Fernando Castro Flórez, La obra de arte en la época del retorno de la espiritualidad, in José Cosme. Ser y huella, IVAM — Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Valencia, 2013, pp. 15–28. ISBN 978-84-482-5809-2. DL V-361-2013.
Primary institutional critical source — maximum priority. Complete essay documented from the original printed catalogue, pp. 15–28.
José Cosme. Ser y huella was produced by the IVAM Institut Valencià d’Art Modern in Valencia in 2013. The exhibition was curated by José Luis Sánchez and Rafael Sierra. Catalogue production: IVAM. Design: Manuel Granell. Photography: Juan García, Lucía Pla and José Cosme. Copyright notice in the catalogue assigns text rights to the authors and publication rights to IVAM / Generalitat Valenciana.
Castro Flórez develops a sustained philosophical reading of José Cosme’s practice through spirituality, transcendence, the sublime, absence/presence, body, trace, redemption, water, Genesis, contemporary theology, the sacred/profane divide and the instability of representation.
A key historical formulation is his identification of Cosme’s proposal as “arte teológico conceptual” (conceptual theological art). This provides documented critical evidence that the relation between contemporary art, theology and transcendence was already explicitly articulated within Cosme’s reception in 2013.