In early 2023, as I stood in the Long March Space of Beijing’s 798 Art District viewing Guo Fengyi’s exhibition « Cosmic Meridians, » I felt an overwhelming sense of transcendence wash over me. The intricate drawings—pulsing with energy, depicting cosmic forces and spiritual entities—seemed to vibrate with an otherworldly presence that defied the sterile white walls containing them. This exhibition caused a significant stir in Beijing’s art circles, and for good reason. Guo Fengyi (1942-2010), a self-taught artist who began creating visionary drawings after practicing qigong to alleviate health problems, produced works that mapped invisible energies, celestial realms, and spiritual anatomies. Her meticulous lines constructed complex cosmological systems that bridged Eastern mystical traditions with a deeply personal visual language.
Guo Fengyi, Cosmic Meridians, Long March Space Beijing, 07 / 01 – 26 / 03 2023
This exhibition sparked considerable buzz in Beijing’s art world at the time. Standing before these works, I couldn’t help but recognize them as part of a broader resurgence of interest in mysticism and spirituality across contemporary art globally—a current that runs counter to the predominantly materialist, conceptual, and politically-oriented art that has dominated discourse for decades. This revival raises compelling questions: Why are contemporary artists increasingly drawn to spiritual and mystical themes? What historical precedents inform this tendency? And what might this tell us about our current moment?
Origins: The Historical Roots of Art and Mysticism
The relationship between art and mysticism extends deep into human history. From prehistoric cave paintings that likely served shamanic functions to the religious art that dominated Western culture for centuries, the creation of images has long been intertwined with attempts to connect with transcendent realities. However, the specific lineage of mysticism in modern and contemporary art has several key historical moments worth exploring.
The late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed a profound interest in spirituality among avant-garde artists. Symbolist painters like Odilon Redon created dreamlike works filled with mystical imagery, while artists such as Wassily Kandinsky, Hilma af Klint, and Kazimir Malevich developed abstract languages partly inspired by Theosophy, Anthroposophy, and other esoteric traditions. In Kandinsky’s 1911 treatise « Concerning the Spiritual in Art, » he argued that art should express inner spiritual truths rather than merely represent the material world—a revolutionary concept that helped birth abstraction itself.
Hilma Klint, Paintings for the Future, Guggenheim, 2018-2019
I’ve always found Hilma af Klint’s story particularly moving. Creating abstract paintings as early as 1906—years before Kandinsky, Mondrian, or Malevich—af Klint claimed to receive her compositions through spiritual séances, making works so ahead of their time that she stipulated they remain hidden until twenty years after her death. When her work finally received widespread recognition in the 2018-2019 Guggenheim exhibition « Paintings for the Future, » I remember being struck not just by their formal innovation but by the profound conviction behind them—a belief that art could visualize invisible dimensions of reality.
The midcentury saw another wave of mystically-inclined art. After World War II’s horrors, artists like Mark Rothko created works aimed at evoking transcendent emotional states. Rothko once said he wanted viewers to weep before his paintings, experiencing the same religious ecstasy he felt while creating them. Meanwhile, artists associated with California’s « Light and Space » movement like James Turrell created immersive environments that induced meditative states and perceptual shifts.
James Turrel, The memorial chapel at Dorotheenstädtischer Cemetery in Berlin, 2015
Disenchantment and Re-enchantment
To understand why mysticism has resurged in contemporary art, we must consider the broader cultural context. Sociologist Max Weber famously described modernization as a process of « disenchantment » (Entzauberung)—the replacement of magical, religious worldviews with rational, scientific ones. This disenchantment accelerated throughout the 20th century and into our own, reaching new heights in our current era of artificial intelligence, digital technology, and scientific materialism.
Contemporary society’s focus on technological progress, algorithmic decision-making, and quantifiable metrics has created what philosopher Byung-Chul Han calls a « transparency society »—one that eliminates mystery in favor of data and measurability. Our digital environments increasingly mediate our experiences, creating distance from direct, embodied engagement with the world. As poet and philosopher David Whyte observes, « We live in a world where we’ve slowly and inexorably forced ourselves to look at everything through the narrow aperture of understanding. We’ve systematically removed the mythic ground on which our societies were built. »
The turn toward mysticism and spirituality in contemporary art can be understood as a form of « re-enchantment »—an attempt to recover dimensions of experience that technological rationality has eclipsed. Artists are seeking to reintroduce mystery, transcendence, and spiritual depth into a world increasingly dominated by algorithms and digital interfaces.
Contemporary Expressions: The New Mysticism in Art
Today’s mystically-oriented artists draw from diverse sources: religious iconography, esoteric traditions, indigenous spiritual practices, psychedelic experiences, quantum physics, and ecological awareness. Unlike their historical predecessors, many contemporary artists approach these traditions with postmodern hybridity, freely combining elements from different spiritual systems while often maintaining critical distance.
Several major exhibitions have brought attention to this tendency. « The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985 » at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1986 was an early landmark, connecting historical abstract art to spiritual concerns. More recently, exhibitions like « Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future » (2018-2019) at the Guggenheim, « Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist » (2019-2020) at the Whitney Museum, and « Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art » (2021-2022) at various venues have highlighted different aspects of art’s engagement with spirituality.
Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2022
Among contemporary Western artists engaging with mysticism, James Turrell continues his decades-long exploration of light as a transcendent medium. His « Roden Crater » project—transforming an extinct volcano into an observatory for celestial phenomena—attempts to create spaces for direct engagement with cosmic forces. Olafur Eliasson’s immersive installations similarly use light and natural elements to create transcendent experiences that heighten awareness of our perceptual faculties.
Cecilia Vicuña, the Chilean-born artist and poet, creates installations that draw on indigenous Andean spiritual traditions, particularly the quipu—knotted cords used by pre-Columbian civilizations as recording devices. Her monumental installations of hanging red wool transform these ancient memory systems into contemporary meditations on connection, ecology, and collective healing.
Cecilia Vicuña, Quipu Menstral, The 13th Shanghai Biennale, 2021
In the digital realm, artists like David OReilly create virtual environments that function as meditative spaces. His project « Mountain » (2014) and « Everything » (2017) are interactive experiences that encourage contemplation of scale, interconnection, and cosmic unity—mystical experiences rendered through digital technology rather than in opposition to it.
Eastern Mysticism in Contemporary Chinese Art
Eastern spiritual traditions have profoundly influenced contemporary art both within Asia and globally. In China, despite the officially secular stance of the state, numerous artists have turned to Buddhist, Daoist, and indigenous spiritual traditions as resources for their work.
Lu Yang, one of China’s most prominent digital artists, creates multimedia works exploring the intersection of neuroscience, religion, and digital culture. Her « Delusional Mandala » series uses 3D animation to visualize the artist’s digitized body transformed through religious iconography and scientific manipulation. When I first encountered Lu’s work at the Venice Biennale, I was simultaneously disturbed and fascinated by how she recontextualizes traditional Buddhist imagery through contemporary technology, creating a cybernetic spirituality that feels uniquely suited to our digital age.Share
Lu Yang, Delusional Crime and Punishment, NYU Shanghai Art Gallery, 2016
Tianzhuo Chen au Palais de Tokyo, 2015
Chen Tianzhuo merges religious iconography from various traditions with rave culture and queer aesthetics. His immersive performances and installations create contemporary rituals that feel both ancient and futuristic. In works like « Ishvara » (2016), he combines elements of Buddhism, Hinduism, and club culture into overwhelming sensory experiences that function as secular-sacred ceremonies for a post-traditional world. His willingness to blur boundaries between spiritual devotion and profane spectacle reflects the complex position of spirituality in contemporary culture—simultaneously earnest and ironic, reverent and transgressive.
Guo Fengyi, whom I mentioned at the beginning, represents a different approach. Her visionary drawings emerged from genuine spiritual practices rather than conceptual art strategies. Working outside the established art world until late in her life, she created images that mapped energetic systems based on traditional Chinese medicine and qigong practices. The recent retrospective exhibition « Cosmic Meridians » revealed how her work bridges contemporary art and traditional spiritual practices—the drawings function simultaneously as personal healing tools, cosmological maps, and powerful aesthetic objects.
Works of Guo Fengyi
What I find particularly compelling about these Chinese artists is how they navigate the relationship between tradition and contemporaneity. Rather than simply appropriating spiritual imagery as exotic decoration, they engage deeply with philosophical aspects of Eastern spiritual traditions while transforming them through contemporary concerns and media.
Why Now? Contemporary Conditions for Spiritual Revival
Several factors help explain why mysticism and spirituality have resurfaced so prominently in contemporary art:
First, as mentioned earlier, our disenchanted technological world has created a hunger for meaning, mystery, and transcendence. In an era where scientific materialism and digital technology dominate, art offers a space for exploring dimensions of experience that exceed rational explanation. The acceleration of artificial intelligence and virtual reality has only intensified questions about consciousness, embodiment, and what constitutes authentic human experience.
Second, ecological crisis has prompted renewed interest in worldviews that emphasize interconnection between humans and nature. Indigenous spiritual traditions, with their emphasis on reciprocity with the natural world, have gained new relevance as artists grapple with environmental catastrophe. The Anthropocene—our current geological age defined by human impact—has created urgent questions about humanity’s relationship to the earth that many artists address through spiritually-inflected ecological awareness.
Third, globalization and postcolonial reckonings have brought increased attention to non-Western spiritual traditions and indigenous knowledge systems previously marginalized in art discourse. As the art world becomes more global and diverse, artists are drawing on spiritual traditions from their own cultural backgrounds, contributing to a more pluralistic understanding of spirituality in art.
Fourth, advances in neuroscience and consciousness studies have created new frameworks for understanding mystical experiences. Research on psychedelics, meditation, and altered states of consciousness has lent scientific legitimacy to experiences once dismissed as purely subjective or superstitious. Many contemporary artists engage with these scientific perspectives alongside spiritual traditions.
Beyond Appropriation: Critical Perspectives
While celebrating this spiritual revival in art, we must acknowledge potential pitfalls. The history of Western engagement with non-Western spiritual traditions is fraught with appropriation, decontextualization, and exoticization. Contemporary artists must navigate these issues carefully, especially when working across cultural boundaries.
Similarly, there’s a risk that spiritual themes in art could devolve into superficial « spiritual aesthetics » divorced from deeper engagement—Ronald E. Purser coined a term for this phenomenon — McMindfulness. The commodification of spirituality within capitalism creates contradictions that artists must acknowledge.
Some critics argue that art’s turn toward spirituality represents a retreat from political engagement—a privileging of individual transcendence over collective action. However, the most compelling mystically-oriented art today often connects spiritual concerns with social and ecological justice, recognizing that re-enchantment isn’t merely personal but has political implications.[Saut de retour à la ligne]Ronald E. Purser, McMindfulness
Art’s Eternal Return to the Spiritual
The resurgence of mysticism and spirituality in contemporary art reflects a profound human need for meaning beyond material existence—a need that persists despite (or perhaps because of) our technologically advanced, secularized world. As Georges Bataille observed, the sacred never truly disappears but returns in new forms, often where we least expect it.
Art has always existed at the threshold between visible and invisible worlds, between what we know and what we sense lies beyond knowing. Today’s artists engaging with mysticism continue this ancient function while adapting it to contemporary conditions. They create spaces where wonder, mystery, and transcendence can flourish within—rather than in opposition to—our technological reality.
As I reflect on Guo Fengyi’s intricate drawings of cosmic energies flowing through human and superhuman bodies, I’m reminded that art at its most powerful has always been a technology for accessing the ineffable. In our disenchanted age, art’s engagement with mysticism and spirituality represents not a regression to pre-modern thinking but a necessary expansion of what modernity might become—one that integrates rational understanding with mystical insight, technological innovation with spiritual depth.
The revival of mysticism in contemporary art suggests that, despite all our technological advances, we remain beings who crave meaning, mystery, and connection to something larger than ourselves. In this sense, art continues to fulfill one of its most ancient functions: making visible the invisible dimensions of human experience.
References:
- Morley, Simon. « The Sublime Unknown: Contemporary Art and the Spiritual. » In Spirit of Place: Contemporary Landscape Painting and the American Tradition, 2019.
- Elkins, James. On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art. Routledge, 2004.
- Han, Byung-Chul. The Transparency Society. Stanford University Press, 2015.
- Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. Dover Publications, 1977 (originally published 1911).
- Weber, Max. « Science as a Vocation. » In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 1946.
- Kripal, Jeffrey J. Secret Body: Erotic and Esoteric Currents in the History of Religions. University of Chicago Press, 2017.
- Wu Hung. Contemporary Chinese Art. Thames & Hudson, 2014.
- Bishop, Claire. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. Verso Books, 2012.
Ziyin ZHANG
