But what is clear from the art in the exhibitions is that the references to spirit the artists are making reflect a subtle shift of perspective in art's engagement with the mysterious. Abstraction as a pursuit of deep meaning, or an expression of something vast and limitless seems to have gone the way of all flesh. Connections to metaphysical systems, Eastern philosophy or anthropological signs are almost completely absent. Modern abstract art was, on a very basic level, an attempt to find deeper and more expanded levels of direct meaning through art as a non-objective communication. Art however is not philosophy or theology, and the artistic dialogue since postmodernism has become more comfortable dealing in issues of aesthetic or social value than abstraction.
Spiritual systems are suspect.
Partly that's because many of the occult theories artists delved into in the early part of this century were shown to have fueled politically oppressive systems like fascism by being coopted into supporting notions of Aryan supremacy or nationalistic karma. Sigmund Freud's study of the unconscious effectively broke into the time honored shrine of the unknown creative source, taking it out of the realm of the cosmic or divine, and into the arena of personal and relative mind. In the current climate artists are no longer valued as visionaries or shamans but only as cultural workers. Psychological and scientific models tend to demand control and tangible results of things unseen or mysterious in order to acknowledge their existence. Along with economics these structures have shaped the contemporary world of the late 1990's.