One way of reading the slowly cooling controversy over the Smithsonian's removal of David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly" video is that it was desperately necessary. In the attacks and defenses, the protests and petitions, one sensed a palpable relief. Finally, the art world was back to normal. Religious people got angry; the culturati got angry. It was Mapplethorpe's Concoran and Ofili's Sensation all over again. The players took their places, the scripts were handed out, the media yelled "Action!" and everyone knew what to do. Senator Jesse Helms was replaced with Representative John Boehner, and Andres Serrano was replaced with Wojnarowicz, though it wasn't urine on the crucifix this time. It was ants.
But as the media scans for the next controversy, having drained this one of its potential, a more positive art world development endures: The return of religion as a serious concern. Two shows closing this month told a far different story than have the season's cultural headlines. First was Enrique Martínez Celaya's exhibit at Manhattan's Museum of Biblical Art, entitled "The Wanderer," in conjunction with a parallel installation at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine entitled "The Crossing." Martínez Celaya's paintings and sculptures at MOBIA were anything but straightforwardly religious -- they were gravid with mystery and doubt. But they were presided over by shelves of antique Bibles, as if to remind the viewer that the Scriptures themselves pose similar questions. Likewise, the paintings installed at St. John the Divine contrasted early 20th century stained glass that celebrated Christian civilization, with the brooding interrogations of a God-haunted artist. Art and religion, both Martínez Celaya's installations seemed to suggest, can help one another succeed.
Ironically, Makoto Fujimura's exibition, "The Four Holy Gospels," though more explicitly religious, inhabited the supposedly secular Chelsea district at the Dillon Gallery (though reappearing at the MOBIA this summer). The paintings show just how far "evangelical" artists have come, from Timothy R. Botts' calligraphic transcriptions of Bible verses, to Fujimura's airily abstract, wordless meditations on the Holy Writ. Fujimura, a member of Manhattan's Redeemer Presbyterian Church, came to faith as a painter and has made a career of showing Protestants how faith and art can be symbiotic. Neither Martínez Celaya's nor Fujimura's show received overwhelming press, but those who visited them were assured that far more interesting things are afoot than an art world/Republican party standoff.
While the Smithsonian controversy made it seem like art and religion could never be more distanced, the truth is that religion has become an increasing point of artistic concern. Art historians, to be sure, have long ignored the last century's religious art, but such a tiresome approach is recently being itself ignored. The title of Yale art historian Sally Promey's article says it all: "The 'Return' of Religion in the Scholarship of American Art." Likewise, it's no mere coincidence that the Art Seminar series, a major forum in the fields of art and art history, concluded with a volume on religion, entitled "Re-Enchantment," questioning why religious concerns have been unjustly excluded from the world of art. Most recently, a symposium designed to continue this line of investigation, entitled "Why Have There Been No Great Modern Religious Artists?" is scheduled alongside the meeting of the College Art Association in Manhattan next month. The Symposium aims to challenge the "narratives of modernist and post-modernist art history that have tended to omit serious consideration of Christian strains in 20th century and current artistic practice." Art's chilly attitude toward religion is thawing, expressed perhaps most directly by Harvard's Camille Paglia:
I would argue that the route to a renaissance of the American fine arts lies through religion. Let me make my premises clear: I am a professed atheist and a pro-choice libertarian Democrat. ... For the fine arts to revive, they must recover their spiritual center. Profaning the iconography of other people's faiths is boring and adolescent. The New Age movement, to which I belong, was a distillation of the 1960s' multicultural attraction to world religions, but it has failed thus far to produce important work in the visual arts.
To be sure, the art world suffers from a secular hangover still. But one can't shake the feeling that religious concerns are the elephant in the gallery, waiting to be more fully addressed. When the dust settles from the controversy over Wojnarowicz (whose work should be understood apart from it), this refreshing proximity of art and religion, not their temporary alienation, will endure.
At the end of the day, the silliest part of the passing kerfuffle is that it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Christianity. The cross, at least according to St. Paul (1 Corinthians 1:23), is already an intentional offense, and nothing done to it by artists can make it any more horrifying than it already, quite intentionally, is: The most hideous of spectacles, a hole impossibly black, absorbing every awful deed committed and every good one left undone. Just what is a crucifix? It's impossible to say: "As the depths of the sea cannot be fathomed by any human gaze," wrote Gregory of Nyssa, "so too the secret of Hell is impenetrable to all human knowledge." But such was the cost of redemption. Compared to the bracing reality of the gospel itself, urine and ants are as offensive as Champagne and butterflies.
Matthew Milliner is a Ph.D. candidate in art history at Princeton University. He blogs at millinerd.com.
Follow Matthew Milliner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/millinerd
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MOBiA | Museum of Biblical Art
Numinous is an English adjective describing the power or presence of a divinity.
The numinous experience has a personal quality to it,
in that the person feels to be in communion with a Holy or sacred non-duality.
The numinous experience can lead in different cases to belief in deities,
the supernatural, the sacred, the holy, and the transcendental.
It may be viewed as "the intense feeling of unknowingly knowing (there's the non-duality) that there is something which cannot be seen however can be felt or experienced.
This "transcendental knowing" can "bliss out" or overcome a person at any time
and in any place — in a cathedral; next to a silent stream; on a lonely road,
making toast, feeding fish, getting hit by a ray of sunlight while standing in line at the bank,
hiking along the seashore, climbing stairs...
Non-religious usage -The idea is not necessarily a religious one:
noted atheists Carl Sagan, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins,
Professor Irwin Corey and Sam Harris have discussed the importance of
separating the numinous from the supernatural.
As to your second point, could you explain your comparison? I don't see how catholic artwork proves that Christianity and art don't mix. Granted, I'm not an art critic or art history major or anything like that. But art is about expressing things that can't be said with words. Not to sound cliche, but it's sharing the way you view the world with the world. So why is a Christian not allowed to do this simply because their view of the world is colored by faith in a higher power?
Thus your strikingly one-sided account of the crucifix, which sees only the horror but not the glory: "the most hideous of spectacles, a hole impossibly black," certainly -- but also, for Christians, the climax of divine revelation, the supreme sacrament of divine love, the climax of redemption. The crucifix is not suffering and death and horror abstracted from the Beloved of our souls, our Lord and God. It is God's love letter to the world, with His own true face affixed to it. That is what we see in Serrano's piss.
Does this add to the horror of the Passion? Of course not. Nor do the Eucharistic desecrations of PZ Myers, ACT UP, etc. Are these acts unspeakable profanations of God's ultimate act of redemptive self-disclosure? How could we see it otherwise?
A culture that cannot understand this is a desacrilized culture. We hear no dissonance because we are tone-deaf. We feel no pain because we are numb. We are not grieved because we do not love.
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Why does this phrase annoy me?
THe religious Art produced during the Rennaissance and indeed throughout Western and Eastern history shared certain traits: it had an audience, it had a patron and the artist had a job/role in society.We were employed by monks (or some were monks be they Buddhist or Catholic), Popes, church congregations to take on these subjects. It is really an epic fail to overlook this.
Artists today are self employed; and the artist is outside of society and consequently his aesthetic concerns are personal unless one attempts to be commercial.Especially in this country Artists are without support and receive mass attention only if their work is "controversial" yet not one Republican or religious person or average person will directly support Artists. Not one.For the most part Artists follow their own creative path and hope there is an audience for the work.Society cannot demand or dictate the creative path nor the nature of the work (i.e., religious).
Finally , if folks are not seeing the spiritual content in modern Art they simply are not looking- people like Martin Puryear and Agnes Martin certainly offer that in their work.What people expect are the traditional and figurative images when they speak of religious art. Art is religion to many that engage in it daily.
As to art's chilly attitude towards religion, I just got it from the horse's mouth. According to James Elkins, the art world “can accept a wide range of ‘religious' art by people who hate religion, by people who are deeply uncertain about it, by the disgruntled and the disaffected and the skeptical, but there is no place for artists who express straightforward, ordinarily religious faith.... Committed, engaged, ambitious, informed art does not mix with dedicated, serious, thoughtful, heartfelt religion.”
Elkins appears to be as annoyed with that state of affairs as you (and I) are. Working toward that change was what the Art Seminar's Re-Enchantment volume tried to do.
Art certainly can be a religion. "To those who communicate with pure being chiefly through aesthetic experience," wrote Etienne Gilson, "the beautiful becomes a substitute for the divine…. Better a wrong religion than none at all.” Nevertheless, Jacques Barzun has a point on this as well: Art is unable “to reach the divine center from which redemption comes, and is punished for its presumption… [Art] lacks a theology or even a popular mythology of its own; it has no bible, no ritual, and no sanctions for behavior.”
Art's failure as religion might open it to more tested varieties (which also, of course, have their failures).
Also to clarify, with the comment on Art as religion I was speaking to the experience of the sacred , the mystery and intangibles all of which can be/ are part of the art making process.I think Artists are modern day mystics.
Art also serves to interpret culture back at itself: if art reflects any hostility between art, culture and certain 'religion,' maybe it's not 'Art' that started it. Same as with science and literature and film and all. If a religion starts saying beauty is separate from spirit, even opposed, that's a lot of what you're going to get.
This one's been interesting to think about. I think the 'art business' itself, and the politicizing of major religions (particularly with regard to certain religions' *hostility* to art and artists, make up a big part of that divide. From an artsy point of view, that kind of religion seems boorish and aggressive, only ever bothering to notice art in terms of disapproving of anything that's not their 'message,' otherwise too often treating art as decadence, corruption, or mere decoration and property.
There's hardly a lot of Sister Wendy's walking around out there, in other words, what do you expect?
(All this includes, really, seemingly always being *down* on modern artistic forms, despite the huge amount of visual imagery people are bombarded with constantly: Art at large has been coping with representations, notably photorealistic/photographic imagery that once was a quest for masters, having lost that kind of attention, and more modern forms of art have to varying degrees, sought to get beyond that, kind of widening the divide between 'Art' and 'Religion.'
Promoting religious-themed art might generate some interest (And doubtless high praise from sudden art experts among the punditry) but 'significance' might not prove so easy. (Even if it's not New Age airbrush. If there was a masterwork in there who'd even notice, never mind admit it. :) )
What we don't have is a culture that supports or appreciates fine arts: content issues are very secondary without that. Who'd even notice?
Biblical quote - "the people perish for lack of vision". I would like to see a return to art and artists being the true visionaries in society that initiate change and a new respect for what is beautiful in our world. Seeing art that just reflects the lowest levels of society, humanity and vision is depressing. Whilst I applaud those who record what is truly going on - I would like to see others taking up the baton and leading with a new positive vision that excites humanity.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/16/2365412.htm
It is really not a question of art but of salesmanship.
Pics are available
http://www.dillongallery.com/index.php?p=exhibits&id=current&exh=201012_four_holy_gospels&i=2
and
http://mobia.org/exhibitions/the-wanderer-enrique-martinez-celaya#slideshow1
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THis isn't really accurate.Once the content of art was made irrelevant image making and storytelling in modern art were made irrelevant .Nonetheless in the 20th c there are strong "religious" paintings by Modern Artists such as Barnett Newman's "Stations of the Cross" which IMHO are as powerful as anything that is representational.
THere are also many painters such as William H Johnson who took on the "religious" in their work.His paintings are particularly powerful in their re-invention and poignant.There is a difference between "religious" painting and paintings with a "spiritual center". Morandi's work is certainly spiritual.
The Celaya exhibit is conceptually strong but the paintings weren't very satisfying.If our Art lacks the "spiritual" it is because our society seems to have no soul.
http://christianityhistoryart.org/
As to your other challenging points, I recommend a fine book by Dan Siedell, who curated Martinez Celaya's show, entitled God in the Gallery:
http://www.amazon.com/God-Gallery-Christian-Cultural-Exegesis/dp/0801031842
In addition, the "Re-Enchantment" Art Seminar volume referred to above, which advances the conversation considerably since James Elkins' 2004 publication, "On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art," can be found here:
http://www.amazon.com/Re-Enchantment-Art-Seminar-James-Elkins/dp/0415960525
Not that it would matter if that wasn't so often the case. Even if it was more often negative, as I already said, it is the ultimate example of free expression. Odd how religion, in all forms, seems to always demand repression of speech, no matter how positive and inline with the religion it is.
I can't even imagine what would happen if the vast majority of art actually WAS trying to be insulting to religion.....I assume the vast majority of religious peoples heads would explode.
the cross was a thing which the Roman empire used to execute people; a aweful terrifying deterrent
it is the churches mistake to make too much of it as symbol . for centuries the symbol of christianity should be a symbol for ressurection Christ is not on the cross christ is in heaven so depict him in heaven in churches or in art
in insulting a cross in a ' work of art " an artist is merely insulting abrutal execution thing ,such as a guilotine
a guilotine is asymbol of atheism and futility
the cross symbolizes the still point at the intersection of all directions...as a stillpoint symbol with just 4 of many directions shown it symbolizes choices . if we leave the still point at the junction point deep within then w emust proceed in one direction ; this then is a sacrifice other directions left behind . so what is needed by anyone in any walk o f life is meditation which estbalishes us in the still point [ transcendental consciousness] deep within so when we proceed in one direction the potential in other directions is not lost
The Roman cross originally was a sign of justice, as it was where criminals met their fate. The Christian cross symbolizes how human justice falls short of divine justice that is only redeemed via sacrifice. A symbol is always liable to get lost under the opportunism of the sign. It all depends on what we see when we look. Hence the artist's ants are open to interpretation where it depends on whether we see a symbol or a sign. What I see is a civilization mourning its loss as nihilism spreads among us.