Meet the Curator: David Brinker of the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art

Housed in a chapel built in 1954 on the campus of Saint Louis University, the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art (MOCRA) is the first museum in the U.S. to bring an interfaith focus to contemporary art.

Through exhibitions, collections and educational programs, MOCRA explores and showcases the various ways that contemporary artists engage with religious and spiritual dimensions. Facilitating personal discovery, inspiration and creativity, it also contributes to a wider culture of interfaith encounters and conversations.

“The mission of the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art is rooted in Saint Louis University’s mission and its Jesuit identity, which seeks to develop the whole person in mind, in body and in spirit,” director David Brinker explains. “It’s essential to provide opportunities to explore those deep questions of existence, and MOCRA helps serve that purpose.”

Although Saint Louis University is a Catholic university, it welcomes students from all backgrounds, and visitors might be surprised to learn that MOCRA’s understanding of spiritual and religious dimensions is expansive and inclusive.

“Religion can cause division as well as exclusion and confrontation,” Brinker says, “but St. Louis has a rich history of interfaith dialogue and cooperation. We hope to contribute constructively to those conversations. We’re one voice among many, but I believe we’re an essential one.”

Here, Brinker elaborates on MOCRA’s collection, discusses its current exhibition and paints a picture of what people can expect from a visit to the museum.

What does it mean to bring an interfaith focus to contemporary art?

There are so many ways to look at art and think about art. When the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art opened in 1993, we proposed a new perspective. At that time, people assumed that contemporary art and religious art had nothing to say to each other, and if they did talk, it wasn’t going to be a friendly conversation. This was an area of interest for our founding director, Jesuit Father Terrence Dempsey, who discovered and subsequently got to know hundreds of artists who didn’t see a conflict between art and religion and even felt that it was a great source of creativity.

We have work in the collection that clearly shows the artist’s personal religious convictions and expressions. We have work in which the artist reaches across religious traditions to explore an intriguing element of a tradition different from their own. And we have work that quietly addresses the artist’s beliefs. It’s a strength for us – MOCRA can present and talk about art in ways that other institutions can’t or won’t.

As appreciation for the role of spirituality, mysticism and religion in modern and contemporary art grows, how has MOCRA’s contribution to the St. Louis arts scene evolved?

St. Louis has a vibrant visual arts scene. We have world-class museums, first-rate galleries and working artists whose impact can be felt around the country. We have venues that support artists at all levels, including the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, and we have public art, from Citygarden to The Walls Off Washington. It would be impossible to mention everyone here. All that to say, MOCRA is an integral part of the local arts ecosystem. We offer a distinctive voice, and we show art and artists that might not be shown in other places.

With the abundance of engaging attractions in St. Louis, what would you say to visitors to encourage them to add MOCRA to their itineraries?

The first thing that visitors notice is our distinctive setting. The chapel spent 35 years as a house of worship before it became a museum. It was renovated for its new purpose, but it retains many of the architectural elements and much of the character of the chapel, including a 25-foot-high ceiling in the central nave gallery and 12 intimate side chapel galleries. Even if people don’t know that it was a chapel, they sense that it’s a space of great tranquility. I also hope that people will feel welcome. Our dedicated staff is friendly, and they’re happy to answer any questions.

Whatever pops into your mind’s eye when you hear “religious art,” it’s probably not what you’re going to see here. Our collection surprises a lot of people, and I hope that it sparks their curiosity and delights their senses. In addition to gallery guides and wall texts, which are typical in museums, we have MOCRA Voices, which encompasses a podcast and video content. It’s an opportunity to hear the voices of the artists as well as curators, scholars and critics. All of this can be experienced in a compact space, so visitors can see everything in less than an hour – although, we have plenty of seating in case they want to stay longer.

What are some of the highlights of the permanent collection?

Any visitor will notice two major works by the late artist Michael Tracy, including a triptych that dominates the west wall of the museum as well as a complex cruciform sculpture dedicated to the memory of Óscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of El Salvador. Both are marvelous works. Currently on display, we also have two panels from The Life of Christ Altarpiece, a five-panel work by Frederick J. Brown commissioned in the early years of MOCRA, and a beautiful painting featuring contemporary Arabic calligraphy by Salma Arastu. Vessel, a painting covered with shattered glass, by Donald Grant, is a perennial favorite – people are always drawn to it. And art enthusiasts might be surprised to see the names of Shahzia Sikander, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons and Dawoud Bey, among artists from earlier generations such as Romare Bearden and Georges Rouault.

I want to give a shout-out to Father Dempsey. When MOCRA began, there was no collection; it didn’t start with a big donation. We had to build our collection, and Father Dempsey had a keen eye and a real sensitivity when it came to acquiring new works. Throughout our history, we’ve made sure that if a piece is tied to a particular community, the voices of that community are heard.

As director, what is your approach to acquiring new exhibitions?

When it comes to the collection, we have a long-term perspective, while temporary exhibitions allow us to be more immediate and responsive to artistic currents and important topics for Saint Louis University students. I’m also working to bring in more guest curators to expand the range of voices in the museum.

Tell me about your current exhibition, Continuum: Figuration and Abstraction in the MOCRA Collection.

The title gives you a hint – the exhibition showcases works from our permanent collection, which means it’s a great time for people to discover MOCRA! As my colleagues and I developed the list of works that we could display, we gravitated toward those that reflect two general approaches employed by artists to express religious and spiritual dimensions. Figurative works have a narrative element that recalls powerful stories, while abstract works rely on color, form and material to convey something that goes beyond visual reality. We called the exhibition Continuum because there are clearly figurative works and abstract works, and then there’s a whole lot in between.

Do you have any exhibitions planned for 2025?

I can’t discuss our spring exhibition, but in fall next year, MOCRA will present an exhibition that I’m co-curating with Al Miner, a curator based in Washington, D.C. It’s called To See This Place: Awakening to Our Common Home, and it includes work by Athena LaTocha, Mary Mattingly and Tyler Rai, which resonates with the major themes of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’. The artists in the exhibition aren’t making art about Laudato Si’, but Al and I believe their work resonates with one of Pope Francis’ primary insights in the document: The way we treat the environment is intrinsically linked to the way we treat our fellow humans. By awakening us to the particularities and interconnectedness of the spaces that we all inhabit, these artists are transforming climate despair into climate hope, moving us from awareness to action. I’m very excited about it.