THE TRANSFORMATION OF VISUAL PIETY IN THE EURO-WEST: MUSEUMS AS THE TEMPLE OF THE ARTIST

Culture, Religion, Art, Personal

Since the end of WWII, there has been a steady decline in Judeo-Christian religious participation throughout Euro-Western countries (Grant 2014). Considering the underlying mythos, ethical values, and the number of people still identifying as Judeo-Christian, this trend did not signify a non-religious society. Instead, it seems that starting in the mid-twentieth-century, there has been a shift in what it means to be religious (Beckman 2000). WWI and WWII gave rise to existential philosophy, religious pluralism, and a shift away from religion as the only means of fulfillment or ethical truth (Kotkin 2019). Preceded by the decline of traditional religious practice in the West was the rise of the scientific empirical worldview (McNeill 1998, 1). Stemming from the Enlightenment but flowing into movements such as logical positivism, educational reform, and non-scientific fields like history, the epistemological and cosmological certainty of religion was shaken (McNeill 1998, 13). For many, science became the primary authority on the what and the how of life and reality. Yet, for all its explanatory power, the scientific worldview was unable to answer the why of human existence. 

With varying degrees of success and popularity, ideologies ranging from continental philosophy to communism gripped the twentieth-century in attempted response to this existential void. A less examined response to this search for meaning can be seen in the development of public art. While seismic ideological changes were silently taking place, the West more visibly entered what some call the “Museum Age” (Günay 2012, 1254). This era ushered in the establishment and flourishing of all different museums, including art museums (Günay 2012, 1254). That being said, the function of the artist remained the same (to visually depict life, experiences, and human meaning), but now a greater social need arose for what the artist provided. As James Baldwin stated in his attempt to define imprecise words such as ‘artist’: “the artist’s struggle for his integrity, it's a kind of metaphor that must be considered as a metaphor for the struggle which is universal and daily of all human beings on the face of this terrifying globe to get to become human beings” (Baldwin 1969). In an attempt to find meaning in life, art museums became spaces specifically honoring this “universal struggle [...] to get to become human” (Baldwin 1969). It seems that in this era, Nietzsche’s claim that “art is the proper task of life” resonated for a larger segment of the public, but where he may have been mistaken was his proposal that “God is dead” (Nietzsche 1883, Nietzsche 1882). While religion was on the decline, veneration had adapted. The exclusive veneration once held mostly in religious services had dispersed, permeating into other sectors of life such as art and other institutions such as the museum. 

This paper will focus on tangible and contemporary examples of this new form of veneration based on four site-visits. Specifically, this paper examines visual efficacy witnessed in Annenberg Space for Photography, visual piety found in Grace Cathedral, and veneration found in both the Hammer Museum and the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD).

Personal Experience and Discovery Process

This section presents my personal account of four locations of interest and what I saw in each of them. The order of description will be chronological and the presentation will be in the first person so as to better capture the experience. 

My first visit was to the Hammer Museum near the UCLA campus. This experience was engaging because I did not enjoy it alone. I was accompanied by three friends: a frequent visitor of the Hammer Museum, a first-time visiting visual artist, and an art novice. While my personal background in art included a robust World Arts and Cultures major, this visit to the Hammer Museum would be my first experience in an art museum (and third time in any kind of museum space at all). After the understandable, but comical confusion that the Hammer Museum was dedicated to literal hammers, the whole group was excited to go. We briefly looked at the different ground floor and first-floor exhibitions upon arrival. My friends were particularly interested in the large interactive pieces that could spin like a top when an individual was seated. After this, we took a much longer and closer look at the second floor. We spent most of our time looking at the Lari Pitman exhibition and the Armand Hammer Collection. The Lari Pitman exhibition was an opus of Pitman’s significant works and thoughts. Occupying an entire gallery, his paintings ranged from bold to intimate and explored philosophical topics such as love, sex, death, art, and citizenship (Hammer Museum). The Armand Hammer Collection represented a traditional Western art gallery with works ranging from oil paintings from the 16th century to lesser-known Van Gohs and Picassos. On the way out, we saw the Hammer Store museum gift shop, which I did not think much of at the time. At this point, I did not know what to make of this experience. I had not yet connected the museum to veneration, but it was the first step in the process.

My next site-visit was the Annenberg Space for Photography. Their website describes the space as a “cultural destination dedicated to exhibiting both digital and print photography in an intimate environment” (The Annenberg Space for Photography). The exhibition at the time titled W|ALLS: DEFEND, DIVIDE, AND THE DIVINE, explored walls as both literal objects and metaphorical symbols. I went with a friend who had wanted to visit the space for quite some time. The space, cloistered between sleek and looming business towers, was in an affluent part of Los Angeles. Outside of the space, we were met with a series of three detached walls that had questions written on them encouraging self-reflection. As a final preparation for entry, Mending Wall by Robert Frost was printed directly onto the face of the Annenberg building itself. We entered the building and headed to the center of the space where a documentary was playing on a loop. This informative film provided context for the exhibition space and its inception. Here, we learned not only the reason for the theme Walls but also the context for individual photographs that we would not have been able to ascertain on our own. We then went back to the beginning of the exhibition, moving through the various sections of the gallery space, titled: Delineation, Defense, Deterrent, The Divine, Decoration, and The Invisible. The experience was thought-provoking and raised many questions about viewership, the power of photographs and memory, and the authority that photography/documentaries hold. While this trip did not reveal veneration, it provided many opportunities for analysis in efficacy and the visual realm. The wheels were starting to turn. 

The following two site-visits in San Francisco solidified the ideas for this paper. The first of these visits was to the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD). I went this time with my roommate from UCLA. Initially, we intended on going to the MoMA but then realized we were not “Teens” anymore and thus did not qualify for the free tickets. Evidently, the $19 entrance fee was enough of a deterrent for us to find another museum in the city. Just two buildings away from MoMA, we found the MoAD. After inquiring at the front desk, we learned that the ordinary five-dollar entry fee would be waived that day due to exhibition closures. Excited by this, we proceeded to explore the space. The first thing we realized was that the museum connected to the backside of a high-end hotel called St. Regis. I was shocked when I investigated the first-floor photo series. The exhibition was titled Baye Fall: Roots in Spirituality, Fashion, and Resistance, and all of the photos were of patrons of Amadou Bamba. After recovering from the initial shock, I returned to my line of thinking from the Annenberg regarding efficacy. The primary question that arose for me was, “If these images, or representations, of Amadou Bamba are instances of visual piety, then what is this gallery space? What is the efficacy of the images in this space?” Asking these questions clarified that each of these spaces were instances of visual piety, the only difference being in what they venerate. While this was happening internally, my roommate pointed out a gift shop section selling traditional African clothing. The gift shop triggered my thinking about the themes of visual cultures and aesthetic citizenship and the Hammer Museum gift shop. I had no definite conclusions about those connections at the time because I was preoccupied with the idea of visual piety, but this later formed into a more solid idea that I will explain in the analysis section of this paper. 

Though he did not know what I had been thinking about in MoAD, my roommate suggested that we go to Grace Cathedral as our next (also free!) stop for the trip. Ascending the many steps to the basilica itself, I noticed two things: the cross on one of the church’s central spires and the massive gold-gilded front door. As we drew closer, the front door turned out to be a six-panel relief, with each panel depicting a famous Old Testament Biblical story. When I entered there was a hushed tone and some activity was taking place by the altar. At the time, I did not know what it was, as I was unfamiliar with this particular religious tradition. With further observation, I deduced that the activity was the inauguration of a new priest. There were surprisingly few people present considering the momentous occasion for the new priest. After quietly observing the ceremony for a few more minutes, we started to look around the space itself. The first thing we noticed when we walked in was a big pedestal in the nave. Upon closer inspection, it was a shallow bowl of what I assumed was holy water. Around the sides of the nave, there were many pieces of art. There was a painting on the wall which depicted world unity, all of the windows were stained glass depictions of various Biblical stories, and there was also a more modern art piece that struck both of us as unusual and almost out of place. In the modern piece, thin bars of fabric suspended from the ceiling shone in bright white light and portrayed the figure of Jacob climbing this ladder of lights. There was also a labyrinth on the floor which a small child was walking through and a side room called the “AIDS Room '' that recalled the resilience of communities impacted by the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco. Most of the art was very clearly intended to evoke stories from the Bible or the church’s impact. It fell squarely into visual piety and the stained glass images of saints related directly to visual hagiographies. This last visit cemented the ideas of veneration and visual piety in my mind.

Analysis

While the last section proceeded chronologically, the following sections will proceed thematically. The analysis begins by establishing (1) the efficacy of visual entities by unpacking indexicality, enigma, and haptic visuality in The Annenberg. Analysis continues by establishing (2) the functioning of piety by deconstructing veneration and visual piety in Grace Cathedral. Taking key elements of (1) and (2), this paper proposes a new framework: (3) the museum as “the temple of the artist.” This paper demonstrates (3) through visual hagiographies, veneration, and talismans found in The Hammer Museum. Subsequently, (4) expands and complicates ideas found in (3) by exploring representation and aesthetic citizenship found in The MoAD. 

(1) The Groundwork: Efficacy in Visual Entities

The Annenberg Space for Photography presents instances of indexicality, enigma, and haptic visuality. Indexicality in the visual world is when “what one sees in a still or moving picture is what ‘really’ happened” (Roberts, 5). I argue that in an era of media manipulation (video editing, photoshopping, etc.), the definition of indexicality should be changed. Because indexicality can no longer be assumed based on the mere existence of a visual entity (photo, video, etc.), the onus of authority now rests upon the structure, context, and aesthetic of the visual entity. These new markers for indexicality were demonstrated in the Annenberg’s introductory documentary and the photo gallery. In the documentary film, it is not merely the video that gives credence to the recordings, but the professional camera shots, the “voice of God” style narration, and the screening space which lend the film its authority. Similarly, in the photo gallery, the white walls, hushed atmosphere, and security guards are indications that the images presented are trustworthy. In both cases, it is not solely the visual entity, but also the structures, context, and aesthetics surrounding the visual entity that signal to the viewer the image's authority. This shift in the definition of indexicality becomes apparent when exploring visual entities operating on its original definition. Examples found in Enigma and Purpose: Visual Hagiographies of Urban Senegal demonstrate this contrast clearly. Specifically, when “an anonymous artist depict[s] young people watching a film of a miracle achieved by Sheikh Amadu,” the artist treats the film’s depiction of miracles as a fact corresponding with reality the way a Euro-Western under the scientific empiricist worldview might cite a scientific study as evidence. For this painter, the mere existence of the visual entity (film) indicates its trustworthiness and indexicality. Here, “what one sees [...] is what ‘really’ happened” regardless of structural, contextual, and aesthetic cues that might indicate otherwise (Roberts, 5). In that time and context, video meant reality. In the context of the Annenberg gallery, the stipulations for truth and reality have changed. Thus, elements within the Annenberg demonstrate that indexicality now depends upon the structures, context, and aesthetics surrounding a visual entity. This shift is significant because it implies that the context of a visual object defines the authority, and therefore efficacy, of a visual object.

In addition to indexicality, another feature of the Annenberg was the concept of enigma. Just as the image of Amadou Bamba in the painting mentioned above was obscured, and therefore “generalized and impossible to interpret in any secure way,” the exhibition theme of “walls” was so general that it was able to be interpreted in various ways (Price 1994). This operated on both the level of the artist and the viewer. Given the ambiguity of “wall,” artists could interpret and give their own meaning to walls they encountered. An example of this multiplicity were the photographs of the Peace Lines in Northern Ireland. Here, different photographers with different understandings of “wall” captured the same physical object but produced wildly different pictures. Interpreting from its obscured multiplicity the artist’s own understanding of the visual object, the curators’ enigmatic deployment of “wall” allowed for immense artistic agency. From a viewer’s standpoint, the photos of walls also served as enigmas. The vagueness of walls as a visual icon, for instance, generated debate and deeper understanding of the symbol between me and the person I went to the Annenberg with. This ambiguity allowed for the visual object to impact each individual in a different and personalized way. In fact, the efficacy of the image was defined by the viewer. This is significant because it reveals that, in certain contexts, the efficacy of an image is ultimately determined by the viewer. 

Another theme present at the Annenberg was haptic visuality in photographs and the photography's relationship to memory. Haptic visuality is where “the eyes themselves function like organs of touch” (Marks 2000:22) and “the role of the viewer becomes intertwined with what is being viewed so that barriers between observer and object are” (Milbourne 2015, 73). Haptic visuality, or embodied spectatorship, ordinarily describes films that engender a sense of being physically touched by objects on the screen. I argue that the term haptic visuality has great descriptive power in photography as well, and thus, should not be confined to the film medium. As with film, skilled photographers are able to bring a viewer “into” a scene through techniques such as depth and texture. At the Anneberg, there were several detailed photographs that allowed me to feel as if I were paused in the middle of running my fingers over the surface of the walls whenever and wherever the photograph was taken. Here, I seek to expand the understanding of haptic visuality. The deeply embodied nature of haptic visuality in photographs eliminates the phenomenological gap often present in non-visual forms of communication that are from different times or different places. No amount of reading, listening, or recounting about the Berlin Wall could allow me to viscerally feel the gritty cinder slabs the way the pictures in the Annenberg did. Thus, haptic visuality is significant because it demonstrates the intense and embodied efficacy that visual entities can have, regardless of space and time.

In short, examples from the Annenberg support that the context of a visual object influences its perceived authority, viewer agency can impact visual efficacy, and visual objects have the potential to be deeply efficacious. Establishing (1) allows grounded claims regarding visual piety explored in the next section and contributes to overall themes found in (3).

(2) The Groundwork: Piety in Church 

This section considers patterns of veneration and visual piety found in visual hagiographies and talismans at the Grace Cathedral. A visual hagiography is the visual representation of a saint or ecclesiastical leader’s biography. Visual hagiographies can be particularly efficacious visual entities and can, for some, function to manifest the very presence of God into the viewing space. Yet hagiographies do not directly depict God, but rather the saints. This implies that the representation and viewing of a saint’s life can bring other’s closer to divinity. This “transitive property of holiness” is predicated on the unique efficacy of visual entities, providing worshipers with easier and deeper access to God than otherwise possible. Prominent examples of visual hagiographies in Grace Cathedral include the entrance door, the stained glass windows, and the modern art piece. Similar to the three walls outside of the Annenberg, the looming gold-gilded door promotes reflection before entry. Here, the presence of God can be felt uniquely through visual venerative engagement. Feelings of awe-inspired by the imposing size and feelings of holiness inspired by the polished gold gilding mirror embodied the experience of haptic visuality. In visually depicting the lives of Old Testament saints, the door to Grace Cathedral manifests the presence of God and the purpose of the Church before even stepping foot into the building. Once inside, stained glass mirrors cascade light, color, and shapes corresponding to Biblical stories into the space and onto people inside. These visual hagiographies enable worshipers to be bathed in both the literal and metaphoric light of holy Church figures. Thus, it is not only direct observation of the panes that engenders nearness to God but also that divinity is manifested simply by being in the presence of these visual entities. Appealing to a different aesthetic but with a similar vernerative function, the Jacob’s Ladder light display represents a “modern” twist on traditional visual piety. Possibly to appeal to a modern art-savvy San Franscican population, this suspended light display evoked the lofty elegance of an upward journey towards the divine. Thus, whether classic or “modern,” these visual hagiographies invoke the presence of God through the saints, exemplifying visual piety and enabling deep yet accessible veneration.

Two other venerative visual objects are rosaries and vials of holy water. These items visually and haptically represent the church and the saints, inviting the presence of God with a glance or a touch. The major difference between fixed visual hagiographies (ex. doors, stained-glass windows, art displays) and the mobile hagiographies mentioned here, is that mobile hagiographic tokens can be taken outside of the church building. This portability allows one to bring the visual and venerative aspects of the Church wherever one goes. Thus, both rosaries and holy water function to manifest divinity outside of expressly divine spaces like churches or cathedrals. Again, proximity to a visual object which has had contact with a holy figure has the potential to manifest the presence of God and enable deeper veneration.

Both fixed visual hagiographies such as doors, stained-glass windows, or art displays and mobile visual hagiographies such as rosaries or holy water, invoke the presence of God through depiction or proximity to saints. (2) exemplifies classical Euro-Western visual piety and the resulting forms of religious veneration. Having unpacked (1) and delineated (2), section (3) joins the idea of efficacy in visual objects with the venreative frameworks of visual piety to highlight how museums helped fill the twentieth-century’s void in meaning.

(3) Temple of Artist: The Hammer

Given the decline in purpose-providing institutions like the church, but still racked with a need for meaning, the twentieth-century Euro-West saw an increase in institutions honoring the Baldwinian-artist. I propose that this period marked not only a proliferation of art institutions but a radical renegotiation of society’s relationship to art and artists. Specifically, this paper argues that the way museum patrons interact with artists, artwork, and the museum is analogous to the way that religious believers interact with saints, miracles, and places of worship (ex. temples). Succinctly, this paper claims that the museum is the temple of the artist. This claim of secular reverence is supported by visual hagiographies, degrees of veneration, and personal talismans found in the Hammer Museum. 

While traditional visual hagiographies depict a saint’s spiritual journey via stained-glass or carved relief, the Hammer’s visual hagiographies depict an artist's existential striving through contemporary art practices (ex. interactive exhibitions, video installations, paintings, etc.). Lari Pittman’s exhibition Declaration of Independence can be seen as a secular visual hagiography. Like a traditional hagiography, the Declaration of Independence visually depicted the life and journey of a single, outstanding individual whom viewers can learn from. Despite striving toward different virtues and utilizing bold, immersive contemporary visual techniques, the function of the exhibition has strong parallels to that of a religious visual hagiography. In the same way that a saint’s visual hagiography provides a particular angle on how to draw closer to the divine, so too does Pittman’s artwork provide a particular angle to better understand the “universal struggle [...] to [...] become human” (Baldwin 1969). Even the hushed reverence of museum patrons mirrors the reflective and venerative posture of religious believers in the presence of a visual hagiography. A contrasting, but equally relevant example of secular visual hagiography is the Hammer’s Armand Hammer Collection. While there were no famous paintings there, this collection boasted numerous lesser-known pieces by famous artists. Here, reminiscent of the stained-glass in Grace Cathedral, the space is not dedicated to an individual’s story but to an atmosphere of reverence. Despite lack of consistency or pointed takeaways, proximity to work by revered artists like Van Goh and Picasso demanded respect and evoked the Baldwinian artistic search for meaning. Thus, whether individual exhibitions or entire art collections, many spaces in the Hammer function similarly to visual hagiographies found in places of worship. 

Furthering this analogy is the idea of different levels of veneration between individuals. Just as there are levels of veneration and dedication in the religious setting, there are levels of veneration and commitment in the institution of the museum. In the museum, there are many people who take the time to learn the context of the art and read the captions of each piece. More people, though, do not take much time at all to understand the art and seem to be there merely to be in the presence of art. In these cases, it seems that whatever it is that the artist symbolizes (rather than the individual pieces or the actual artist), is what draws out piety. Once again, the efficacy of the visual sign is in the hands of the viewer. Regardless of where a viewer falls on this spectrum of highly devotional or less committed to art, there is some level of veneration taking place. 

Another significant connection to spirituality are the Hammer Store souvenirs functioning as talismans of the artist. After initially dismissing the significance of the Hammer Store as a reductive form of capitalist commodification, I gained a new perspective. In understanding the museum space as a temple to the artist, the Hammer Store suddenly achieved new meaning. With the institution of the museum profiting off of artists, artists themselves making money by selling their creativity, and the mass production of individual and unique pieces of art, commodification is prevalent and problematic in creative spaces. While this may be systemically true, I argue that on a personal level, Hammer Store souvenirs are akin to holy talismans. Just as a rosary or vial of holy water can invoke the presence of the divine outside of expressly divine spaces like cathedrals, so too can Hammer Store souvenirs pieces evoke the presence of their artist outside of expressly artistic spaces like the museum. As discussed when exploring ambiguity, the efficacy of visual objects depends on the viewer. As Hammer Store souvenir pieces are visual objects, each piece will impact each person differently. For me to completely write off a potentially powerful symbol of artistic veneration due to my views on commodification is reductive. Similar to the discussion in Recolonization of an African Visual Economy by Allen Roberts, the duality of commodification and visual piety seem at odds (Roberts 2010, 2-7). Should one be angry or sad that the work of artists is being sold for-profit sake en masse? Alternatively, should one be overjoyed that this form of visual piety is not only portable but available outside of solely the “temple” space? These are difficult questions and are beyond the scope of this paper to fully answer, but it seems that a coexistent middle-ground may be possible.

To summarize, my visit to the Hammer presents a synthesis of ideas about visual efficacy from (1) and veneration from (2). I conclude that the contemporary artist symbolizes the struggle to become human and the art museum functions as a temple to venerate the artist. The three elements that stood out to me the most when visiting the Hammer were visual hagiographies (both individual and collective), the possibility of differing levels of veneration, and the commodification-veneration duality intrinsic to Hammer Store souvenirs.

(4) Complex Example of the Temple of the Artist: MoAD

While the Hammer is a prime example of the “temple of the artist,” the MoAD provides a more complex understanding of this venerative framework by exploring layers of representation and aesthetic citizenship in this “temple.” The exhibition at MoAD explored the daily life of Saint Amadou Bamba’s contemporary followers through photography. Bamba’s followers are famous for their visual depiction of the saint. Countless scholars have performed extensive study on the semiotics and visual imagery behind this representational impulse. While Amadou Bamba’s followers are not the focus of this paper, their devout practices serve as a starting point in understanding visual piety and the efficacy of images. Specifically, the analysis of Amadou Bamba and the MoAD exhibition demonstrates the complexity of multi-layered representation. 

Similar to the literary “frame narrative,” this exhibition showcases nested layers of representation and interpretation. The first image of the saint appears in colonial records as an attempt to keep track of a potential threat to French colonial authorities in Senegal, where the saint was active (Roberts & Roberts 2019, 7-8). This is the first layer. The photo represents the saint. To colonial authorities, this image was interpreted as a threat. However, once this mug shot became known to the public, there were innumerable recreations of this picture. This is the second layer of representation. The Senegalese followers of Bamba took this image that was once interpreted as threat and reinterpreted it in their own understanding. They converted the image from one indicating threat into an object of veneration (Roberts & Roberts 2019, 9). When the image was again recaptured and presented at the MoAD, a third change took place. In the museum context, while there may be followers or veneraters of Amadou Bamba who view the exhibition, the majority of patrons are not coming in with that purpose. While I cannot speak with certainty for the experiences of other viewers, my intention in going to the MoAD and that exhibition was to gain a better understanding of the African diaspora and the art they produce. I think that it is safe to say that at least some of the other visitors there had the same intentions as me in viewing the exhibition. So, the efficacy of the image changed again based on viewers and on environment. The final layer is this very paper, which serves to represent the representation (exhibition) of the representation (venerative art) of the representation (mug shot) of the saint. I come at the issue with a certain interpretation based on my background, positionality, knowledge, and goal of writing this for a certain audience. You, the reader, are engaging in another interpretation of the image. I lay out all the layers of this representational chain, at risk of being long-winded or even excessive, to highlight (1) the magnitude with which images are represented and (2) the degree to which the efficacy of a photo can change based on context and viewer. The same object or image can draw out vernation of completely different saints (or sets of concepts) based on the setting and person. It complicates the idea of varying levels of viewer veneration presented in the previous section. Because each referent requires interpretation to arouse meaning (whether it be directly or through the symbol that the referent is labeled as) each individual will have a different experience in veneration. This representational complexity is unique to visual piety and is demonstrated not in a mosque, but in a museum space. The veneration evoked in museums is multifaceted, to say the least. 

Another notable feature of the MoAD were the items that they were selling and how it relates to aesthetic citizenship. There was a clothing rack and a necklace display containing items for sale. Though from different regions of Africa, both the necklaces and the clothing had a distinctly African aesthetic. I did not think to take a picture of these clothes until after I had already left and I am not any kind of expert on African aesthetic in clothing, so I will not claim anything too specific about the origins of these clothes. This paper will instead discuss the duality of commodification and aesthetic citizenship. Just as in the Hammer Store, viewing the items sold there as merely commodifications is too unidimensional and flat. Here, the MoAD was providing visitors the opportunity to participate in a pan-African visual aesthetic in an overseas context. This gave a unique opportunity to participate in a kind of aesthetic citizenship that may not be otherwise available to people. Additionally, it even provides the patrons a talisman. Extending the ideas explored in the Hammer Store to the MoAD’s gift shop, these clothes are objects of veneration of a particular culture. The analogy here becomes murkier, as culture and piety become tangled. This issue arises because the items sold and the images displayed at MoAD were not of an “Art Museum,” but rather at a cultural museum that displays art. By choosing into this label, the museum no longer functions to directly venerate the metaphor of “the artist as a struggle for meaning.” This does not indicate that these cultural museums and the visual objects they contain do not fulfill the role of meaning-making. Viewers, whether voyeuristically or as an in-group member, gain meaning by viewing and understanding the culture(s) presented. Additionally, I do not want to say that the analogy breaks down completely, particularly in largely diasporic contexts such as the MoAD. I will provide a related example where I am an in-group member to demonstrate how the analogy still functions. As an Asian American creative, I have encountered many other Asian American creatives whose creations extensively explore their Asian heritage. Oftentimes, the work is related more to the heritage of their parents/ancestors experiences rather than their own (e.g. short story about rural farming village of their grandparents in 1950s Japan, poem about Chinese ancestor on the transcontinental railroad, art about parents’ expression of freedom in China, etc.). For a long time I viewed these Asian American creative colleagues as fetishizing their parents' culture rather than engaging in their own enigmatic and liminal diasporic experience. In the lens of veneration, though, these creative practices transform from fetishization into something like ancestor worship. In an attempt to find meaning, they honor their parents/ancestors through creative and often visual pieces. In the same way, diasporic participants in the MoAD’s gift shop have an opportunity at veneration of their ancestral heritage. The duality of commodification and veneration is again present but is this time transformed by the complexity of different cultural layers. This exploration of aesthetic citizenship and commodification in the MoAD’s gift shop makes the museum an extraordinarily nuanced example of efficacy and visual piety. 

Conclusion

Because of the decline of religion in the twentieth-century, museums emerged to help fill a vacancy in meaning. Museum, then, can be understood as a “temple” to venerate the artist. Here, the artist is venerated as a saint who strives not for holiness, but “for [...] the universal struggle [...] to [...] become human”. Of my four field-sites, The Annenberg Space for Photography helped to anchor my semiotic analysis of the efficacy of images and Grace Cathedral helped to anchor my analysis of veneration. From that base, the Hammer was a prime example of the “temple of the artist,” while the MoAD was a complex example. This venerative framework helps explain the value that many ascribe to museums which I had previously thought a hyper-commercialized, monolithic institution. This analogy will paint my future experiences in a different light and has hopefully provided the reader with a new analytic angle to consider as well.