Controversy and conversation: Churches and art

Here's the talk I gave at last night's Unveiled event in St Andrew's Wickford:

St Andrew’s has a hidden painting – ‘The Descent from the Cross’ by David Folley – which illustrates some of the issues involved in showing modern art in churches. In this talk I want us to look at Folley’s painting and other controversial art commissioned for churches to see the ways in which they open up conversations about faith for those who wouldn’t ordinarily come to church or consider faith.

David Folley is an English painter based in Plymouth. He paints subjects that range from abstracts, landscapes, seascapes, portraits, and race horses, including a life size painting of the famous British racehorse Frankel. He has completed portrait commissions for Trinity College, Cambridge, and University College Plymouth and has had major commissions from Plymouth City Council and Endemol UK (a production company for Channel 4). He describes himself as “a twenty-first century romantic with a belief in the spiritual and redemptive possibilities of art.” Exploring the spiritual and redemptive possibilities of art is the foundation of his “romantic associations with the aesthetic tradition of Northern Romantic painting.”

Revd Raymond Chudley, a former Team Vicar at St Andrew’s, knew Folley and had supported him in his artistic career. As an act of gratitude, Folley made this painting as a gift for Chudley when he got married, around the time he retired from parish ministry. The painting was too large for Chudley’s home, so was gifted to St Andrew’s and was dedicated by the Bishop of Bradwell in 1996.

Folley’s friend Alan Thompson has described the work well. Thompson writes: “David Folley has painted The Descent from the Cross, the melancholy depth of hopelessness, in a major work of heroic proportions. It is a large canvas painted traditionally to inspire the viewer to contemplate all that had culminated in what seemed at the time to be the final act of a tragedy. The viewer cannot share the utter despair of the participants in the painting because he or she knows what they didn't - that the body will be resurrected.

The way David has painted the body expresses the physical suffering Christ endured, whilst the dripping blood from the wound the soldier inflicted on Him, is shown as a rainbow. The explanation of this is that God told Noah that the rainbow was the sign of the new covenant with the earth. This is just one of many examples of Christian iconography illustrated in this work.

Mary, looking up at her son, is depicted as a modern provincial character in the manner we have associated with Stanley Spencer. Behind Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, with a moustache, is painted in blue to denote spiritual love, constancy, truth and fidelity.

At the extreme right hand side of the picture, the Revd. Raymond Chudley, who commissioned the painting, is shown in the traditional fifteenth century role of the donor, kneeling in prayer, with his attention fixed upon the body of Christ.

Facing him is the artist. He has included himself, portrayed as holding a broken spear as if to suggest that he had been responsible for the wound in the side of Christ. He is balancing precariously on a skull, a memento mori, signifying the transitory nature of life and also reading across to Calvary, which is derived from Golgotha, which is Hebrew for skull. He is also 'pregnant' with a foetus, which the artist sees as humanity giving birth to the Christ within, and transforming themselves into Sons of God rather than sons of man.

From the bottom of the painting is an outstretched arm, which just fails to touch Christ's hand, because the hand is withdrawn. This is intended to signify man's desire, through science, to explain the laws of the universe and so become almighty. He is almost there but cannot touch. There is a visual tension between God and man.”

Folley says, “I sum up this painting as being made up of a composite of the works of great masters of the past. Not copying them slavishly but developing my own concept of individualism with emphasis on vivid imagery, technical refinement, complex iconography and innovation.” Among the artists referenced are: El Greco, Grunewald, and Donatello.

The painting disturbs some through a mix of its expressionist style, its strong colouration, and its unusual symbolism. As it dominates the space in the church where children’s activities have often taken place it was eventually decided to cover it with a large curtain and banner.

Such a response to contemporary art in churches is not unusual. During my sabbatical I visited churches linked to three significant controversies over the commissioning of modern art: 

(i) a set of Stations of the Cross and an altarpiece, The Death of St Teresa, commissioned from the Flemish artist Albert Servaes for the church of the Discalced Carmelites in Luithagen, a suburb of Antwerp. This led, in 1921, to a decree from the Holy Office based on Canon 1399.12, which states that images may not be ‘unusual’, resulting in first the Stations and then the altarpiece being removed from the chapel; 

(ii) the rationalist design for Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil in the Swiss Alps by architect Alberto Sartoris (who had strong links to the Futurists) created a scandal in the Swiss press in 1931, the same year that the publication of a 'Manifesto of Futurist Sacred Art' led to a censure from Pope Pius XI in a speech at the inauguration of a new Vatican Art Gallery and; 

(iii) Germaine Richier’s Crucifix was removed from Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce at Assy and a subsequent instruction on sacred art issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office in 1952, which was the beginning of two year initiative by the Vatican that severely constrained the modernizing programme of the French Dominicans and represented a victory for the traditionalists within the Church.

Many church commissions are controversial because they introduce something different and therefore dissonant into a familiar building, as is the case with David Folley’s painting. That was the case with modern images of the crucifixion by Servaes and Richier and, in the UK, Graham Sutherland at St Matthew’s Northampton and St Aidan’s East Acton. These viewed Christ’s sacrifice as emblematic of human suffering in conflict and persecution. They were controversial as they challenged sentimental images of Christ and deliberately introduced ugliness into beautiful buildings. On my sabbatical I spoke to parishioners in both Northampton and East Acton who stated that they did not like Sutherland’s Crucifixions but who also appreciated why the paintings were as they were and the challenge that they provided as a result.

I was particularly moved to find, on entering Saint Martin’s Kerk in Latem in Belgium, that the baptistery contains a Passion charcoal by Albert Servaes. Servaes and Richier were both affected by decrees from the holy office which led to the removal of their artworks from the churches for which they had been commissioned. Servaes, with his Stations of the Cross and altarpiece for the Carmelite Chapel in Luithagen and Richier, with her crucifix for the church at Assy. Given all that Servaes experienced in the controversy over the Luithagen Stations, including the removal of work which was a genuine expression of his faith by the Church of which he was part, I found it profoundly moving that a work of his, in the same vein as the Luithagen Stations, should be displayed in the church and area where his faith and art first fused. Richier’s crucifix was later returned to its place in the sanctuary at Assy and the church, like many other churches in France with modern art commissions, is now classed by the Government as a national monument and has become a significant tourist location.

It seems, therefore, that scandals of modern art, whether the reception of the works themselves or that of their challenging content, are, with time, resolved as congregations live with the works and learn to value the challenge of what initially seems to be scandalous.

My main personal experience of this kind of situation was when a sculpture by the Street artist Ryan Callanan was moved ahead of a Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook. Complaints from several parishioners at the church prompted, after considerable discussion, the rehanging of the exhibition although initially it had seemed as their complaints would result in the work being removed from the exhibition. That possibility attracted press interest which then calmed down after the work was moved to a different position in the church. Controversy of this sort and attempts to ban, remove or censor artworks thought to be in some way blasphemous or challenging, are, as we have seen, part of the story of faith and art in the modern period.

Let’s think for a moment about the reasons why displaying a crucified stormtrooper in a City church might stimulate those viewing it to think about Christ afresh. In the Star Wars films, stormtroopers are the main ground force of the Galactic Empire, under the leadership of Emperor Palpatine and his commanders, most notably Darth Vader. They are on the dark side in that conflict. That the artist Ryan Callanan chose to create a ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ provides Christians and others with the possibility of experiencing something of the sense of scandal that Christ’s crucifixion originally generated.

The imagery of the dark side in the Star Wars films can be seen in this context as equating to the Christian belief that we are all sinners. If we use the imagery opened up for us by ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ then we are forced to reflect, much as we dislike the thought, that we are all on the dark side. We are all stormtroopers.

The amazing message of love at the heart of Christianity is that God does something about that situation. God becomes one of us in Christ. He becomes a stormtrooper in order that, through his death, he can take the darkness onto himself and enable us to live in the light. That is the original heartbeat of Christianity, which continues to radically change people's lives on a daily basis around the world when they genuinely acknowledge their own sinfulness. The scandal - the stumbling block - that is the cross, was brought home to us afresh by including this artwork in this exhibition; particularly to any who view their own assets as the basis for their own self-esteem. To show this work in a church enabled that reflection on Christ's love to be seen and shared in a new way and that is why it worthwhile for the Church to show art, especially controversial art, and to explore the questions that it opens up to us.

In the context of the Private View, I was able to talk to people, for whom churchgoing is not necessarily a regular feature of their lives, about the art in relation to the love of Christ. That is both a great privilege and opportunity. Many of those who saw the exhibition described it as 'striking', 'intriguing', 'uplifting' and 'interesting.' It was commended as an extraordinarily broad-minded, human and thought-provoking exhibition in an extraordinary place with others asking that the church reach out to current artists more often. As a result of the controversy, the curator of the exhibition wrote publicly about his own faith.

Additionally, the conversations generated by the exhibition have an ongoing life online at a website documenting Art Below’s Stations of the Cross exhibitions: https://stationsofthecross.co.uk/blog/how-does-a-crucified-stormtrooper-glorify-god and https://stationsofthecross.co.uk/blog/controversial-art-protest-or-engagement.

The reactions from some within the Church to Art Below’s Stations of the Cross exhibitions suggest that we still need to learn that it is far better to engage with art and artists by discussing and debating the questions they raise, instead of seeking to suppress or censor. One example of this being done effectively would the many Da Vinci Code events, bible studies, websites etc. that the Church used to counter the claims made in The Da Vinci Code featured reasoned arguments based on a real understanding of the issues raised which made use of genuine historical findings and opinion to counter those claims. The Church, it seems, still needs to learn that the way to counter criticism is not to try to ban or censor it but to engage with it, understand it and accurately counter it. In other words, to enter into conversation with art and to generate conversations about faith with those who come to visit to see art.

That is what we are seeking to do here with David Folley’s ‘Descent from the Cross’; to make the painting itself and the story of how it came to be hidden talking points that encourage people to explore the ways in which the painting engages with Christ’s Passion and our understandings of it. To put those things in dialogue and encourage people to visit in order to engage in that conversation; a conversation about Christ and the nature of atonement.

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 Bob Dylan - Sign on the Cross.

The Centurian and Stormtrooper Crucifixion

The latest Visual Meditation for ArtWay is by Tim Harrold on his own piece entitled The Centurian:

'The Centurion is in part a response to Stormtrooper Crucifixion by Ryan Callahan, which was part of the Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook in London in March 2018. This controversial artwork gained much publicity. The Centurion would not have been made were it not for the discovery of a toy Stormtrooper among the collected junk in my studio. So when it was found, I began to think about making a piece that offered an alternative to Stormtrooper Crucifixion.

The Centurion is an assemblage using a mixture of found objects, paint, and printed and handwritten material. It sits in an old drawer from a German chest of drawers ...

The Centurion depicts an icon of contemporary pop culture – a Stormtrooper character from the Star Wars movie franchise – playing the part of the centurion at the crucifixion of Jesus. The casting of the toy Stormtrooper as the centurion seems only natural. Both represent oppression and empire. Both represent regimentation and tyranny. Both represent control by fear. The hand coming through the door is Christ’s. Jesus said, “I am the door.” Here he is reaching into the centurion’s life through his death and resurrection, through his sacrificial blood and healing wounds, through the portal between the dimensions of heaven and earth.'

In the wake of the ill-informed controversy regarding the exhibition of Stormtrooper Crucifixion, I wrote a piece setting out some of the reasons why such a piece should be exhibited in a church - https://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2018/03/how-does-crucified-stormtrooper-glorify.html. Tim Harold's The Centurian and his  ArtWayVisual Meditation demonstrate the value of conversation rather than censorship in regard to controversial works.

More of Tim Harrold's work and writings can be viewed on the ArtWay site. See Looking for clues: the cryptic, the puzzling and the parabolic in the search for meaning and John Espin & Tim Harrold: The Doors of Perception. My review of Tim Harrold's The Perceptualist Eye exhibition at the Wellhouse Gallery can be found here.

The next exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook is Exiles, a body of work by London based Italian photographer Matilde Damele from 17th to 24th September 2019. Taken on the streets of London with her Leica camera, Damele’s black and white photographs evoke and pay homage to great Masters of Photography such as Henri CartierBresson, Diane Arbus and Saul Leiter. For this exhibition, the artist has enlarged and transferred a number of her images onto the challenging surface of the black plastic bin bag. The uneven surface of these art works emphasises the individuality as well as the ephemerality of each of our lives. She will display these as sculptural art works within the circular space of the church, filled with yesterday’s news and discarded packaging, to express how many consider their lives to be cheap, valueless and disposable.

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here. My writings for ArtWay can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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The Call - Scene Beyond Dreams.

How does a crucified stormtrooper glorify God?

The blogger Archbishop Cranmer asks the question, ‘How does a crucified stormtrooper glorify God?’ As I see value in exhibiting Ryan Callanan’s ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ in a church, when he does not, he goes on to assume and assert that I cannot have pondered the question of what this artwork is actually saying about God’s unique sacrifice and the ultimate source of salvation.

The cross was originally a scandal and a stumbling block within the societies to which the Early Church took the Gospel. The Apostles asked their contemporaries to follow a man who had been given a death reserved for the lowest of the low, who had died among thieves, and who was cursed, as was the case, according to the Law of Moses, for anyone who died on a tree.

Christ’s crucifixion is one of the great subjects of Western Art and yet, for the reasons we are been considering, there are very few early crucifixion images as the Early Christians went out of their way to not depict it. We Christians, by contrast, have become so used to speaking about crucifixion that we tend to miss its horror. Instead we have beautiful crosses on or in our churches, in the lapels of our coats, hung around our necks and embossed on our Bibles.

Not only have we tamed the horror of crucifixion in our thinking but we have also tamed the true scandal of the cross; that we are all sinners and that the sinless Christ became sin himself on the cross in order to save us from our sin. In such a context, how do we recapture or represent the true scandal of the cross?

I suggest that one way is to display a crucified stormtrooper in a City church. To do so generates accusations of blasphemy from those who don’t understand that the sinless Christ had to take sin onto himself in order to save us and also the accusation of tackiness from those who seem to think that the beauty of our worship and architecture is what saves us.

In the Star Wars films, stormtroopers are the main ground force of the Galactic Empire, under the leadership of Emperor Palpatine and his commanders, most notably Darth Vader. They are on the dark side in that conflict. That the artist Ryan Callanan chose to create a ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ provides Christians and others with the possibility of experiencing something of the sense of scandal that Christ’s crucifixion originally generated.

The imagery of the dark side in the Star Wars films can be seen in this context as equating to the Christian belief that we are all sinners. If we use the imagery opened up for us by ‘Crucified Stormtrooper,’ then we are forced to reflect, much as we dislike the thought, that we are all on the dark side. We are all stormtroopers.

The amazing message of love at the heart of Christianity is that God does something about that situation. God becomes one of us in Christ. He becomes a stormtrooper in order that, through his death, he can take the darkness onto himself and enable us to live in the light. That is the original heartbeat of Christianity, which continues to radically change people's lives on a daily basis around the world when they genuinely acknowledge their own sinfulness. The scandal - the stumbling block - that is the cross, is brought to home to us afresh by including this artwork in this exhibition; particularly to any who view their own assets as the basis for their own self-esteem.

My reflection on the ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ is unlikely to be what the artist intended when he made the piece. The concept of cross referencing is important in Callanan’s work, taking one item out of its context and splicing it with another to create something that feels familiar but whose meaning is subtly shifted, so he was probably primarily interested in juxtaposing incongruous images. But once he had put the stormtrooper on a cross, he made that reflection possible.

For us to show this work in a church enables that reflection on Christ's love to be seen and shared in a new way and that is why it worthwhile for the Church to show art, especially controversial art, and to explore the questions that it opens up to us. I am interested in putting art exhibitions into churches because I recognise that artists, in their work, are seeking to explore the big philosophical questions in life. Questions like, who am I, where am I, why am I here and is there a God? The Church is also exploring those same questions and, therefore, there is potential for real connection between the Church, artists and those viewing the art in exploring those questions together. We won't all come to the same conclusions or even to any conclusions but exploring the questions and living the questions is a profoundly spiritual thing to do.

Those who have come to the exhibitions I have organised, and many do, generally respond reflectively and with appreciation. Ben Moore, the curator of this exhibition, said that its well-attended Private View was a great success with an atmosphere that had a good warmth and glow about it. In that context, I was able to talk to people, for whom churchgoing is not necessarily a regular feature of their lives, about the art in relation to the love of Christ. That is both a great privilege and opportunity. Ben himself has, as a result of the controversy, written publicly about his faith. He equates the image to the storyline in Star Wars 'The Force Awakens' (2015) where we see ‘a stormtrooper escape from the dark side to come and support the rebellion’ and therefore views 'crucified stormtrooper' as playing into the notion of forgiveness.

In addition, many Christians see no issue with the image. One, who wrote to me, is a collector of Callanan’s work, and stated clearly that it is not offensive. A parishioner, who is thankful that the piece wasn’t removed from the exhibition, has written of how the exhibition has informed his Lenten reading:

‘Like each work on display, individually both ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ and ‘Dying Slave’ are beautiful and thought provoking. Placed together, they seem to take on an extra dimension - creating a dialogue about our own mortality and relationship with body image - and the extent to which our minds and bodies are a legible witness to our faith. These themes are explored in Chapter 5 of Ben Quash’s Book ‘Abiding’: Wounds that Abide. The reaction of my anonymous friend at church and the subsequent act of moving the Crucified Stormtrooper has meant that all of us, as parishioners and visitors to the exhibition, are bound up in this dialogue.’

I give thanks to God for these and other responses. I think it better by far to engage with these images and discuss the questions they raise, instead of seeking to suppress or censor. I think it important to build relationships with those who are outside the Church but nevertheless grappling with their response to the challenge and scandal of Christ's cross. I think that all these are in play as part of this exhibition and that that is genuinely glorifying to God.

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The Call - I Still Believe.

Art Below: Stations of the Cross

Art Below is a London based public art enterprise, founded in 2006 by brothers Ben and Simon Moore. Their raison d'être is the use of billboard space in underground stations to display artworks in London and overseas. Their mission is to enrich the everyday life of the traveling public by giving fresh insight into the very latest in contemporary art whilst at the same time providing a platform for emerging and established talent.

It has become an annual feature of Art Below that every year in the run up to Easter they feature ‘Stations of the Cross’ in some form or another. This year they are exhibiting at St Stephen Walbrook from 16th – 23rd March with a show that features crucifixion themed work by 14 artists including Francis Bacon, Paul Benney, Ricardo Cinalli, Sebastian Horsley and Ben Eine.

Last year Art Below showcased crucifixion themed works by Francis Bacon on billboard space at Green Park and St Pauls tube station. Bacon often referenced the crucifixion in his art to embody life’s horror as he could not find a subject as valid to embrace all the nuances of human feelings and behaviours. In 2015 ‘Stations of the Cross’ at St Marylebone Parish Church included a life-size body cast of Pete Doherty nailed to a cross entitled ‘For Pete’s Sake’ which attracted media attention worldwide. Their first Stations of the Cross exhibition also took place at St Marylebone Parish Church and on billboard space across the London Underground. This show included work by artists Antony Micallef, Mat Collishaw, Polly Morgan, Paul Fryer and Bran Symondson.

All the 'Stations of the Cross' exhibitions have raised funds for The Missing Tom Fund. The exhibitions’ curator and participating artist Ben Moore, with the support of his family and the Missing People Charity, set up the Missing Tom Fund in 2013 to raise money for the search for his older brother Tom (b.1971) who has been missing since 2003 (www.missingtom.com). Ben Moore says: “Tom was very interested in religion and, as such, Stations of the Cross seems a natural fit for us. We hope that the project will offer further help in continuing our search for Tom.”

This year’s exhibition could almost be seen as a review of the series so far, featuring, as it does, many of the artists that have exhibited in previous years including Francis Bacon, Paul Benney, Ricardo Cinalli, Chris Clack, Sebastian Horsley, M C Llamas, Ben Moore and James Vaulkhard.

Paul Benney has become known for his depictions of stygian themes and dark nights of the soul. Rachel Campbell Johnston writes that his figures ‘some sense of our spiritual quest.’ This is because he ‘shows us our lives as they balance on that fragile boundary between the perfectly ordinary and the profoundly otherworldly,’ seeking ‘to capture that mystery which redeems us from the mundane.’ Joseph Clarke says that Benney’s work ‘could be seen to continue the strong tradition of ‘British Mysticism’ championed by the likes of Samuel Palmer and William Blake.’ Benny is contributing ‘Dying Slave: 13th Station’ to this exhibition. This image shows a cruciform figure above a whirlpool. Christ walked on water in his ministry but, figuratively, was sucked under the waters in death. For Christians, baptism (going under the waters and emerging) is a symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection. In this piece, Benney can be understood as showing us the beginning of this redemptive process.

Sebastian Horsley contributes a film still of a performance from 2000, when he was nailed to a cross in the Filipino village of San Pedro Cutud in order to gain an insight into crucifixion for a series of paintings on the subject. In doing so, he passed out with pain and then fell from the cross, taking the nails with him when the straps holding his arms broke. But far from being euphoric or enlightened by the experience, he was dejected and wrote in his diary that God had punished him and had thrown him off the cross 'for impersonating his son'.

Argentinian artist Ricardo Cinalli, who lives in Spitalfields, creates spirited and passionate paintings that are baroque in their emotionalism and surrealist in their imaginative extravagance. Over a career spanning more than thirty years, he has become internationally renowned for his works on canvas and his huge pastel drawings created using a unique method of pastel and layers of tissue paper. In 2007, he was commissioned by Bishop Paglia and Fr. Fabio Leonardis to create a fresco in the Cathedral church of the Diocese of Terni-Narni-Amelia.

Each year, particular images, such as Anthony Micallef’s ‘Kill Your Idol’ and Nick Reynolds and Schoony ‘For Pete’s Sake’ have attracted significant media attention and generated debate about how the Church can explore the contemporary significance of Christ where people are at and in a language they can understand. This year, Ryan Callanan's ‘Stormtrooper Crucifixion’ may be viewed as being among the more controversial images shown in the exhibition.

Callanan (also known as RYCA) is a modern Pop Artist. Important to all Callanan’s work to date is the concept of the cross reference: taking one item out of its context and splicing it with another to create something that feels familiar but whose meaning is subtly shifted.This image raises similar questions to those which CS Lewis raised in his science fiction trilogy i.e. that, were other races to exist on other planets, would Christ be incarnated among those races in order to die for their salvation? Lewis’ view, which he sets out in the story running through the trilogy, is that Christ would do so. For Christians, Callanan's image can lead to a similar conclusion.

Chris Clack’s ‘Descent with Gerbera’ raises similar questions as it depicts the descent from the cross as set on the moon. As with Callanan, such juxtapositions are Christopher Clack’s stock-in-trade. Tyrannasaurus rex and crucifix, cemetery and prism, head formed by the moon, pieta with astronaut - these are just some of the disparate images brought together in his work. Such juxtapositions position us at a point of paradox, a liminal place where there are more questions than answers. In this work science and religion are juxtaposed, but are they opposed or reconciled within the image? Yuri Gagarin famously flew into space, but, in the words of Nikita Khrushchev, “he didn't see any god there." Buzz Aldrin, by contrast, consumed the Holy Sacrament while on the surface of the moon. Who was right and who was wrong? Was Christ to be found on the moon and in what form? As we have reflected, similar questions were posed by C. S. Lewis in his sci-fi trilogy where the Fall was re-imagined and re-enacted on another planet.

Clack has said, “The 'Religious' is found in the least expected places.” What would be the impact, I wonder, were we more frequently to take religious images out of their religious context, as Clack has done, and trust them to raise their questions and reveal their meanings in other landscapes, cultures and worlds?

In their ‘Stations of the Cross’ exhibitions, Art Below show images designed to provoke thought from artists grappling with their response to the challenge and scandal of Christ's cross. For Christians, these images can be commended as images that can open ideas and minds to new reflections on the eternal significance of Christ's sacrifice.

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Arvo Pärt - St. John Passion.

Art Below: Stations of the Cross – Private View

 

A well-attended Private View last night saw lots of interest and engagement with the artworks featured in Art Below's Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook. In the course of the evening I said the following:

I am interested in putting art exhibitions into churches because I recognise that artists, in their work, are seeking to explore the big philosophical questions in life. Questions like, who am I, where am I, why am I here and is there a God? The Church is also exploring those same questions and, therefore, there is potential for real connection between the Church, artists and those viewing the art in exploring those questions. We won't all come to the same conclusions or even to any conclusions but exploring the questions and living the questions is a profoundly spiritual thing to do.

This exhibition has, as you will be aware, attracted criticism primarily focused on Ryan Callanan’s ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’. To bring an artwork like the Stormtrooper Crucifixion into a church enables us to see key aspects of the Christian faith in new ways because it challenges the traditional ways in which we picture Christ. Stormtroopers are on the dark side and that perception equates to the Christian belief that we are all sinners.

If we use the imagery opened up for us by the Stormtrooper Crucifixion, then we can reflect that we are all on the dark side. We are all stormtroopers. The amazing message of love at the heart of Christianity is that God does something about that situation. God becomes one of us in Christ. He becomes a stormtrooper in order that, through his death, he can take the darkness onto himself and enable us to live in the light. That is the heartbeat of Christianity, which is changing people's lives on a daily basis around the world and it is brought to us in a new way by including this artwork in this exhibition.

My reflection on the ‘Crucified Stormtrooper’ is unlikely to be what the artist intended when he made the piece. The concept of cross referencing is important in Callanan’s work, taking one item out of its context and splicing it with another to create something that feels familiar but whose meaning is subtly shifted, so he was probably primarily interested in juxtaposing incongruous images. But once he had put the stormtrooper on a cross, he made that reflection possible.

For us to show this work in a church enables that reflection on Christ's love to be seen and shared in a new way and that is why it worthwhile for the Church to show art, especially controversial art, and to explore the questions that it opens up to us all. To be quite frank, I would not be standing here talking to you about the love of God, if we were not showing this artwork in this church. If, as a Church, we don't engage with the world around us and the artists in it, then we have no future.

Callanan’s image can also get us wondering, as C.S. Lewis also did in his science fiction trilogy, whether, were other races to exist on other planets, Christ would be incarnated among those races in order to die for their salvation. Lewis’ view, which he sets out in the story running through the trilogy, is that Christ would do so. For Christians, Callanan's image can lead to a similar conclusion. Chris Clack’s ‘Descent with Gerbera’, as it depicts the descent from the cross as set on the moon, raises similar questions.

There isn’t time to talk about all the images in the exhibition, so I just wish to mention one more. Joseph Clarke has said of Paul Benney’s work that it ‘could be seen to continue the strong tradition of ‘British Mysticism’ championed by the likes of Samuel Palmer and William Blake.’ This is because he ‘shows us our lives as they balance on that fragile boundary between the perfectly ordinary and the profoundly otherworldly,’ seeking ‘to capture that mystery which redeems us from the mundane.’ In ‘Dying Slave’ we see a cruciform figure above a whirlpool. Christ walked on water in his ministry but, figuratively, was sucked under the waters in death. For Christians, baptism (going under the waters and emerging) is a symbol of Christ’s death and resurrection. In this piece, Benney can be understood as showing us the beginning of this redemptive process.

Chris Clack has said, “The 'Religious' is found in the least expected places.” What would be the impact, I wonder, were we more frequently, as has been done in this exhibition, take religious images out of their religious context and trust them to raise their questions and reveal their meanings in other landscapes, cultures and worlds?

This exhibition has been brought to St Stephen Walbrook by Art Below and Ben Moore in support of the Missing Tom Fund which raises money for the search for Ben’s older brother Tom who has been missing since 2003. I am pleased that this church can be part of that search by hosting this exhibition.

In this exhibition, Ben has gathered together images designed to provoke thought from artists grappling with their response to the challenge and scandal of Christ's cross. For Christians, these images can be commended as images that can open ideas and minds to new reflections on the eternal significance of Christ's sacrifice.

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Maria McKee - Life Is Sweet.

Statement – Art Below: Stations of the Cross

Art Below's Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Stephen Walbrook has generated considerable media coverage. At today's press call, I shared the following statement about Ryan Callanan's 'Crucified Stormtrooper':

'I am interested in putting art exhibitions into churches because I recognise that artists, in their work, are seeking to explore the big philosophical questions in life. Questions like, who am I, where am I, why am I here and is there a God? The Church is also exploring those same questions and, therefore, there is potential for real connection between the Church, artists and those viewing the art in exploring those questions. We won't all come to the same conclusions or even to any conclusions but exploring the questions and living the questions is a profoundly spiritual thing to do.

To bring an artwork like 'Crucified Stormtrooper' into a church enables us to see key aspects of the Christian faith in new ways because it challenges the traditional ways in which we picture Christ. Stormtroopers are on the dark side and that perception equates to the Christian belief that we are all sinners. If we use the imagery opened up for us by 'Crucified Stormtrooper', then we can reflect that we are all on the dark side. We are all stormtroopers. The amazing message of love at the heart of Christianity is that God does something about that situation. God becomes one of us in Christ. He becomes a stormtrooper in order that, through his death, he can take the darkness onto himself and enable us to live in the light. That is the heartbeat of Christianity, which is changing people's lives on a daily basis around the world and it is brought to us in a new way by including this artwork in this exhibition.

This reflection is not what the artist intended when he made the piece. He was interested in juxtaposing incongruous images. But once he had put the stormtrooper on a cross, he made that reflection possible. For us to show this work in a church enables that reflection on Christ's love to be seen and shared in a new way and that is why it worthwhile for the Church to show art, especially controversial art, and to explore the questions that it opens up for us all.'

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Star Wars Main Theme.