Humour and critique (2)

In October 2006 I had a review of the exhibition Humour et Critique dans l’art d’aujourd’hui published in Art and Christianity. The review initiated correspondence with the exhibition organiser, Rémy Le Guillerm, himself an artist with work represented in the exhibition I reviewed. In the course of this correspondence we exchanged thoughts on the place of religion in contemporary art and images and writings of our artwork. This series of posts documents our correspondence.

Rémy wrote: “Thank you for the dispatch of your very interesting magazine devoting subtle columns to interconnections and reports of art and Christianity.

I really appreciated the relevance and style of your article regarding the exhibition of St Jean de Monts, you understood to a great extent the direction of our work, of our choices, the political, social and spiritual content about which we wanted to testify to the popular and family public of the region and beyond.

However, I am not in agreement with your conclusion and the assumption that we can eliminate the positive (this is not possible) because it cannot be stripped from history and facts, the trajectory of civilizations. On the contrary we enlarge the debate by asking questions of the reality of creeds and this means that men (with the aid of the gods) can project, influence or modify their destiny. This exhibition contained as much of positives as of negative and in that was definitely the reflection of the actual reality of our societies.

Be blessed in your creed and protected for your action and this media quest!

I replied: “Thank you very much for your letter in reply to my review of Humour and Critique.

I am grateful for the point which you make in your letter of the necessity for criticism and questioning of religions and I accept absolutely the importance of such questioning happening. In my review I did not try to suggest that religions should be free from criticism (far from it!) but I tried to suggest that some criticisms which are made through the Arts are rather shallow and superficial.

In certain cases this can be because certain artists only see negatives in religion and do not make any attempt to focus on the positives. This tendency can more be pronounced in conceptual art where works of art can often be created simply to illustrate a concept that once grasped has no deeper resonance. My view was that some works in the exhibition fell into this trap and that their impact was diminished as a result. Other works, including your own Nus, I thought had real depth and resonance, both in ideas and execution.

I have no intention of asking that debate on religion concentrate only on positives but, at the same time, I want to call for debate to be appropriately nuanced and, for that happen, those that criticize or question religion should also acknowledge the positive aspects of religion, as demonstrated by many followers of different religions.

I hope that this clarifies my position and responds expressly to the points made in your letter.”

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Mark Heard - Lonely Moon.