Seen and Unseen: When converts cracked open the culture’s polished surface

My latest article for Seen and Unseen is 'When converts cracked open the culture’s polished surface' in which I explore how faith’s outsiders disrupted the scene with unexpected force:

'Converts by Melanie McDonagh has been described a ‘thought-provoking examination of the literary stars who became Catholic’ in the twentieth century. Kathryn Hughes, in her review of the book, notes that: ‘In the five decades between 1910 and 1960, more than half a million people in England and Wales became Catholics. Among them were a clutch of literary stars: Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Spark and Graham Greene.’ But there were also a whole host of other poets, artists and public intellectuals who are less-well known to us today, although, perhaps, no less interesting.

The book offers 16 biographical sketches interspersed with analysis of some of the reasons for this phenomenon, including the impact of earlier converts such as John Henry Newman, migration, the influence of prominent Catholic clerics, and the traumas caused by two World Wars. In his review, Dan Hitchens suggests that Converts, ‘in its cheerfully unsentimental way’, demonstrates ‘not only why the floodgates [of conversions] opened for a few decades, but also why the stream has never quite dried up’.'

For more on the period explored by this article see the following:

• There were giants in those days (1)
• There were giants in those days (2)
• There were Giants in those days (3)
• There were giants in those days (4)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (1)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (2)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (3)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (4)
• The Modern & Contemporary Catholic Novel (5)
• The poetry of connection
• Debate: Has Fiction Lost It's Faith?
• Jesus is having a moment in literary fiction
• Endo & Scorsese: Approaching Silence
• Contemporary Fiction and Christianity
• Debate: Has Fiction Lost It's Faith? (2)
• Jack Clemo: The Invading Gospel
• Dealing with faith and with secularism is difficult but necessary now
• The poet’s eloquently passionate struggle at the junction of doubt and devotion
• Christian Arts renaissance: Major or minor?
• T.S. Eliot: Christianity, fragmentation and reconciliation
• Jesus Novels & Films: The Greatest Story Ever Told
• Acts of the Assassins and Jesus Novels
• Czeslaw Milosz, Oscar Milosz and Simone Weil
• Blogs: cryingforavision & Stride magazine
• Tasos Leviaditis: The Blind Man with the Lamp
• Religious concerns in Greek poetry
• Thomas Merton and Latin American poets
• American Catholic poets & writers
• Connections of Sister Corita Kent and Norman Nicholson
• Ernesto Cardenal RIP
• Czeslaw Milosz, Jerzy Andrzejewski, Oskar Milosz, and Aleksander Wat
• Faith, Mystery & Poetry
• Elizabeth Jennings & David Gascoyne: Mystical Experience and the Making of Poems
• Roots of the Catholic Literary Revival
• 5 - Gauguin and Bernard
• 6 - Vincent Van Gogh
• 7 - Maurice Denis
• 8 - Symbolism II
• 9 - Jacques Maritain
• 10 - Albert Gleizes
• 11 - Sérusier, Severini and Gleizes
• Moreau, Rouault and Chagall in Paris
• Cocteau Chapel: Notre Dame de Jerusalem
• Matisse Chapel: Chapelle du Rosaire Vence
• Musée National Marc Chagall
• Notre Dame de France and the murals of Jean Cocteau

See also 'Art and Faith: Decades of Engagement: Introduction, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.

My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.

My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'

My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.

My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.

My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.

My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.

My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.

My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.

My 29th article was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.

My 30th article was entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explored how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love.

My 31st article was entitled 'The late Pope Francis was right – Antoni Gaudi truly was God’s architect' and explored how sanctity can indeed be found amongst scaffolding, as Gaudi’s Barcelona beauties amply demonstrate.

My 32nd article was entitled 'This gallery refresh adds drama to the story of art' and explored how rehanging the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery revives the emotion of great art.

My 33rd article was an interview with Jonathan A. Anderson about the themes of his latest book 'The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art'.

My 34th article was an interview with 'Emily Young: the sculptor listening as the still stones speak'.

My 35th article was a profile of New York's expressionist devotional artist, 'Genesis Tramaine: the painter whose faces catch the spirit'.

My 36th article was a concert review of Natalie Bergman at Union Chapel - a soul-soaked set turned personal tragedy into communal celebration.

My 37th article was based on the exhibition series 'Can We Stop Killing Each Other?' at the Sainsbury Centre. In it I explore how art, theology, and moral imagination confront our oldest instinct.

My 38th article article was 'The dot and the dash: modern art’s quiet search for deeper meaning' in which I argue that Neo-Impressionism meets mysticism in a quietly radical exhibition at the National Gallery.

My 39th article was 'From Klee to Klein, Wenders to Botticelli: angels unveiled' in which I explore how, across war, wonder and nativity, artists show angels bridging earth and heaven.

My 40th article was 'When Henry Moore’s Madonna shocked Northampton' in which I explore how a modernist mother and child stirred outrage, then lasting wonder.

My 41st article was 'Turner and Constable: storms, salvation and the sublime' in which I discussed how Tate Britain reveals how rival visions shaped art and spirit.

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John Gray - Ad Matrem: I

Decadent Catholicism and the postwar Catholic revival

Stephen Schloesser’s Jazz Age Catholicism shows how a postwar generation of Catholics refashioned traditional notions of sacramentalism in modern language and imagery.

Following the Great War’s devastation, innovative movements in France offered competing visions of a revitalized national body and a new world order. One of these was the postwar Catholic revival or renouveau catholique. Since the church had historically been the dominant religious force in France, its turn of the century separation from the state was especially bitter. For many Catholics, the 1914–18 sacrifices made on the Republic’s behalf necessitated its postwar ‘re-Christianization.’ However, in their attempt to reconcile Catholicism with culture, revivalists needed to abandon old oppositions and adapt religion’s rigging to the prevailing winds of modernity.

Stephen Schloesser’s Jazz Age Catholicism shows how a postwar generation of Catholics refashioned traditional notions of sacramentalism in modern language and imagery. Jacques Maritain’s philosophy, Georges Rouault’s visual art, Georges Bernanos’s fiction, and Charles Tournemire’s music all reclothed ancient tropes in new fashions. By the late 1920s, the renouveau catholique had successfully positioned Catholic intellectual and cultural discourse at the very centre of elite French life. Its synthesis of Catholicism and culture would define the religiosity of many throughout Western Europe and the Americas into the 1960s.

Schloesser begins  with a prologue examining the roots of the postwar renouveau in the final decades of the nineteenth century, as Decadents, Symbolists, and others rebelled against the dominant secular positivist ideology of republican France and its artistic counterpart, the realist insistence on vraisemblance and exact, “scientific” depictions of reality.

Romantic writers had found in Christianity a poetic cult of the imagination, an assertion of the spiritual quality of beauty in an age of vulgar materialism. The decadents, a diverse movement of writers, were the climax and exhaustion of this romantic tradition. In their art, they enacted the romance of faith as a protest against the dreariness of modern life. In Decadence and Catholicism, Ellis Hanson teases out two strands--eroticism and aestheticism--that rendered the decadent interest in Catholicism extraordinary. More than any other literary movement, the decadents explored the powerful historical relationship between homoeroticism and Roman Catholicism. Why, throughout history, have so many homosexuals been attracted to Catholic institutions that vociferously condemn homosexuality? This perplexing question is pursued in this elegant and innovative book.

Late-nineteenth-century aesthetes found in the Church a peculiar language that gave them a means of artistic and sexual expression. The brilliant cast of characters that parades through this book includes Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, J.-K. Huysmans, Walter Pater, and Paul Verlaine. Art for these writers was a mystical and erotic experience. In decadent Catholicism we can glimpse the beginnings of a postmodern valorization of perversity and performativity. Catholicism offered both the hysterical symptom and the last hope for paganism amid the dullness of Victorian puritanism and bourgeois materialism.

Martin Lockerd's Decadent Catholicism and the Making of Modernism traces the movement of literary decadence from the writers of the fin de siècle - Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson, and Lionel Johnson - to the modernist writers of the following generation. 

His book charts the legacy of decadent Catholicism in the fiction and poetry of British and Irish modernists. Linking the later writers with their literary predecessors, Lockerd examines the shifts in representation of Catholic decadence in the works of W. B. Yeats through Ezra Pound to T.S. Eliot; the adoption and transformation of anti-Catholicism in Irish writers George Moore and James Joyce; the Catholic literary revival as portrayed in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited; and the attraction to decadent Catholicism still felt by postmodernist writers D.B.C. Pierre and Alan Hollinghurst.

Drawing on new archival research, this study revisits some of the central works of modernist literature and undermines existing myths of modernist newness and secularism to supplant them with a record of spiritual turmoil, metaphysical uncertainty, and a project of cultural subversion that paradoxically relied upon the institutional bulwark of European Christianity. Lockerd explores the aesthetic, sexual, and political implications of the relationship between decadent art and Catholicism as it found a new voice in the works of iconoclastic modernist writers.

See also my post on the 'Roots of the Catholic Literary Revival' and my series on 'Art and faith: Decades of engagement'.

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HolyName - Fall On Your Knees.

Paula Rego: Secrets of Faith

The last exhibition held within the lifetime of Paula Rego, who died yesterday, is Secrets of Faith, an exhibition in Venice organised by Victoria Miro and open until 18 June.

"Completed in 2002, the works on view depict episodes from the life of the Virgin Mary – subjects familiar in Christian art radically retold by Rego that are among the most special to the artist. ‘Of all my pictures, these were the most fun to make,’ Rego has said, and their importance can be measured by the fact that many have remained in her own collection; for years she kept one work from the cycle, Descent from the Cross, on her bedroom wall.

During his presidency of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio (1939–2021), who Rego had known as a lawyer since the 1960s and who, during the Carnation Revolution of 1974, came up with the slogan ‘Always 25 April’, invited the artist to create a series for the chapel of the Palácio de Belém, the head of state’s official residence in Lisbon. In response, Rego made Nossa Senhora, tackling Mary’s story with a curiosity and passion that resulted far in excess of the eight works which were eventually installed in the chapel.

This exhibition features additional works from the cycle and a number of related watercolours that reveal Rego’s thought processes as she depicts Mary viewed from the lived experience of women – embracing the Virgin’s iconography while unseating serene and ethereal depictions from art history, finding the most pertinent parts of the story and dramatising them in ways that speak beyond the traditional narrative. Rego’s challenge in telling the story not just from the Virgin’s perspective but from the position of an embodied female figure is one that drew on her knowledge of the Old Masters, Christian art and religious texts, as well as her own experience of flesh and faith. She deals with episodes of pain and pleasure, astonishment and fear, through the prism of her own, deeply personal life experiences – pregnancy at a young age, motherhood, the burden of grief. Of her belief in God, Rego has said, ‘I think it is because I am Portuguese and because I love stories, and Christianity is a very good story.’

Rego’s work, always defiantly unsentimental, here places centre stage the earthly body, subjected to forces that are viscerally felt. In Annunciation we see Mary, modelled by the artist’s granddaughter, as a girl in school uniform, her head tilted back in a kind of rapture before the Angel who proffers a bunch of phallic calla lilies; an unmistakably physical interjection to the narrative of the immaculate conception. Mary remains a child, as does Christ, in a number of watercolours depicting the Pietá, their youth serving to heighten a sense of their vulnerability. In Descent from the Cross, a work that Rego connects most strongly to the death of her husband, Victor Willing, in 1988, the composition accentuates the weight of the body being taken down. In Agony in the Garden, while the angel is curled over in anguish, Mary, consumed by grief, turns away.

The feminism implicit in telling Mary’s story in ways it hadn’t been before is intertwined with Rego’s relationship with faith and her formative experiences under the Salazar dictatorship in a deeply Catholic country where the most proscriptive aspects of religion were felt most acutely by women. While the story may be thousands of years old, these scenes of Mary’s life are entirely of a piece with Rego’s work and the wider forces of suffering and survival, agency and resolve addressed consistently throughout the seven decades of her career."

Maria Manuel Lisboa writes that "Rego’s past work, from its very earliest productions, had often visited religious themes or formats (in the case of the latter, for example, triptychs) in trademark iconoclastic manner: Annunciation, Joseph’s Dream, Deposition, Up the Tree (the latter, whether intentionally or not, a crucified female figure), to name but a few. In the late 1990s she created a series of drawings and pastels inspired by Eça de Queirós’s well-known anti-clerical nineteenth-century novel, The Crime of Father Amaro as well as a series on the theme of abortion which, provocatively, included a triptych, a format more habitually associated with religious art and particularly with altar pieces."

The following artist’s quotes below relate to the themes of the exhibition and are taken from an interview with Richard Zimler, April 2003, published in full here, and from Paula Rego: Secrets & Stories, the 2017 feature documentary directed by the artist’s son, filmmaker Nick Willing:

• ‘It is about Mary, not about Christ. The story celebrates her – her in her own right.’ 
• ‘It’s actually what’s in the book, only there’s a meeting between what’s in the story and my experience.’ 
• ‘What makes it transcendent, in fact, is its human qualities, and that’s what I find moving about it.’ 
• ‘Jesus was a man and Mary was a woman giving birth… They are people! They don’t come from outer space. They are flesh and blood.’
• ‘The model for the young Mary was my granddaughter. In Michelangelo’s Pietà she is also a girl. Here, she’s holding a very young boy… By having young figures – even children – their vulnerability becomes much more.’ 

Secrets of Faith is not the first Rego exhibition focused on her religious work. Paula Rego/Josefa de Óbidos: religious art in the feminine was at Casa das Histórias Paula Rego from December 2020 - September 2021. This exhibition showed Rego’s religiously inspired works — alongside those of 17th-century Portugeuse artist Josefa de Óbidos. Both artists explored Catholicism and its mysteries, shared an intense sensualist charge which they both imprinted on painting, and also an imaginative ability to reconfigure religious themes.

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Roxanna Panufnik - Three Paths To Peace.

Artlyst: Diasporan Identities: Life Between Islands Caribbean British Art – Tate Britain

My latest review for Artlyst on 'Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s - Now' at Tate Britain:

'Alex Farquharson writes about ‘the twinning of African-derived gods with Catholic saints and African possession ceremonies with Catholic mass – to carnival: African-derived masked ceremony and dance with Catholic European pre-Lenten carnival traditions.’ John Lyons combines gestural expressionist paint handling with vibrant colours, lines, shapes, and textures to create a playful dialogue between metaphor and psychology that captures the energy and spectacle of Caribbean folklore and mythology as expressed in carnival. Similarly, Zak Ové’s reimagined folk characters, such as Hairy Man 2013, explore the interplay between flesh and spirit, reality and possibility, parody and sacred ritual inspired by masking traditions found in carnival. Allison Thompson notes that ‘Disguise was a key strategy of survival and retention within Afro-Caribbean communities, evidenced for example in syncretic religious practices.’

Farquharson suggests that ‘Many of the artworks here are similarly transdisciplinary in their references, operating in multiple registers and evoking the cross-cultural dynamics of the Caribbean and its diasporic history.’ This is because ‘New forms were and are needed to tell new stories; to lend voice to historical subjectivities and experiences that colonial archives have silenced or grotesquely distorted.’'

For more on emigre artists see https://joninbetween.blogspot.com/2021/11/emigre-artists-and-their-cultural-impact.html. No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990 at the Guildhall Art Gallery covered some similar ground to Life Between Islands. Jamaican Spiritual was an exhibition at Stephen Walbrook that highlighted the strong spiritual nature of Jamaica and it's people. The variety of spiritual beliefs held on the island reflect the diverse nature of the people who live there and the motto of the country "Out of many we are one".

My other pieces for Artlyst are:

Interviews -

• Sidney Nolan’s Africa: Interview With Andrew Turley
• Ilona Bossanyi: Tate’s Ervin Bossanyi Stained Glass Window Mothballed After 2011 Redevelopment
• Louis Carreon: Sampling Art History
• Modus Operandi - What Makes Successful Public Art: Vivien Lovell Interviewed
• Genesis Tramaine: A Queer Devotional Painter
• Lakwena Maciver: Review-Interview Hastings Contemporary
• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

Articles -

• Isamu Noguchi: Socially Engaged Art – Barbican Centre
• Pablo Bronstein: A This-World Vision Of Hell
• Bosco Sodi: In The Beginning Of Wisdom
• George Condo Lockdown Works Hauser & Wirth
• Theaster Gates Clay As A Profound Metaphor
• Mark Rothko: Mesmerising And Intimate Works On Paper
• International Autumn Art Exhibition Reviews
• Roger Cecil: A Once In A Generation Welsh Painter
• Tino Sehgal: Location, Nature And Pandemic – Blenheim Palace
• Michael Armitage And The Power Of Art – Royal Academy
• Marie Raymond And Post-War Avant Garde Painting In Paris
• Rachel Kneebone: A Complex Tableau Of Organic And Geometric Forms
• Rodin: Suffering And Conflict – Tate Modern
• Barbara Hepworth: Symbols Of Art & Life – Hepworth Wakefield
• 20th Century Women Artists Challenging Conventions In Britain
• Chaiya Art Awards 2021 Gallery OXO
• Marc Chagall’s Exquisite Stained Glass Window Commissions
• George Gittoes Equal parts artist and warrior
• Keith Haring: Personal Spiritual Imagery
• Sean Scully: Philosophical Poetic Pastoral The 12 / Dark Windows
• Arthur Jafa: The Art Of Cutting And Pasting
• Blackpentecostal Breath: Spirit-Led Movement Jumps From Music To Visual Art
• Made in USA Ed Ruscha An American Perspective
• Robert Smithson: The Archetypal Nature Of Things
• If Jesus Is A Man Of Colour Why Did We Make Him Aryan?
• Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions
• Everyday Heroes: Southbank Exhibition Celebrates Low-paid Key Workers
• Entwining Spiritualism And Art – Three Shows
• Of Church And The Visual Arts
• Has The Word Master Reached Its Sell-By Date?
• The People Behind Community Is Kindness Billboard Campaign
• André Daughtry: Art, Rebellion And Racial Justice
• Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit
• Home Alone Together Twenty Five Artists
• Botanical Mind Online: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree
• Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith
• Art And Faith A Time For Seeing
• Andy Warhol: Catholicism His Work, Faith And Legacy
• Kiki Smith: Embodied Art
• Art and Christianity Awards A Positive New Millennium Legacy
• Arnulf Rainer: 90th Birthday Exhibition Celebrated At Albertina Museum
• A Belonging Project And Exiles Loss and Displacement
• Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico Opus Operantis
• Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity
• Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
• Mat Collishaw Challenges Faith Perspectives With Ushaw Installation
• Waterloo Festival Launches At St. John’s Waterloo
• John Bellany Alan Davie Spiritual Joy and Magic
• RIFT Unites 17 Art and Science MA Graduates At Central St Martins
• Visionary Cities: Michael Takeo Magruder – British Library
• Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London
• William Congdon Holy Sites And The Kettle’s Yard Connection
• Mark Dean Premieres Pastiche Mass At Banqueting Hall Chelsea College of Arts
• John Kirby: The Torment
• Underlying The Civilised Facade
• Curating Spiritual Sensibilities In Changing Times
• Homeless Highlighted: New Beau Exhibition At St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Ken Currie: Protest Defeat And Victory
• Bosco Sodi: A Moment Of Genesis
• Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation
• Art In Churches 2018: Spiritual Combinations Explored
• Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence
• Guido Guidi: Per Strada Flowers Gallery London
• Peter Howson: The play is over – Flowers Gallery
• Camille Henrot: Scientific History And Creation Story Mash Up
• Nicola Green Explores Recent And Contemporary Religious Leaders – St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
• Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision
• Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
• Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity
• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Polish Art In Britain: Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Refugee Artists: Learning from The Lives Of Others
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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Bob Marley - Redemption Song.

Artlyst: Made in USA - Ed Ruscha, An American Perspective

My latest piece for Artlyst previews Ed Ruscha: OKLA at Oklahoma Contemporary focusing in particular on the Catholic influences found in Ruscha's work:

'Dual associations, blends and juxtapositions are, I think, at the heart of the influence that Ruscha believes Catholicism to have had on his work. He has said that there is a connection with his work and his experience with religious icons: the cross and the Church’s stations. He has spoken of this connection in terms of flavours that come over, ‘like incense used in the Church, benediction … the ritual … a deeply mysterious thing that affected me.’ More than that, however, is the dual nature of religious icons and Church rituals through which the ordinary becomes extraordinary; pigment on board becoming a window to the divine and bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ.'

In the article I note that this exhibition is part of a growing trend to take seriously the religious influences found in the work of many contemporary or modern artists: 

'This is not to claim such artists for the Church – Ruscha is a confirmed atheist – but acknowledges the reality of religious influences in work in ways that in earlier periods of modernism either went unacknowledged or were dismissed. Additionally, as I have sought to do in articles for Artlyst about Salvador Dali, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Smithson and Andy Warhol, among others, this acknowledgement of influence fills out our understanding of art history in the modern period whilst also creating a clearer picture of the continuing impact in a changed and changing cultural landscape of religious practices and theological ideas.' 

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

Articles:

• Robert Smithson: The Archetypal Nature Of Things
• If Jesus Is A Man Of Colour Why Did We Make Him Aryan?
• Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions
• Everyday Heroes: Southbank Exhibition Celebrates Low-paid Key Workers
• Entwining Spiritualism And Art – Three Shows
• Of Church And The Visual Arts
• Has The Word Master Reached Its Sell-By Date?
• The People Behind Community Is Kindness Billboard Campaign
• André Daughtry: Art, Rebellion And Racial Justice
• Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit
• Home Alone Together Twenty Five Artists
• Botanical Mind Online: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree
• Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith
• Art And Faith A Time For Seeing
• Andy Warhol: Catholicism His Work, Faith And Legacy
• Kiki Smith: Embodied Art
• Art and Christianity Awards A Positive New Millennium Legacy
• Arnulf Rainer: 90th Birthday Exhibition Celebrated At Albertina Museum
• A Belonging Project And Exiles Loss and Displacement
• Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico Opus Operantis
• Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity
• Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
• Mat Collishaw Challenges Faith Perspectives With Ushaw Installation
• Waterloo Festival Launches At St. John’s Waterloo
• John Bellany Alan Davie Spiritual Joy and Magic
• RIFT Unites 17 Art and Science MA Graduates At Central St Martins
• Visionary Cities: Michael Takeo Magruder – British Library
• Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London
• William Congdon Holy Sites And The Kettle’s Yard Connection
• Mark Dean Premieres Pastiche Mass At Banqueting Hall Chelsea College of Arts
• John Kirby: The Torment
• Underlying The Civilised Facade
• Curating Spiritual Sensibilities In Changing Times
• Homeless Highlighted: New Beau Exhibition At St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Ken Currie: Protest Defeat And Victory
• Bosco Sodi: A Moment Of Genesis
• Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation
• Art In Churches 2018: Spiritual Combinations Explored
• Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence
• Guido Guidi: Per Strada Flowers Gallery London
• Peter Howson: The play is over – Flowers Gallery
• Camille Henrot: Scientific History And Creation Story Mash Up
• Nicola Green Explores Recent And Contemporary Religious Leaders – St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
• Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision
• Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
• Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity
• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Polish Art In Britain Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Refugee Artists Learning from The Lives Of Others
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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Woody Guthrie - Oklahoma Hills.

Artlyst - Robert Smithson: The Archetypal Nature Of Things

My latest piece for Artlyst reviews two Robert Smithson exhibitions at Marian Goodman Galleries and considers the significance of the period in Smithson's life when he got interested in Catholicism through T.S. Eliot and that range of thinking:

'Smithson was invested in a definition of art that was timebound and precarious, that would not claim monumental status, rather collaborate with entropy. Up until his death in 1973, Smithson demonstrated that art can be a means to explore how we might try to understand our place on the planet, with all of its complexities.

All this is incipient in that earlier starting point where he identified with the “Christian mystics bemoaning a fallen world”. Incipient there, too, is his awareness of that the unknowable zero island – the prolongation of spirals which reverberate up and down space and time – is only realisable on a metaphysical level, as that offers the only path from the contingent natural universe to something beyond.'

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:

• Nicola Ravenscroft - Sculpture With A Peaceful Stillness
• Artist Hannah Rose Thomas – Tears of Gold – Interview
• Marcus Lyon: Human Atlas Explorations
• Elizabeth Kwant Interview
• Helaine Blumenfeld: Undulating Structures
• National Gallery Explores ‘Sin’ In New Exhibition – Interview Dr Joost Joustra Curator
• Betty Spackman: Posthumanism Debates
• Christopher Clack: Connecting The Material And Immaterial
• Peter Howson Artlyst Interview
• Marleen Hengelaar-Rookmaaker On The Legacy Of ArtWay
• Alastair Gordon A Testament To His Faith
• Katrina Moss Chaiya Art Awards Interview: Where is God in our 21st century world?
• Apocalypse Now: Michael Takeo Magruder Interviewed
• Jonathan Anderson: Religious Inspirations Behind Modernism
• Caravan – An Interview With Rev Paul Gordon Chandler On Arts Peacebuilding
• Art Awakening Humanity Alexander de Cadenet Interviewed
• Michael Pendry New Installation Lights Up St Martin In The Fields
• Mark Dean Projects Stations of the Cross Videos On Henry Moore Altar

Articles:

• If Jesus Is A Man Of Colour Why Did We Make Him Aryan?
• Cosmic Patches And Quilts Five Exhibitions
• Everyday Heroes: Southbank Exhibition Celebrates Low-paid Key Workers
• Entwining Spiritualism And Art – Three Shows
• Of Church And The Visual Arts
• Has The Word Master Reached Its Sell-By Date?
• The People Behind Community Is Kindness Billboard Campaign
• André Daughtry: Art, Rebellion And Racial Justice
• Salisbury Cathedral 800 Years Of Art And Spirit
• Home Alone Together Twenty Five Artists
• Botanical Mind Online: Art, Mysticism and the Cosmic Tree
• Salvador Dalí The Enigma of Faith
• Art And Faith A Time For Seeing
• Andy Warhol: Catholicism His Work, Faith And Legacy
• Kiki Smith: Embodied Art
• Art and Christianity Awards A Positive New Millennium Legacy
• Arnulf Rainer: 90th Birthday Exhibition Celebrated At Albertina Museum
• A Belonging Project And Exiles Loss and Displacement
• Robert Polidori: Fra Angelico Opus Operantis
• Art, Faith, Church Patronage and Modernity
• Contemplating the Spiritual in Contemporary Art
• Mat Collishaw Challenges Faith Perspectives With Ushaw Installation
• Waterloo Festival Launches At St. John’s Waterloo
• John Bellany Alan Davie Spiritual Joy and Magic
• RIFT Unites 17 Art and Science MA Graduates At Central St Martins
• Visionary Cities: Michael Takeo Magruder – British Library
• Van Gogh’s Religious Journey Around London
• William Congdon Holy Sites And The Kettle’s Yard Connection
• Mark Dean Premieres Pastiche Mass At Banqueting Hall Chelsea College of Arts
• John Kirby: The Torment
• Underlying The Civilised Facade
• Curating Spiritual Sensibilities In Changing Times
• Homeless Highlighted: New Beau Exhibition At St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Ken Currie: Protest Defeat And Victory
• Bosco Sodi: A Moment Of Genesis
• Bill Viola And The Art Of Contemplation
• Art In Churches 2018: Spiritual Combinations Explored
• Sister Wendy Beckett – A Reminiscence
• Guido Guidi: Per Strada Flowers Gallery London
• Peter Howson: The play is over – Flowers Gallery
• Camille Henrot: Scientific History And Creation Story Mash Up
• Nicola Green Explores Recent And Contemporary Religious Leaders – St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Art And The Consequences Of War Explored In Two Exhibitions
• Helaine Blumenfeld Translating Her Vision
• Sam Ivin: Physically Scratched Portraits Of Asylum Seekers Exhibited
• Sacred Noise: Explores Religion, Faith And Divinity
• Bill Viola: Quiet Contemplative Video Installation St Cuthbert’s Church Edinburgh
• The ground-breaking work of Sister Corita Kent
• Picasso To Souza: The Crucifixion Imagery Rarely Exhibited
• Michael Takeo Magruder: De / coding the Apocalypse – Panacea Museum
• Giorgio Griffa: The Golden Ratio And Inexplicable Knowledge
• Arabella Dorman Unveils New Installation At St James Church Piccadilly
• Can Art Transform Society?
• Art Awakening Humanity Conference Report
• Central St Martins in the Fields Design Then And Now
• The Sacramental And Liturgical Nature Of Conceptual Art
• Polish Art In Britain Centenary Marked At London’s Ben Uri Gallery
• Refugee Artists Learning from The Lives Of Others
• The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg
• The Christian Science Connection Within The British Modern Art Movement
• Artists Rebranding The Christmas Tree Tradition
• Art Impacted - A Radical Response To Radicalisation
• The Art of St Martin-in-the-Fields
• Was Caravaggio A Good Christian?

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Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus - I Carry The Sun.

Slow Art: James Turell & Andy Warhol

The final chapter of Arden Reed’s 2017 book Slow Art: The Experience of Looking, Sacred Images to James Turrell compares and contrasts the work of Turrell and Andy Warhol in order to establish whether they are, respectively, ‘the Angel and Demon of Slow Art.’ It is of interest, therefore, that the exhibition of new works by Turrell at Pace Gallery overlapped briefly with the Warhol retrospective at Tate Modern, as this, too, enabled the opportunity to compare and contrast the work of both.

Slow art is structured to slow the viewer in order that greater attention is paid to the artwork generating a contemplative state. Reed argues therefore that ‘slow art is not a thing but an experience, an ongoing conversation between artwork and spectator.’ For Reed, the work of Turrell encapsulates slow art par excellence, while, for many, the perception of Warhol’s art and practice is the antithesis; being focused on ephemeral consumables – the instant and immediate. Reed, though, is aware of the way in which such stereotypes of Warhol’s art, as fast art, sell his actual practice short. Therefore, the overlapping of the Turrell and Warhol exhibitions in London at this time provide an opportunity to revisit the contrasts between the two, as made by Reed.

Turrell’s recent Constellation works, three of which are currently at Pace Gallery, are culminations of his lifelong pursuit of an art of light, space, and time. Presented in site-specific chambers, the works feature elliptical and circular shapes with a frosted glass surface animated by an array of technically advanced LED lights, which are mounted to a wall and generated by computer programming. With a run time of several hours, the programmes run on a loop that is imperceptible to the viewer generating light changes that are subtle and hypnotic, one colour morphing into the next.

The Constellation works generate what the artist has called ‘spaces within space.’ His luminous portals are instruments for altering our perception prompting a transcendental experience; gazing into them, as Oliver Shultz, Curatorial Director, Pace Gallery, notes, ‘results in the slow dissolution of the boundaries of the surrounding room, enveloping the viewer in the radiance of pure colour.’ That experience is not immediate, but is realised as the viewer settles in to the experience within a computer programmed loop running for hours, not minutes.

Turrell is, therefore, an artist of duration for whom ‘experiencing is the object’ and whose installations enable us to ‘perceive ourselves perceiving.’ He creates theatres of perception in which light shows are performed. Reed writes that this is like ‘watching a play in which little happens – one by Samuel Beckett, say – we sit (or stand, or lie down) and look at a stage where Turrell makes “light shows” – makes light show.’

In this way, he ritualizes looking by asking us to submit to the art and enter the experience. He says, ‘I don’t think I ask too much. I ask you to wait.’ Again, ‘I’m a slow guy. I like slow planes … In a way that’s true with art, too. Things that require more time give back more. I think it’s okay to take time. It seems more direct actually.’

Sleep, made over several nights in summer and autumn 1963 with a 16mm camera and shown at the start of the Tate’s retrospective, is a clear demonstration of Warhol as an artist of duration; as with Turrell, a slow artist. The film shows 22 close-ups of the poet John Giorno, who was briefly Warhol’s lover, as he sleeps in the nude. Warhol shot around 50 reels of film for Sleep, each one lasting only three minutes. He edited them to fashion a movie without movement. The final version repeats many scenes and lasts over five hours. It is projected in slow motion, giving a dream-like feel. Giorno said that Warhol made the movie Sleep ‘into an abstract painting: the body of a man as a field of light and shadow.’

Reed notes that the pacing and length of a work like Sleep ‘call to mind meditative practices.’ He quotes Jonas Mekas reflecting on Warhol’s use of cinema:

‘Film is transported to a plane that is outside the suspense, outside the plot, outside the climaxes … We study, watch, contemplate, listen – not so much for the ‘big actions’ but for the small words, intonations, colors of voices, colors of words … We begin to realize that we have never, really, seen haircutting, or eating,’ because ‘we watch a Warhol movie with no hurry. The first thing he does is to stop us from running.’

Mekas brings us to a second element of Warhol’s practice as a slow artist, which is to enable us to stop and see the fast, ephemeral or mundane aspects of our existence as though for the first time. Warhol said that ‘Pop artists did images that anybody walking down Broadway could recognize in a split second – comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles – all the great modern things that the Abstract Expressionists tried so hard not to notice at all.’ Artists notice things that others don’t and bring those things to our attention. So, while Pop art images could be recognized in a split second, they were not intended to be viewed in a split second. Instead, they enable us to realize that we have never really seen comics, picnic tables, men’s trousers, celebrities, shower curtains, refrigerators, Coke bottles etc. because we had only previously recognized them in a split second without paying them the attention that is their due.

Eugene McCarraher noted, in The Enchantments of Mammon, that Warhol said, ‘“Pop Art is a way of liking things,” a celebration of those “great modern things” that comprise the humble matter of everyday life – a realm where, in Orthodox tradition, the divine always manifests itself sacramentally.’ This aspect of Warhol’s art was immediately apparent to Sister Corita Kent on a visit in 1962 to the Ferus Gallery in LA to see Warhol’s breakthrough exhibition of Campbell’s Soup Cans. ‘Coming home,’ she said, ‘you saw everything like Andy Warhol.’ As a result, Kent found inspiration in signs and advertising for vibrant screen-printed banners and posters that provided an opportunity to show the sacred in the most mundane.

The Tate Retrospective explores the extent to which themes of faith recur throughout Warhol’s life, including concluding the exhibition with his vast 10-metre wide canvas Sixty Last Suppers created in 1986, a few months before the artist died in his sleep while recovering from gall bladder surgery. This poignant meditation on faith, death, immortality and the afterlife, depicts six rows of ten silkscreened images, each a black-and-white reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic mural The Last Supper depicting Christ’s last meal with his disciples before the crucifixion. A copy of the image had hung in the Warhola family kitchen as Warhol was growing up. Warhol noted, ‘It’s a good picture … It’s something you see all the time. You don’t think about it.’ To make people see it and think about it, Warhol reproduced it 60 times. Thereby, he also evoked the re-enactment of the Last Supper that takes place during every Mass.

Like Warhol wanting us to stop and really see, Turrell is also concerned to take away the distance between ‘quotidian and spiritual,’ ‘beholder and beheld,’ in order to ‘bring the cosmos down’ in order that we call our everyday existence ‘a spiritual plane.’ His Quaker experience of ‘going to greet the light’ is, as Adam Gopnik has argued, to see that ‘the mystic’s white light and ecstasies are not dim apprehensions of another realm but experiences as real and as open to investigation as sleeping, eating and breathing.’

James Turrell, Pace Gallery, until 27 March 2020
Andy Warhol, Tate Modern, until 6 September 2020

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Velvet Underground & Nico - Sunday Morning.