altarpieces: call for works that dedicate or enshrine

An altar is a place for worship, for ritual, for sacrifice. While functionally a table, an altar is holier in intent—the difference comes from dedication. Objects on an altar are carefully arranged and used for sacred purpose. An object placed on an altar becomes an icon.

The objects in a still life are similarly arranged, imbued with meaning by artistic intent. If a still life is an altarpiece, to what deity is it dedicated?

The act of dedication takes many forms. Walls of generational family photos are dedicated places for remembrance, as are roadside shrines, and places of pilgrimage. Bedroom mirror and locker door collages serve as tributes to something the maker holds dear. Taken further from the physical realm, a form of altar might occur as an online fan blog extolling the virtues of celebrated figures past or present representing ideals for private aspiration, or as odes and poems written to a lover, to nature, to a place, an idea.

Through this call we ask at what point does such devotional practice, often quite personal, become art—generating special objects or images made for something, that are destined, dedicated to and for someone, some object of devotion, a conduit for a higher idea to be shared with a public audience? What do we enshrine through the making of art?

ALTARPIECES is a call for artworks about purposeful arrangement, ritual, still life, altars, shrines, odes, eulogies, offerings, decorations, and dedications.