Cross Purposes

The Cross Purposes exhibition at Mascalls Gallery in Kent and then in June at Ben Uri examines how and why artists of different religions, or of none, use the crucifixion as a central motif in modern and contemporary practice.

Only five miles away from Mascalls Gallery is one of the UK’s finest examples of religious art and a moving example of the crucifixion as a 'conduit' for a very personal tragedy. The church in Tudeley is renowned internationally as the only church to have all its windows decorated by Marc Chagall which fulfilled a long term ambition of the artist. The windows were commissioned by the family of Sarah d'Avigdor-Goldsmid as a commemoration of her tragic and untimely death. Chagall’s drawings for Tudeley Church are being seen for the first time in Britain at Mascalls Gallery courtesy of Centre Pompidou. Chagall’s previously unpublished and haunting ‘Apocalypse en Lilas, Capriccio’, will also be shown at both Mascalls and Ben Uri.

The 20th century has seen some of the most important and interesting depictions of the crucifixion interestingly in a time when the church’s influence waned measurably. One of the best known religious artists of our time was Graham Sutherland. Images from the concentration camps proved to be a catalyst for some of the most powerful depictions of the crucifixion. This exhibition shows a bloody and haggard Christ whose body bears witness to the “continuing beastliness and cruelty of mankind.”

The two world wars are represented in a number of works within the exhibition as artists look towards one of the few symbols that could contain the potency of their emotions. The 20 artists represented in the exhibition create narratives both of the artistic traditions of the time from Eric Gill to Maggie Hambling, Norman Adams and Tracey Emin and by doing so navigate a way through the major events of the century. The works show the crucifixion as both a symbol of shock and also as an object of contemplation: from the hollowed out scarecrow figure of Christ on the battlefield of Europe by Scottish artist R Hamilton Blyth to a rarely seen, life-size drawing of Duncan Grant’s crucifixion for Berwick Church in East Sussex.

The exhibition is curated by Nathaniel Hepburn. 5 March to 29 May 2010 at Mascalls Gallery, Maidstone Road, Paddock Wood, Kent. 15 June to 19 September at Ben Uri Gallery, The London Jewish Museum of Art. Other related exhibitions include: Easter Images: Maggi Hambling & Craigie Aitchison, 27 March - 6 April, The Kentish Barn, International Study Centre, Canterbury Cathedral; 1st April to 29th May, Norman Adams RA: Spirit in the Garden at Marle Place Gardens and Gallery; Susan Shaw - Dispersal, 5 March - 25 May, St Thomas a Becket, Capel, Tonbridge, Kent, TN12 6SX; Santiago Bell: Chilean woodcarver in exile, 5 March - 29 May, St Andrews Paddock Wood; From the Darkness ... light in contemporary art at St Peter's Church, Preston Park, Brighton, 1 May – 23 May.

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Sam Phillips - Where the Colours Don't Go.