EXHIBITIONS:
>> Rothko in Florence, multiple sites in Florence, Italy, March 14–August 23, 2026: Presented by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and curated by Christopher Rothko and Elena Geuna, Rothko in Florence explores the influence of the city on Mark Rothko’s art, especially in terms of space and color. Rothko visited Florence in 1950, 1959, and 1966 and was particularly taken by the monastery-turned-museum San Marco, its cells frescoed with devotional scenes by Fra Angelico, and the vestibule of the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, designed by Michelangelo. Now those two Renaissance sites are host to a display of Rothko’s works: five of his paintings hang alongside Fra Angelico’s monastic frescoes, and two studies for his Seagram Murals hang in the Laurentian Library.
But the primary site of the exhibition is the fifteenth-century Palazzo Strozzi, which shows over seventy of Rothko’s works from private collections and international museums, spanning the different stylistic phases of his career, from figurative to neo-surrealist to color field. And in dialogue with the exhibition, the sacristy of the Chapel of San Nicolò, inside the complex of the Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, one of the oldest pharmacies in the world, has been converted into a “listening room”; Rothko Chapel, a composition for chorus, celesta, cello, and percussion written by Morton Feldman in 1971 at Rothko’s commission, plays through speakers, washing over frescoed scenes of Christ’s passion painted by Mariotto di Nardo di Cione between 1385 and 1408.
You can read reviews of the exhibition in The New York Times and The Brooklyn Rail and view photos, including of all five relevant cells in San Marco, on Ruth Philo’s Instagram page.
>> Called as We Are, York Minster, July 12–August 10, 2026 (then to other locations): Presented by the Church of England’s Disability Project in partnership with Art and Christianity, this exhibition consists of twelve photographic portraits by Ruth Samuels of leaders in the Church of England who are Deaf, disabled, and/or neurodivergent. “Called As We Are brings Deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people in ordained and lay ministries into focus and explores the enriching and dynamic contribution that difference brings to their personal ministries and the ministry of the church,” says Rev. John Beauchamp, a blind priest who serves as disability ministry enabler in the Diocese of London. Samuels, the photographer, herself has chronic fatigue syndrome.
Each photograph is accompanied by insights and observations from the subject, telling us about their disability, their faith journey, and adaptations that have helped them along their way. There are also audio descriptions, as well as BSL (British Sign Language) interpretation. After its time at York Minster, the exhibition will travel to the following locations:
- Exeter Cathedral, August 12–19, 2026
- Liverpool Cathedral, September 14–October 4, 2026
- Chelmsford Cathedral, October 12–November 9, 2026
- St Alban’s Cathedral, November 10–26, 2026
- St Giles Cripplegate, London, January 18–February 8, 2027
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CALL FOR ART: St. Francis Exhibition, Creo Arts Gallery, Wilmore, Kentucky: “This November, Creo Arts invites you to explore the life, legacy, and spiritual vision of St. Francis through the arts. Whether inspired by his care for creation, his radical hospitality, his pursuit of peace, or the beauty of a life fully surrendered to God, we welcome works that engage with the enduring themes of his witness. Through painting, sculpture, poetry, photography, music, and more, this exhibition celebrates a life that continues to inspire artists and believers across generations.” Submission deadline: September 13, 2026. Selection emails will be sent out by September 21. The exhibition opening is November 6, and participating artists are encouraged but not required to attend.
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ARTICLE: “Take me to church: Ecclesiology and Hulu’s The Bear” by Beth Felker Jones: “I want a church like a fine dining restaurant with a pickup window serving Chicago style beef sandwiches.” This is how theologian Beth Felker Jones opens her latest Substack post, drawing the hit television drama The Bear into conversation with ecclesiology, the study of the church. She critiques the either/or mentality that says the church has to either devote itself to beauty, depth, liturgy, theology, and careful formation or be accessible and meet practical needs; be specialized and transporting or down-to-earth, ordinary. Why can’t it be both? She then proceeds to reflect on hospitality, family (born and found), and giftedness.
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SHAKER SONGS:
Saro Lynch-Thomason is a song leader and folklorist living in Asheville, North Carolina. She identifies as pagan, but a number of songs in her repertoire are from the Christian tradition, including these two from Shakerism, a near-extinct sect whose distinctive practices include celibacy, communal living, and gender equality.
>> “In Yonder’s Valley”: This is the most widely remembered of the early Shaker songs. Written at Enfield, Connecticut, by Father James Whittaker (1751–1787), the second leader of the Shaker sect after Mother Ann Lee, it draws on the paradisal imagery in the second chapter of the Song of Songs (a reference shared by two other songs I’ve recently featured!), bidding the community to enter into unity with God, each other, and the rest of creation—to “take [their] fill” of heaven on earth, living in the cosmic harmony that has been ordained from the beginning. A variation of the song has “yonder” instead of “yonder’s” and “flows” instead of “grows.”
In yonder’s valley there grows sweet union
Let us arise and take our fill
The winter’s past and the spring appears
The turtledove is in our land
In yonder’s valley there grows sweet union
Let us arise and take our fill
>> “Ode to Contentment”: This Shaker hymn has been passed down with varying attributions of authorship and places of origin, but it was most likely written by Richard Pelham (words) and Issachar Bates (music) at the North Union Shaker village in Ohio in 1835. It apostrophizes the Christian virtue of contentment, asking her to come dwell in our hearts, bringing a stabilizing peace, endurance, and bliss. Lynch-Thomason sings three of the original nine verses.
Come, contentment, lovely guest!
Reign unrivaled in my breast;
Thou alone wilt do.
Thou alone canst fill the soul,
Every passion canst control;
When the stormy billows roll,
Thou canst bear me through.All the lordlings of the earth,
All their boasts, what is it worth?
Nothing but a show.
All the wealth that kings possess,
All their vain and gaudy dress,
All is splendid wretchedness;
Peace they never know.Nothing on this earth below,
Naught that heaven can bestow,
Fills the soul with peace,
If contentment dwell not there.
All is dreary, dark, and bare;
She alone makes heavenly fare,
She alone is bliss.
Art & Theology 