The Agprognostic Temple is a nomadic art space that was founded in 2020 by the artist and spiritual philosopher Dome Wood and the curator and art critic Sam Steverlynck.
The Agprognostic Temple seeks to create a new viewing experience for contemporary art while, through its own philosophy and ontological narrative, questioning what a temple can stand for. Therefore, it can be seen to incorporate its own language into the mingling of symbols and rituals expressed throughout the ages.
Each exhibition is a chapter in the story of the Temple, reflecting the ideas that unify temple cultures. The curatorial program of the Temple selects artists whose practices not only revolve around these ideas but also present strong challenges to them.
Further emphasised in the curating of each exhibition is an intention to provide non-conventional views on the ideas of spirituality and mysticism. With the plurality of ideas a welcome construct to the Temple’s identity.
As a nomadic structure, the temple recreates its architectural setting with each new space that it occupies. This gives an opportunity for the scenographic element of each exhibition to have its own fusion with its curated program, providing a “curatorial gesamtkunstwerk.”
Temples are places of worship for people who believe in God(s) or a higher power. It is then not uncommon to question what the Agprognostic Temple is in relation to this. Is art our God?
The short answer to this is that there is no God. However, what is venerated is the unknown as a “real presence” that gives great art its power, or said otherwise, what great art captures that gives it its power.
The Temple becomes a place of veneration and excitement to the Unknown, which is seen as the phenomenology of art in its more sublime existence.
This is further manifested in the “Cube of the Unknown”, which is central to every exhibition.
Often portrayed as a hypercube, it reflects the idea of the spatial fourth dimension as the mystical space of our consciousness. The “hyper philosophy” behind this idea can be found in the Egothavma.
The belief that the Unknown is a real presence in art and life, which gives it its vitality, is echoed in the name of the Temple. The word “agprognostic” is a neologism of three Greek words: “agnostic,” “gnostic,” and “prognostic.”
This unity of this word breaks the duality between knowing and not knowing as separate absolutes, joining them together with our own and relative ability to know.