Abstract
This paper's main aim is to show that contemporary culture and religions (and/or spirituality) are not contrasting cultural fields as often assumed. To this end, it brings focus to instances of sacred cruelty from contemporary art and culture, applying the anthropological method of "art agency" proposed by Alfred Gell for the analyses of the objects of art (Gell 1998).
The conclusion will be that sacred cruelty and pain are still present in contemporary art and visual culture even if, as Mircea Eliade posits, the sacred is simultaneously revealed and camouflaged within the profane.