Art Gallery 'X'mas Cards

Several galleries sent me e-cards or messages this Christmas, via their mailing lists. There was a mad one from aas (an ephemeral performance art collective, see http://aasgroup.net/) see below. Charlie Smith (the London gallery) included an image of Christ by painter Gavin Nolan (see bottom). I believe the painting features in the book The Face of Jesus by Edward Lucie-Smith, which I might try to take a look at. The thing that strikes me is that it's ugly. The geometric lines are interesting, part of it almost suggests a star of David. I could also see the lines as drawing a visual bridge between the portrait and the viewer.

Goblin Market

I haven't read a huge amount of poetry, but having stumbled across 'Goblin Market' by Christina Rossetti, I wanted to write down my ideas about it.

Read or listen to the poem first: link

In overview it's about two sisters. Laura falls to some sort of sickness/melancholy as a result of eating the fruit of 'goblin men'. Lizzie goes to the goblin men to try to get some more of the fruit, to ease her sister's illness. When she refuses to eat the fruit herself, wanting only to buy some, Lizzie is essentially roughed up by the goblin men. As a result shes ends up covered in squashed fruit. She escapes home where Laura kisses her to get some of the fruit juices. The result is initially to send Laura closer to death, but then she is healed.

There are a lot of sexual and possibly feminist type themes in there. But to me it sounded like an insane explanation of the gospel. The fruit is desire. Slavoj Zizek has said (somewhere on the Zizek! DVD) that freedom is to escape desire (desire for enjoyment). Laura is beaten by it, she desires. But Lizzie, her sister, goes through the same temptation and escapes without giving in to desire. Her refusal first leads to suffering:

They trod and hustled her,
Elbowed and jostled her, 
Clawed with their nails,

As she withstands the temptation and suffering, she is portrayed as heavenly:

White and golden Lizzie stood,

When Lizzie returns home she shouts at her sister to come and eat the fruit juices from her, which will presumably save her. Although it's highly sensual, this has to reflect something of Christian communion/eucharist:

Eat me, drink me, love me;

Laura's eventual recovery after eating the crushed fruit juices from her sister is described as:

Life out of death. 

It is a remarkable recovery, she is renewed:

Laura awoke as from a dream,[...]
Her gleaming locks showed not one thread of grey,[...]
And light danced in her eyes.

I think all the observations I've made are pretty obvious, I haven't gone into a lot of depth and I've ignored all the sexual/feminist themes. As far as the sexual themes, I think that many Christians think of relationships (and sex) as a pattern, a picture of the communion between man and God. The bible says that there will be no marriage in heaven, maybe because people will be fully relating to God. The conclusion of the poem is this:

'For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather;
To cheer one on the tedious way,
To fetch one if one goes astray,
To lift one if one totters down,
To strengthen whilst one stands.'

This last part says that family is important. I think the fact that it focuses on sisters, together with the earlier eroticism, is what may appeal to queer or feminist theorists. To follow the reading that Lizzie is a Christ like figure, it might help to consider what the bible says about Christians being part of God's family:

For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother

Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.

Link: Poem audio and text at Loudlit.org

"an enemy of ideologies"

Notes taken from a Wim Reitkerk lecture:
(link to mp3)

Destutt de Tracy originally used the term ideology to mean the study of ideas. Napoleon I hated university ideologists because they criticised his political ideals for being tools used by him to retain power. They were in turn criticised for using their ideological studies for a practical goal - seeking the fall of the French government. Ideology then came to mean a system of ideas, surrounded by metaphysical and moral truth, created for a highly practical goal. This could be done subconsciously or consciously.

Later Marx spoke about man's desire to be better (an ideal); God was created as an ideology in order to achieve it. He suggested that this particularly helped the ruling classes to keep the working class quiet. Marx believed in no absolute truth (which is itself a truth claim), so any ideologies are created by human society, and cannot contain absolute truth. Rather than arriving at relativism though, he says that the best ideology should be followed by society to arrive at  his goal - for him the freedom of man, and the delivery of the working class. So Marx (and Lenin) acknowledged that their thinking was ideology, an instrument to reach a practical goal.

However to acknowledge Christianity is an ideology, you would be saying that faith in God is only useful as far as it helps you to get somewhere. Rietkirk notes that using the bible to defend or attack an economic system, or political systems, is highly risky because you start you transform Christianity into an ideology - one that supports our own views, or own nation. Our ideals would become idols - something that comes in place of God. Christianity is weak where it has the same form as an ideology; where people use scriptures as 'medical prescriptions' to feel OK, where people go to church just to make themselves feel better.

The goal of any ideology becomes the absolute, even if absolute truth is denied. So Christianity cannot be an ideology, because it would require subordinating God to a practical goal, which contradicts core Christian belief. He gives examples in the bible of people trying to use God for power to achieve something, apparently good, but failing because they were subordinating him to their own desires and purposes.

Debate

This is an account of an art project entitled 'Debate' which I was involved in at Speakers' Corner, London, on Sunday 21st November.

The event was organised by London based artist group The Dogfood Idea. It involved a group of artists going to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park and conducting an 'exhibition' by engaging in the etiquette/process/traditions of Speakers' Corner. My contribution was to conduct a questionnaire, which I filled in as a I asked members of the public questions. 

Questions included 'So what are you doing here today?', 'What is most important to you, or what do you love most?' and 'Would you like to ask me any questions?'. The questions essentially were aimed to open up conversation. At the end of the questionnaire I would offer it to the subject to keep. Most people were quite willing to talk to me, and most kept the questionnaire. The event was mainly focused over a one hour period, so I didn't speak to a huge number of people. 

The questionnaire also included some images of my photographic artworks, so I came away with some interesting comments on them. Some people were pretty indifferent to them, one guy criticised an image's ISO (I explained it was taken with a camera phone). Because of the atmosphere at Speakers' Corner, other people would gather round and sometimes join the discussion while I was talking to someone, which was good, and wouldn't have happened somewhere else.

I think my key interests were speaking to strangers, (more exoteric?) public responses to my (photographic) artwork, the questionnaire as an art form and exploring personal versus institutional validations of my artwork (i.e. what did I get out of the project, and what did anyone get out of my artistic contribution?). It was good to go outside, practice 'art', and to discuss with strangers. It was sometimes like an art college crit or tutorial. I think this owed to the Speakers' Corner tradition. The questionnaire format seemed like a good platform to exhibit my work. I often feel like the explanations I give when I'm discussing my work is actually part of the work, I like the idea of personal encounters as artworks.

The event curators/organisers commented that Speakers' Corner is currently dominated by (Male) Christian and Muslim orators and assumed that the artists' participation would make for some alternative contributions. I think that an interesting element of my involvement in the project then, is the fact that I am a Christian, although I didn't discuss this with the curators. I included the following references in my project proposal for Debate:

• I am currently working as part of a collective called Archipelago, which has received a commission from Cornerhouse, Manchester as part of their projects program. The project is due to go ahead in January/February 2011. Part of my contribution involves a questionnaire.
• Medical questionnaires (I am currently training to become a healthcare professional, and use questionnaires with patients).
• Evangelism. The artist who brought this project to my attention once told me that my approach to art was 'evangelical'.

The 'evangelism' inspiration really spanned two ideas. Firstly the idea of wanting to take art to everybody, and secondly the phenomenon of approaching strangers on the street, which also happens within Christian evangelism. 

http://www.thedogfoodidea.com/ (information, pictures etc under 'newsblog')

Liverpool Biennial

I went to Liverpool for the first day of the Biennial and this is a slightly jazzed up version of what went in my notebook:

John Moore's painting prize

'Protest' - Nicholas Middleton

Looks like a history painting, with a crowd of people carefully arranged in chaos. Although it also bears the style of a painting made from photographs. This contrast is also seen in the detail of a 'crime scene' sticker shown next to an engraving on the 19th century monument. It makes the G9 protest scene look beautiful, which makes me think of freee - 'protest is beautiful'. There's all sorts of people - a grinning couple, business women, lots who look like passers by which have become involved, and lots with cameras.

'Somewhere Between Prayer and Agenda' - Cara Nahaul

Painting presents a mingled body of people, who look like largely undefined Muslims in prayer. The loose, ambiguous style playing with our idea of 'Muslim' as a visual category (cues in painting include hats and beards)?

'Spectrum Jesus' - Keith Coventry

Hard to see the portrait because the whole painting is dark blue. It's also glossy paint, and in a glazed frame. I thought this was the whole point of the work - a literal portrait of Jesus, yet you can't actually see who he is etc. Then I read the wikipedia entry on Coventry and realised that the painting is one of a set, that forms a rainbow. It also relates to fakes and forgeries - it is itself based on a forged painting. I suppose it suggests that religious stories and texts are unreliable on their own.

As a child I was a Roman Catholic. Every Sunday morning at seven o'clock I had to go to church where I had a few minutes to look at the texts that I had to read for the service. The image of Jesus is like a container for all sorts of ideas. Maybe subconsciously I thought of theTurin Shroud as well, how the image is just barely visible - which itself is meant to be a fake. It's not a natural thing, but yet, I'm neutralising it as an image by making monochromes.

(Coventry quote from Wikipedia)

I think the phrase  'Jesus is like a container' Coventry uses is very accurate in describing the multitude of theories, theological and otherwise, that have been applied to Christ. It suggests a blank sheet to which you bring your own ideas, which relates formally to his monochrome paintings, and also presents a popular postmodern(?) idea. You could also see a container as something which holds its various contents together.

Other than that I saw Freee's window installations - commercial style window-sized stickers with their own slogans. Most of them were old pieces, so I thought it looked like a 'greatest hits' selection. I actually bumped into one of freee (Beech) on the train on the way back and apparently he'd said something similar to the organiser - 'you're the first person to give us an album, we've only has singles before'.

Forum 2010

I've just come back from Forum, a national conference for Christian students. Its five days of camping and seminars, or brainwashing you could say. There are a couple of points about it I want to put down.

1 - Singing

There were probably about 1000 students there, and in the mornings and evenings we all sang together in The Arena, a giant tent. Sometimes at the end of a song the band would stop playing, but the singing would carry on for the last few lines. Listening to all those voices together was like listening to howling wolves. But different to the 60,000 Green Day concert I went to a few years ago. Singing the Christian songs, everyone was singing because they believed every word, not because they liked the music. So you actually felt like you were all together, like a pack or an organism. If I'd stop singing to listen it was like standing inside a giant set of lungs and listening to it breathe.

2 - Dan Curtis

The event had an artist in residence, Dan Curtis. He had been given an open-walled section tent section to make work in, which I thought was a difficult situation to start in. He found discarded building materials, originally from the centre's Victorian manor house, and used these to make the sculpture over a 4 day period. They were returned afterwards. The materials were carefully arranged into small groupings, or miniature constructions, taking visual reference points and lines from the space. Despite its highly formal nature, I was keen to focus on it as a gestural, conceptual piece; Dan spoke of several conceptual themes within the making process. Materials were examined and contrasted; cheap instant materials like tape and the carpet (event carpeting is disposable) against much older architectural fragments. I was interested in the time and care that had been given to the objects. Despite looking at a lot of modern art, this is the first time that I have actually understood something as being genuinely affirmative of the material. Looking back at photographs of the work let me see it more in terms of the composition; I might have a more two dimensional mind.

Another post on Dan Curtis' residency:

http://garethleaney.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/dan-curtis-at-forum-2010/

Manchester graffiti

The bottom photo is of graffiti on a church in Salford. Not by me, I should add.

BLOOD TEARS FAITH DOUBT

I went to see 'BLOOD TEARS FAITH DOUBT' at the Courtauld Institute. The artworks had been selected from two sources - the Courtauld collection (old) and the Arts Council collection (new). They are displayed dimly lit, on dark painted walls - grey, blue, turquoise. They must have been following the National Gallery's show 'The Sacred Made Real' earlier in the year, which used similar presentation. The resulting atmosphere feels more like a museum than a gallery, maybe an attempt to see the older devotional works in something of their original religious context.

The work that most interested me was Siobhan Hapaska's St Christopher. It's a waxwork man sitting on the floor against a wall. He has tanned skin, long black hair and a beard. He wears a purple robe and his legs appear amputated at the knee. I remember a friend seeing a semi-animatronic waxwork and thinking it was real. I was amazed, to me it was clearly not a real person. But St. Christopher is still, and looking down; to me it is very close to seeming real. He has hair everywhere; his chest, arms, even his fingers. It's the opposite of the idealised religious image. That for me is what was surprising. St. Christopher wasn't a biblical figure, but in my head I generalised him as a religious man along with those who wrote the Bible. So to see him as a real man brought that home, that all the people in those ancient stories, were hairy people like us. Obviously I knew that, but encountering St. Christopher made me think about it. I think the work's primary function in the exhibition was actually to represent doubt - apparently the Catholic Church doubt historical details of his existence. Doubt is also inherent to the wax medium - is the representation real?

St. Christopher is paired with Caravaggio's depiction of Thomas; putting his finger in Christ's wound to confirm his reality. The work is intended to convince the viewer too - Thomas' other hand reaches out of the canvas, inviting you to touch Christ's wound by proxy. The pairing of works does provide interesting links to think about or discuss, although the doubt of Christ and doubt of a historical christian are different.

The rest of the exhibition is simillar; thematic links are thoughtfully presented by the curators. It's jarring to look at the old works next to the new though. I found myself comparing them rather than looking at works in their own formal contexts. I thought that the show's themes could have been better explored by being more focused, and using fewer artists.

I spoke to Hannah L. Fuller, one of the curators. She said they had questioned their position in devising the show, given that none of them are 'religious', although one of the team reported a 'religious re-awakening' following the project. I asked the reason for their subject choice. She said that it had emerged partly from their surprise at the number of contemporary works in the Arts Council collection with religious content or overtones.

Thanks to the MA students for their work curating the show.

Links:
Blood Tears Faith Doubt info - Courtauld Institute
The Sacred Made Real review (p.5-7) - Jenny Evans

Symbols

Click to enlarge the photos

St. George's Cross / England world cup squad / Sky TV

Kasabian's lead singer advertising the English away football shirt.

Its odd that every time I see the St. George's cross, I see it as a 'Christian cross'. England used to be officially Christian, but now the red cross is a symbol of us - the English. But I still see it as a symbol of Christ, which is weird on adverts and taxi's and thugs. 

Obviously symbols change meanings - my little sister was wearing rosary beads for a while because the person who had given them to her got them from a prison chaplain. She thought wearing them made her look rough and glamourous. When my mum told her they were prayer beads she didn't believe her.

I recently met a 22 year old Iraqi living in Manchester. He was a really nice guy. His family, which moved to the UK 2 years ago, is unusually Christian. He told me that after the war began in Iraq life became much more difficult for Christians there. Churches started burning down. He said this was partly to do with the end of Saddham Hussein, who as a relatively secular, nominal Muslim, was more liberal with minority faith groups. It was also because the western invasion of Iraq was seen as a 'Christian war'.

Incursions in the Knowledge Capital

This image is from the exhibition 'Incursions in the Knowledge Capital' by Ultimate Holding Company. The phrase 'they might have it more abundantly' was a faded inscription which was re-guilded by the UHC Collective. The show was billed as re vitalising a derelict space. It's interesting that they refurbished the lettering selectively. The original, as in the old King James translation:

The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

refers to Christ as the only way. The phrase now suggests the all-consuming way of consumerism. Or maybe a question: 'they might have it more abundantly but..'. Churches are used for exhibitions all the time, usually with a lot of badly thought out references within the shows. The use of the Chapel here seems to make sense. The other works refer to the workings of a city system driven by economics. The Chapel appears as a relic which doesn't fit into that system any more; the perfect site for a critical appraisal of it.

www.uhc.org.uk

King & Queen Sub-Creators

These are my notes from Jerram Barrs' talk on 'Christianity and the Arts'
(audio available via theologynetwork.org)

He says that the closer you look at God's creation (i.e through a microscope), you just see new layers of beauty and perfection, compared to imperfection in what we have created. He gives the example of polished steel (up close it would have flaws). He notes that we (Christians) are forbidden to be ascetics - to deny the value of creation. The value of creation is one reason that being an artist is valuable, and not less spiritual than another vocation. The mentality that art is an extra add on to serious work like evangelism is a heresy[?!].

''For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer''

'' And God saw that it was good''

So we must appreciate creation [although obviously this may not require art or artists]. We are called to be 'sub creators'. Psalm 8 - to be human is more glorious than anything else in creation. Revelation 21:24 - Kings will take glory (and cultures?) into heaven?

As we cannot create, all we can do is play with what god has given us [everything is play?]. 'Art needs no more justification than food or sex' - Rookmaaker. [Does this apply to institutional contemporary art?].

We are kings and Queens of earth, under God. We know we live in a broken world, and our calling as artists is to work against the fall, and to resist it. The (Christian) farmer makes food to feed people (rather than just to make money); this is their way of dealing with the fall.