First Person Artist is a weekly column by artist Kimberly Brooks in which she provides commentary on the creative process and showcases artists' work from around the world.
With every politician jostling for his endorsement and because his birthday is just around the corner, it made perfect sense to spend this week showcasing artists who like to use Jesus as their subject matter. In light of the fact that any image, even cartoons and naming teddy bears after other Abrahamic prophets-- for example, ones that start with the letter M-- causes riots and storms and often murder-- the sheer abundance with which Jesus is depicted is profoundly curious and fascinating.
I myself have a special relationship with him. Soon after I graduated college, I moved to Paris to paint and at the time I was obsessed with medieval music and Beethoven. Pre-iPod, I played the same CDs in my Walkman of Hildegard von Bingen, Josquin de Prez, and Pallestrina and anything by Ludwig van for a year until it must have formed permanent grooves in my cerebral cortex. In between going to museums and worrying about how I was going afford my next meal, I attended concert after free concert in churches and cathedrals all over Europe and became an unwitting connoisseur of Jesus in all shapes and sizes. Eventually, we --me and Jesus-- became friends. And when I saw him I would wave and say hello.
Every year, there's a competition for Religious Art in Australia called the Blake Prize. This year's winner is Tasmanian-born artist Rodney Pople and his "Last Supper". The Last Supper is positioned at the long end of a theater hall in a blur and it instead the chandelier is the star of the show.
But it was the finalists who drew the most ire, seen here with artist Priscilla Brack's "Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross." It's a holographic Jesus/Bin Laden double-portrait that flips. 40x40" Lenticular image.
Luke Sullivan, another finalist, caused a stir with his "The Fourth Secret of Fatima" a life-sized sculpture of Mary, head and torso obscured by a blue burka.
Cloistered nun and Oxford-trained art critic Sister Wendy Beckett claimed to see deep meaning in Andres Serrano's highly controversial "Piss Christ," a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in his own urine. She said to her it represented the irreverence people have shown to Jesus and his teachings over the centuries.
My favorite is the Jesus depicted by artist Chris Roth who makes him a co-hero to not only Superman but Santa. His latest work returns to the intricate process of stained glass elevating the villain-snatching comic hero to the holy and iconic. We'll be featuring his interview in the coming weeks for his group show in early January.
Come back every Saturday for more from Kimberly Brooks. Read past First Person Artist interviews and essays at Firstpersonartist.com.
Follow Kimberly Brooks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/artistkimberlyb
Think about it - if you criticize Islam, you get rioting in the streets. If you criticize Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. nobody (in the US, anyway - yes, I remember the trouble Aerosmith got into with the "Nine Lives" cover) really cares.
Ah, but if you go after Christianity, then you get a few letters to the editor, some picketing in the streets, but most a lot of curious people lining up to see what all the fuss is about.
There's an old saying in Hollywood: "There's no such thing as bad publicity."
up in the sky? Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
No...no, it's some hippie guy that's glowing
and stuff! Wow, he must be pretty stoned to
actually be able to fly, and stuff. What's
he doing? Hey, is he going to throw his shoe?
SAVE IT FOR THE GUY THAT RUNS THE ATM MACHINE,
JESUS! Hey, I know a guy that has your same
name! He can't fly though! Hey, Don't throw
shoes at me! What, you're going to shoot
lightning bolts, next?!?!! Ha! You missed!
;)
Obviously, Jesus was a dark-skinned Jew. In Greek-Orthodox icons he still looks that way. Northern Europeans made him blond, blue eyes and tall: a true Viking. Nothing wrong with that. Jesus is more of a symbol and an idea. It's irrelevant what looked like. It's like asking what came before the Big Bang.
all gay Jesus and apostles which got bomb threats repeatedly.
Corpus Christi's originality came under universal attack. Ben Brantley of The New York Times launched into his review with "The excitement stops right after the metal detectors." After summing up the security procedures he went on to say "That's pretty much it for pulse-quickening drama. The play that brought an outraged chorus of protest even before it went into rehearsal is about as threatening, and stimulating, as a glass of chocolate milk."
The paper's erstwhile drama critic and current Op-Ed columnist Frank Rich heartily seconded him, adding: "Culture wars are almost never about culture, and are almost always more dramatic, more entertaining and more farcical than the supposedly incendiary art works that ignite them. http://www.curtainup.com/corpus.html
Why? First we don't know what he looks like but there were hints in the Bible that Jesus might have been ugly.
He probably had an eye that was larger than the other, had hair that did not run past the bottom of his neck.
He is not white like we like to depict him. He was described as having a skin the color of bronze(Revelations) before it was changed to ivory(bronze is not white, ivory is).
So we can go ahead and eliminate blonde hair blue eyed Jesus, then and only then, can we start getting as close as we could ever be.
I'm not a fan of excretion of course, but think about it:
Oxygen is the excretion of plants, which we breathe. So literally, we inhale excretion. We excrete carbon dioxide, and plants "inhale" this as well.
Creatures on this planet live off each other as creatures of Nature. If people wish to invoke a supernatural meaning, fine, although I disagree; but to deem Piss Christ as blasphemous (as many have) is to not only miss the point, but also to miss a wealth of possible meanings.
Its called Gezelligheid in Dutch. Cozy is the best translation in English.