the many facets of his training in a “collective pastorate,” a continuation of Finkenwalde after its closure: “I entered a world that united many things that I love and need: accurate theological work on the common ground of fellowship…with open-mindedness and love for everything that makes even this fallen creation still worthy of love: music, literature, sports, and the beauty of the earth.” He describes how seemingly “peripheral things,” the diverse pleasures of their shared life “increased my delight in what is central.” (Marsh 2014, p. 241). Bonhoeffer engaged the arts as a source of enjoyment, as vital and even formative during this time.

In Bonhoeffer’s later prison letters, he would offer more far-reaching aesthetic-theological reflections than he does in Life Together. From prison, he considers the possibility of “aesthetic existence” renewed within the church and suggests “it is only from the concept of the church that we can regain the understanding of the sphere of freedom (art, formation, friendship, play).” (Bonhoeffer 2010, p. 268, translation altered)8. Nevertheless, Bonhoeffer’s remarks on the arts in Life Together indicate that he sees spiritual and social implications in artistic expression. Rather than the pursuit of artistic autonomy in worship, Bonhoeffer prefers “the purity of unison singing—untouched by the unrelated motives of musical excess—the clarity unclouded by the dark desire to lend musicality an autonomy of its own apart from the words; it is the simplicity and unpretentiousness, the humanness and warmth, of this style of singing.” (Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 67). He suggests that artistic expression ought not to primarily point to the virtuosity of the individual artist, and that the arts may express a unified body of Christ. This requires “spiritual discernment” for Bonhoeffer (Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 67). Recollections by seminarians also demonstrate how hymn-singing offered an experience of participating in a united church: “In this group experience the church became once again a living reality for us, without boundaries of time or place, and we became increasingly conscious of being her members” (Marsh 2014, p. 233). Bonhoeffer suggests that the Psalms are prayers which may be sung with united voices, and in doing so the music reaches “beyond all human words” (Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 66). Here the artistic expression lends something profound to worship, a joining of the prayer and the arts. Thus Bonhoeffer engages the arts in formative experiences of Christian community which reveal its unity in worship, as will be further explored in Iwai’s practice.

Bonhoeffer on Sociality and Prayer

In Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality, Clifford Green suggests that Bonhoeffer interprets the gospel within “a theological phenomenology of the human person in relation to other persons and to various types of corporate communities and institutions” (Green 1999, p. 21). Green observes in Bonhoeffer’s theology that Christ is present within a “comprehensive phenomenology of sociality.” God reveals himself within the church community, and such revelation is embedded within “concrete modes of being in human personal, communal, institutional, and political life. The outcome of revelation, consequently, is a new social form of humanity in which love liberates people from dominating and exploitative power over others to the freedom of being with and for others.” (Green 1999, p. 2). Life Together continues this social outlook: Bonhoeffer’s earlier theology, with its theoretical explorations of the role of the church, is invested with a new lived reality at Finkenwalde (Green 1999, p. 180).9 Bonhoeffer prefaces Life Together with his hope: “may these comments help clarify this experience and put it into practice.” (Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 25). We will examine this practical reality within Bonhoeffer’s thoughts on prayer, which he placed at the heart of spiritual formation at Finkenwalde.10

Prayer is a practice which encapsulates key themes of Life Together and Bonhoeffer’s sociality—the revelation of God and mediation of Christ, and consequently how we see and approach one another. Bonhoeffer describes prayer as an attentive and intercessory act, seeing each other as beloved by God and presenting one’s brother or sister before him. Sociality is an integral aspect of prayer which operates within a theology of relationality as Green describes, wherein God’s revelation is experientially embedded in a community of love and freedom. A value of freedom comes through in Life Together: the mediation of Christ protects us from exploiting one another, granting the other their freedom and allowing God to form his unique image in each person. Christ’s mediation is essential to our relations with one another and is operative in prayer. Bonhoeffer describes spiritual love which “knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ and that love of the other is completely tied to the truth found in Christ.” Such love “recognizes the true image of the other person as seen from the perspective of Jesus Christ. It is the image Jesus Christ has formed and wants to form in all people.” (Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 44).

For Bonhoeffer, prayer unites the Christian community to Christ, even as it also draws members to one another. The former union derives from Bonhoeffer’s articulation of the church as “Christ existing as church community”, and likewise his reading of the Psalter as the prayer of Christ in which the church collectively joins. Bonhoeffer’s theology of prayer is firmly grounded in the Psalms, an important scriptural and historical locus of collective prayer, and significant for him during the Finkenwalde period. Bonhoeffer observes the breadth of expression in the Psalms and our difficulty voicing all of these prayers, particularly those expressing innocence, vengeance, and suffering. This challenge prompts his discovery that it is Christ in his humanity who is praying here, who knows the full scope of our experience and “is praying in the Psalter through the mouth of his congregation” (Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 54). In prayer of the Psalms, one is joined to Christ and his body:

Now that Christ is with the Father, the new humanity of Christ—the body of Christ—on earth continues to pray his prayer to the end of time. This prayer belongs not to the individual member, but to the whole body of Christ. All the things of which the Psalter speaks, which individuals can never fully comprehend and call their own, live only in the whole Christ… even if a verse or a Psalm is not my own prayer, it is nevertheless the prayer of another member of the community; and it is quite certainly the prayer of the truly human Jesus Christ and his body on earth.

(Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 55)

Such corporate prayer has the potential to reveal the humanity of Christ among his followers.

Bonhoeffer emphasizes praying the Psalms, these prayers of Christ in which he is also present. But he also notes the importance of forming one’s own prayers, using one’s words to respond to God’s Word (Bonhoeffer 1996, pp. 68–69). Intercession is a form of such prayer for Bonhoeffer, and is also fundamentally relational and revelatory, drawing members of the church to one another and seeing one another as beloved by God. It is a gift from God to the community. “In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner.” (Bonhoeffer 1996, pp. 90–91). Intercession transforms our outlook, as it challenges us to look beyond a difficult personality to see their belovedness.

Bonhoeffer addresses the importance of the concreteness of intercessory prayer, requiring contact with life, a concreteness that Iwai’s relational and participatory practice embodies. Such prayer requires mutual involvement in one another’s lives, attending to brothers’ and sisters’ specific needs, discerning the “heart of the community” (Bonhoeffer 1996, pp. 69–70). For Bonhoeffer, listening to one another is an essential form of service elaborated in Life Together (Bonhoeffer 1996, pp. 98–99). A similarly active intercession and attentiveness may be seen in Iwai’s reflections on the role of the artist and is foregrounded in the works to be considered. For Bonhoeffer, such prayer is a means of bringing one another into God’s presence (Bonhoeffer 1996, p. 90); in Iwai’s art-making, she similarly prays that God would be experienced by those who encounter her work and in this sense her art cooperates with prayer, inviting participants into such divine encounters.

We have seen the arts shaping communal life in Life Together, in an emphasis on the arts as formative and lending tangible expression to unity, offering a social-artistic outworking of this text relevant to Iwai’s art-making. We have also considered how for Bonhoeffer, prayer witnesses to Christ within the church community and likewise demonstrates its spiritual unity. Praying together represents Christ in a real sense and is a means of bringing each other into God’s presence. This is also a socially unifying practice, seeing one’s brothers and sisters as forgiven and beloved, listening and attending to them. It is a recalibration of the Christian’s life and perspective, wherein one sees Christ and one another and simultaneously. Iwai’s practice interrogates with Beuys and Bonhoeffer how God may be revealed and how we may see one another. The theological reflections on Iwai’s practice will emphasize prayer as a means of seeking one another’s and God’s disclosure. This will revolve around contemplative and intercessory prayer, with associated practices of attending to one’s brother or sister and presenting them to God. Central to prayer is attentiveness, a sensitivity and orientation to God and neighbour integral to Iwai’s practice. Such attention within art-making is among the social and spiritual possibilities opened up by conceptual art.

4. Leslie Iwai: Praying and Making Art Together

Like her conceptual forerunners, the work of Leslie Iwai is spiritually, materially, formally, conceptually, and socially rich. The breadth of her practice is evident even in the sampling of work examined here: Interfacings (2005) and Share Table (2021). Iwai reflects on the scope of her undergraduate studies, courses in philosophy, art and music history, as nurturing a “love of connections in form, concept and human relationships.” Architectural studies encouraged Iwai to work between materials and concepts, and after these studies she kept being drawn towards what she describes as “the conceptual and more immediate medium of art-making.” (Aaker 2018). Iwai notes a simultaneous draw to the relational and conceptual. One sees her working from particularly relational concepts, which invite participants into social arrangements or interaction, aggregating and associating objects and materials. Additionally, her reading Life Together was influential at the time she was choosing art as her vocation and during the development of particular works, like Interfacings. This becomes apparent in the theological reflections she offers from Bonhoeffer’s text, and the connections I will also draw.

Over the course of Iwai’s artistic and spiritual formation, conceptual and prayer practices have yielded a generative exchange. While Iwai does not explicitly comment on the connection between conceptual art and prayer, I would suggest some affinities. Conceptual art has been considered as gesturing to relational and social contexts, pointing beyond what is revealed to our senses to the spiritual. In Life Together, Bonhoeffer characterizes Christian community as inextricably physical and spiritual, and similarly prayer holds together seen realities with unseen. For Bonhoeffer, one sees Christ praying through the mouths of the church members gathered to pray the Psalms. In intercession, one sees their brother or sister in God’s love, and beholds the image of Christ being formed in him or her. There is a disclosure operative in prayer and conceptual art, the uncovering of something not immediately perceptible.

While I will focus on two works which engage prayer as revelatory, a variety of Iwai’s works gesture to the presence of another, or present something being uncovered or remembered. Tulips for Clemens features 20-foot tulips with white exteriors encasing richly coloured interiors. The work honoured the death of an older student and inner life revealed in his later years. (The Miller Art Museum 2022) Chambers: Gleaning in Cracks of Light involved smashing and mending clay doves, to release confessions enclosed within them. A light box installation, Spring’s Thaw/Winter’s Growth luminously displayed maple seeds, feathers, leaves, and petals, thus recovering memories that might have otherwise been tucked away in a book (The Miller Art Museum 2022). Iwai reflects on her frequent use of a chair, “it can be unoccupied but it is to represent the unseen one that always is God with Us and our Maker. It also reminds me that I am not alone, that there are many others that have helped along the way.” (Iwai 2022).

Before considering particular works, the conceptual and social undercurrents in Iwai’s art-making will be considered more broadly. Here we begin to see prayer in community as part of her artistic formation and process. For Iwai, conceptual art has an inherently social outworking. She likens concepts to a feast that may be shared—there is an abundance to a concept such that others can partake not only as they participate in her work, but also as they help her in the work. As the scale of Iwai’s work grew over the course of her practice, she learned that she needed assistance. “I have to ask for and accept assistance in myriad ways, large and small. Opening my process has made me softer towards myself and others. And I’ve experienced more beauty than I could have hoped for or imagined, both aesthetically and relationally.” (Iwai 2019). For Urbana, a Christian student missions conference, she developed Hold Fast (2018) a work of ambitious scale executed quickly. She recalls the daily help offered by church members, their prayer and how they commissioned her as an artist. “I had never had a church actually acknowledge the importance of visual arts and pray for me in such a direct and affirmative way,” she recalls. “God has been renewing my strength continuously through the help of my church, friends and family. I think of Psalm 20: ‘Strengthen us from your temple and send help from Zion.’” (Iwai 2019). Iwai’s concepts have taken form by bringing others into the work, during their making and final installation.

Iwai describes how in the midst of a project, she invites friends and colleagues into her studio to stimulate her creative process. “Some of my most meaningful breakthroughs have come from those interactions.…While I often work in solitude, I count on these visits as well using local communal workspaces to [help] me continue to learn, gain perspective, and receive input and encouragement.” (Iwai 2017). She finds opportunities to invite Christians into her studio, for times of worship and prayer. Here we see an integration of prayer and work, ora et labora, a practice Iwai and Bonhoeffer both value.11 Iwai observes that working within the church or beyond it does not always entail entirely distinct approaches. However, in Christian community, a shared grounding brings a freedom to be her “faithful self”. Working outside of the church, she finds he ability to speak about God is more limited, and so she seeks prayer for opportunities to do so, that those who visit her work may be able to hear or experience God (Iwai 2022). As such, prayer suffuses various stages of Iwai’s collaborative process, as her art is crafted and offered to those who will experience her work, and perhaps even encounter God.

4.1. Interfacings

Prayer and readings of Life Together have been integral to Iwai’s spiritual and artistic formation. Interfacings (Figure 1 and Figure 2) was made while Iwai served with a Christian organization in Sierra Leone, concurrent with her reading of Bonhoeffer’s text. Additionally, around the time she made Interfacings she recalls engaging in contemplative prayer, which she describes as “meditating on Scripture and waiting with and for God.”12 This practice taught her how to be quiet so that others and even God could speak into her life. “I love to worship with music and other outwardly expressive forms,” she remarks, “but it was this quiet presence with other people with the Lord that has been transformative.” She recalls how “God gave me a practice of listening, so maybe I could hear what’s going on for a minute. It became more important to be quiet.” (Iwai 2018). Contemplative prayer may become a receptive mode, experiencing God’s presence and in turn receiving from both God and others. Iwai describes the practice as bringing her into “spacious places,” (Iwai 2022) something we find her seeking to create in her art.

Bonhoeffer’s articulation of prayerful attentiveness resonates with Iwai’s practice, as she considers listening a parallel to seeing (Iwai 2022). In Interfacings one finds Iwai implementing an analogue of listening in her drawing exchange, with attention and responsiveness. She had brought a medium-format camera to Sierra Leone, but found photography as a distant, divisive medium, inappropriate for engaging with people who had been traumatized by civil war. She discovered sketching as a better and more intimate way to come to know the people she was living with: even if drawing took place in a crowd, there was a sense that they were alone in this activity. Iwai would offer to sketch people and invite them to draw her in turn, a highly participatory mode and a visual conversation with surprising results. She received depictions of herself with missing limbs, a poignant superimposing of their war experiences onto their representations of her. The layering of the drawings further reinforces her process, as the images are subtly in dialogue. In their installation, the viewer may walk around the work to discover both faces. Thus the artwork in its composition tangibly demonstrates an attunement to one another which is likewise essential to prayer. An important act is materialized here, taking the time to truly see one another.

Iwai learned an impactful lesson from her reading of Life Together, namely that our access to others must be mediated by Christ, something we see operative in Bonhoeffer’s theology of prayer. Iwai regards attempts to gain immediate access to others’ emotions or spiritual life as harmful and manipulative, and she seeks to position Christ as mediator within her work. In a similar but secondary manner, the art can act as a buffer and protection, whereby the artist does not directly access the viewer. Her work is not intended to transgress the viewer’s freedom or “talk at” them; instead there is artistic resonance with her contemplative practice, as she seeks to create “a spaciousness and quiet where someone feels known.” (Iwai 2022). For her work in Sierra Leone, an especially sensitive context, it was important to her that these sketches were uncompelled and free interactions. The sketching exchange allowed those who participated to look back, not just to be looked at; the artist was “under their eye” (Iwai 2022). This is consistent with her desire to be vulnerable in and through her work, and create opportunities for others to be so.

“Interfacing” can mean an interaction between persons, which is evident in this work. However in sewing, a significant technique for Iwai, interfacing is also a material that is internal to a finished garment and normally unseen. In this work, we seem to be glimpsing at something hidden being revealed as we witness a mutual discovery between co-artists. Iwai has felt seen, loved, and heard by God through her art-making (The Upwards Podcast 2021); so too her works encourage others to recognize they are similarly known and appreciated. This is especially apparent in Interfacings—exchanges enacted while learning to listen and see, through an attentiveness nurtured in contemplative prayer to God which also points to others. Here Iwai’s work reveals an influence of contemplative prayer; moreover art may be seen to cooperate with prayer in pursuing shared ends—opportunities to know and be known, to recognize one’s belovedness by God and one another.

4.2. Share Table

Developed from Iwai’s earlier work, Shareholding (2013), Share Table (Figure 3) was commissioned for a contemplative event, Unveiled|Prayers of the People, which concluded on the National Day of Prayer in the US. The event organizers recall the pandemic as an isolated and “veiled” time. The prayer they offered resonates with Life Together and Iwai’s practice: “May we see God and one another afresh. May we experience God’s presence through our unveiled prayers. May our individual prayers join and become a corporate offering.” (Upper House 2021b). The installation invited participants to sit around a table, to share memories and prayers collected in lunch sacks emblazoned with evocative words, representing things which may be shared. Some featured words were delightful and celebratory—a birthday, a song or flower. Others take place within close relationship or could be the beginnings of one; sharing plans, grief, or credit, a story, book, pillow, or blanket. Some words point to life-giving acts or service: to share light or water, one’s seat or umbrella, a bike or a tool. Certain things could be shared around a table: a sandwich, a tomato, or a coffee. The artist reflects: “[t]hese handsewn shareholding lunch sacks were created to represent the things we may think are small but when shared with holy abandon can multiply,” like the boy who gave loaves and fishes for Jesus to pray over and proliferate (Iwai n.d.b).

The concept of a shared table and the community fostered there was reflected in the assembly of objects. Iwai suggests that the assemblage of chairs represent their diverse owners, thus incorporating them into the gathering. The assorted white vessels are intended to be a “blank canvas” enabling participants to project their own stories (Iwai n.d.a). When seated, participants did not see the word on their own bag, rather they could look across to see their neighbour’s—a spatial, visual conversation in addition to the verbal sharing. Share Table was a dialogue of those present and also those who contributed from afar—prayers, memories and even chairs or tableware—with a simultaneous orientation to God. The work depended upon the engagement of gathered participants and an openness to the spiritual reality of being united in God.

Reflecting on this commission, Iwai suggests that prayer and art-making are interconnected: both are acts of intercession, and she is jointly called to be artist and intercessor. Iwai regards this artistic mediation and intercession in concert with but not replacing Christ’s role as mediator, a significant theme in Life Together (Iwai 2022). “I have dedicated time solely to prayer and I have also dedicated time solely to artmaking,” she recalls. “As I work I have found they slowly come to intersect.” She sees the intercessory role of the artist, and likewise of art, as “making space” to encounter the Creator God, who she enjoys “as a ‘maker’ who makes art with the Creator.” (Upper House 2021a). For Iwai, art made in an openness to God has the potential to share an experience of him with those who encounter the work (The Upwards Podcast 2021). Such “making space” echoes her contemplative practice; it may involve clearing and refocusing, a subtle and quiet aesthetic, disclosing the participant’s belovedness and God’s presence.

Intercessory art may reveal God’s love, according to Iwai. Intercession through art, which she regards as an act of care for one another, originates in God’s love. Care can be seen in her intricate craft of pieces, which Iwai describes as “enriched by my hands intentionally making while also not solely focusing on myself.” It is Iwai’s prayer that those who experience her work connect with the Holy Spirit through it, that her work reveals to viewers they are loved and enjoyed by God (Iwai 2022). In other words, she is seeking to disclose spiritual realities through her art, reminiscent of Bonhoeffer’s characterization of intercession as seeing God’s love over one’s brothers and sisters. Moreover, Iwai and Bonhoeffer share a conviction that prayer can occasion a meeting with God and that God may be present in prayer.

In Share Table, one can see potential for Iwai’s prayer to be fulfilled, for God’s love to have been recognized by the many people interceding in the work, for God to have met his people gathered to offer petitions and memories. As Bonhoeffer referred to music adding something beyond the words of our worship, so too Share Table offered words and yet so much more; it enriched prayers by immersing them in a beautiful experience of togetherness. While prayer may often be a simple, daily practice, by enacting it in an evocative and intricately crafted setting, we are reminded prayer may also be a delight and an experience to enjoy together. The artwork made George Herbert’s poetic declaration a reality—“prayer the Church’s banquet” (Herbert 2004, p. 37)—and perhaps also materialized the psalmist’s refrain to “worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Pss. 29:2b, 96:9a).

5. Conclusions

One sees Iwai’s practice building upon Beuys’ social-spiritual methodology and Bonhoeffer’s theology of prayer as integral to appreciating and approaching our neighbour, a means of seeing one another in God and bringing one another to him. In Iwai’s practice, as in the conceptual art of Joseph Beuys, art gives materiality to experiences of sociality—a shared room or table, a drawing exchange—and asks us to reflect on the relationships at play. Her art brings people and objects into generative association, intricately crafting material and social interactions alike. Iwai’s work has taken shape within a spiritual context of praying together, and her art cooperates with prayer in a common pursuit—the revelation of relationship to God and neighbour. Iwai’s art has the potential to heighten our appreciation of others, as prayer may, and concurrent to this human orientation there may be a pointing to God. Art need not focus strictly on the work and its creator, but may gesture more expansively to a community and to God, as Bonhoeffer, Beuys and Iwai suggest in their own idiom.

Iwai’s artistic practice invites relationship and participation. If her offers are accepted, one may be asked for engagement and contribution, a sketch or a prayer. This is not unlike the response elicited in Beuys’ challenging actions. Similarly, Bonhoeffer notes that prayer is not a passive practice but requires something from us collectively. Thus Iwai’s art and Bonhoeffer’s theology may catalyze a mutual involvement with one another’s lives, as both show us tangible practices and invite us into them. In Life Together Bonhoeffer provides a candid account of living together and a theology of prayer being enacted. We glimpse a pursuit of spiritual unity in concrete practices, experiences of the church community as a “living reality” as one seminarian reflected, singing and praying together. Likewise, Iwai’s artworks may demonstrate such unity in gathering for prayer, in attending to one another. These works begin to show us a receptive and responsive manner of being together, drawing us into an exchange, allowing us to be seen, heard, loved, and even praying with and for one another. The featured works celebrate everyday objects and practices—sitting at table or face to face—perhaps to demonstrate God’s generous availability in shared daily life. Her works may serve to recast these quotidian activities as witnessing to a spiritual unity, revealing our belovedness as we gather and as we pray. In considering these rich potentials for prayer and art pursued together, we may ask with Christ’s first followers “Lord, teach us to pray.” (Luke 11:1b).