Christopher Clack: Not Exist

I recently penned some thoughts for a friend on some of the issues and ideas that I think the 'Not Exist' series by Christopher Clack opens up. Chris' work constantly raises questions for Christians and non-Christians alike. It is deliberately provocative but the surface impression is rarely what is at the heart of the work.

 

In 'Not Exist', therefore, I would suggest that he is not making the simple statement that there is no God. In part, I think he may be seeking to explore our reactions and responses to the statements on the billboards i.e. that the meaning of the work emerges in the response that we make to them. It is interesting too that that the people depicted in the images pay no attention to the billboards. In a society where apathy reigns, it may be that atheistic propoganda (such as the atheist bus ads), like that of Christian organisations, actually provokes little or no response from the general populace. Or maybe our eyes glaze over when we view most advertising. Like words going in one ear and out the other, we are maybe so used to advertising that much of it simply doesn't penetrate our consciousness.

 

On another level, though, Chris is interested in negative theology; the tradition of theology which says that whatever we think we know of God it cannot ever adequately express what God is and is like. Negative theology argues that we come to know God most fully by moving beyond all human descriptions, images or conceptions of God. Therefore, Chris' billboards could also be a call to experience God by putting to death all that we think God is or all that we think we know of God.

 

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Lou Reed - Dimestore Mystery.