Recently on display at P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City (an affiliate of The Museum of Modern Art), ¿NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith¿ presented the work of thirty-three artists from the Americas. At the base of curator Franklin Sirman¿s powerful exhibition was the notion that religion in this hemisphere is a syncretic mix¿a hybrid creation born of African ritual, Native American mythologies, and Christian hegemony¿and that contemporary art is inevitably touched by religion or spirituality in some form. In the curator¿s words, the decision to focus on the region ¿is an attempt to address a `lost¿ spirituality, rooted in the Americas and influenced by the hemisphere¿s particular political and social history.¿ In effect, African traditions, such as the Yoruba religion, influenced practices in the Americas and developed into various traditions such as Vodou in Haiti, Candomblé in Brazil and Uruguay, Santería in Cuba, and Hoodoo in the United States. For Sirmans, this fascinating mix of political ideologies, religious beliefs, social realities, and cultural values produced a rich body of artistic works. Perhaps most significant were the connections that could be drawn between them. Two works anchored this exhibition, both from The Menil Collection: a large brass circular sculpture, The Halo (1985), by James Lee Byars and a smaller painted steel spiral by George Smith from 1990. Byars¿s large, majestic, brilliant work was made of gilded brass. The Halo was colossal in scale and magical to behold. Standing before it, one was blinded by the reflection of the lights off its surface. It suggested the various guises of the halo in Renaissance painting, from the flat, plate-like haloes of the thirteenth century to the barely visible, ephemeral haloes of Caravaggio. Its scale, however, placed it squarely in the late twentieth century, as a monument to Minimalism. Its smaller counterpart by George Smith, Spiral to the Next World, was formally removed from its brass precursor but had a conceptual affinity. Articulated in flat black paint over steel, the sculpture had purposefully rough, soldered edges, each section of the spiral becoming an increasingly larger triangle. The reference to the Trinity was evident, as was the idea that such themes develop and change through time. As a link to the ¿next world,¿ Smith¿s sculpture represented a host of possibilities. Placed high on the gallery wall, it acted as a kind of portal that one might reach to proceed to what follows. Installed in the same gallery at P.S. 1, these works could be considered the conceptual brackets of the exhibition, beginning and ending with the essential characteristic evident in works throughout the exhibition: a link to spirituality. As the show¿s opening statement noted, the exhibition ¿examines the multiple meanings of spirituality in contemporary art.¿ The choice of works was based on the idea that they were ¿an embodiment that comes from this unique and vast cultural expanse, and [that] they validate the spiritual as a foundation for the making of contemporary art.¿ Some interesting ideas were raised by comparing the works by Byars and Smith, both from the United States, and a work by the Brazilian artist Marepe (Marcos Reis Peixoto), Auréolas (¿Halos,¿ 2004). The resonant form of the circle was also the principal organizing motif of Marepe¿s sculpture, which featured a series of circular fluorescent light bulbs all strung together into a larger circle. Encountering this work in a smaller gallery allowed one to sense the sound that emanated from the work, the result of the electricity moving through the fluorescent bulbs. The blue glow of the bare bulbs added to the otherworldly feeling of the work, a glowing halo of smaller haloes that seemed to hover over the floor. Each bulb faced toward the center of the larger circle, like a group of worshippers bowing to a central entity. As in the circular works by Smith and Byars, Marepe¿s...