Frescoed, marbled 16th-century interiors lead from one into another, handsomely furnished with spiritual artifacts and a liberal supply of prie-dieus, should anyone feel the sudden desire to kneel and pray.
Just look at the spiritual artifacts, paintings, medieval stone carvings (khachkar), and carpet designs coming from that area centuries ago.
Most sensationally, she entered into a bidding war with the Swiss patron Maja Hoffmann — a very early and unwavering supporter of Wilson and the Watermill — for a block of quartz Abramovic had carved and decreed as a spiritual artifact that should be pressed to its owner's head each morning.
Is it a religious artifact?
Bold in scale and strong in spiritual expression, the artifacts of the Northwest Coast Indians include, besides the gargantuan totem pole, overbearing masks, capacious vessels, no-nonsense weapons and slightly tamer baskets, ceramics and utensils.
The tire print transformed Newman's zip — an abstract line against a monochrome backdrop with spiritual pretensions — into an artifact of everyday culture, which for Mr. Rauschenberg had its own transcendent dimension.
Should we view the objects as art, ethnographic artifacts, historical records, talismans or religious or spiritual accoutrements?
At the same time, it has had incalculable emotional and social impact on Indian tribes across the country that have recovered long-lost artifacts, many of which have enormous spiritual significance, as well as the remains of thousands of their ancestors.
Religious shrines, they fear, will divert their spiritual affections away from God and toward the humanly constructed artifacts.
This concern may come from a belief that the artistic object is imbued with some residue of its creator's psychic energy, much as sacred artifacts or Zen ink drawings are said to pack a spiritual charge.
Until recent discoveries, the most intriguing artifacts were the ubiquitous terracotta "goddess" figurines, originally interpreted as evidence of the spiritual and political power of women in society.
