Joseph Cornell: Aesthetic experience as a manifestation of spirit

'From a basement in New York, Joseph Cornell channelled his limitless imagination into some of the most original art of the 20th century.' 

'Wanderlust at the RA brings together 80 of Cornell’s most remarkable boxes, assemblages, collages and films, some never before seen outside the USA. Entirely self-taught, the independence of Cornell’s creative voice won the admiration of artists from Marcel Duchamp and the Surrealists, to Robert Motherwell and the Abstract Expressionists, with echoes of his work felt in Pop and Minimalist art.

Wanderlust is a long overdue celebration of an incomparable artist, a man the New York Times called “a poet of light; an architect of memory-fractured rooms and a connoisseur of stars, celestial and otherwise.”'

When he was in his twenties, Joseph Cornell learned about Christian Science and became a devout follower of the religion, as he believed it had cured him of recurring stomach ailments.

Richard Vine notes that 'the teachings of Christian Science and membership of the Christian Science church "provided Cornell ... with a clarity essential to his sanity and his art - the certainty, despite everyday trials and confusions, of ultimate cosmic harmony within the all-encompassing Mind of God."'

Sandra Leonard Starr writes that Cornell 'begins with the finite reality of the object, proves the unreality of it and our seeing it as such, and arrives at a statement of aesthetic experience as a manifestation of spirit.'

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Al Green - How Great Thou Art.

The subjective nature of art criticism and history

There is a fascinating article in The Art Newspaper by Julian Spalding, the former director of Glasgow Museums, and the academic Glyn Thompson in which they claim, on the basis of strong historical evidence, that Marcel Duchamp's famous artwork Fountain was actually the creation of the poet and artist Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

As the authors point out, 'Duchamp’s late, fictional story is still taught in every class and recited in every book' and 'The submission and rejection of Duchamp’s urinal is now regarded as one of the early turning points in the history of Modern art. Fountain is always cited as the source of conceptualism, the Modern art movement that America, rather than Europe, gave the world.'

What this contested finding illustrates for me is the essentially subjective nature of art criticism which nevertheless often goes entirely unchallenged (including, by myself, as I have repeated the received narrative about this work in several posts). In my sabbatical report I highlight Grayson Perry's acknowledgement that within the art world the rule by which people work is that of consensus plus time i.e. ‘If it's agreed amongst the tribe for a fairly sustained amount of time, then it becomes good taste.’

The claims made by Spalding and Thompson reveal some of the issues with this approach; issues which I have highlighted, through my Airbrushed from Art History series and Sabbatical art pilgrimage, in relation to the engagement of the Church with modern and contemporary art. Despite there being numerous and consistent examples of the Church commissioning modern/contemporary art and also the widely acknowledged prevalence of religious themes in the work of modern and contemporary artists, art critics and historians persistent in maintaining a narrative which posits an fundamental divide between mainstream art and organised religion. 

Such refusals to acknowledge evidence which conflicts with the accepted narrative reveals a fundamental subjectivity to much art criticism and art history.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dry The River - Lovin's For Fools.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Report - Part 3

The Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England (CFCE) have refused on two occasions the application made by the Chapter of Chichester Cathedral to commission Jaume Plensa's Together for installation in the Cathedral as the Hussey Memorial Commission.  The grounds for rejection are to do with the perception of significant change in the character of the space above the Arundel Bell Screen as a result of the installation.

It is undeniable that there would be significant change to this space as a result of the installation. The more complex question is whether the change that would occur is positive or negative, allowable or not. The chapter have argued that the change should be accepted and the CFCE have ruled that the change would be unacceptable. The commission has therefore come to an impasse because no basis for further discussion exists. This is because there are no objective criteria on which it is possible to discuss this issue or, in my view, the quality of art generally.

All of us routinely make judgements about the art that we encounter. Art is something which generally provokes opinions, whether positive or negative. However, when asked to explain the basis on which we make these judgements most of us would struggle to do so. Often we resort to saying things like, ‘I know what I like,’ which are ways of closing down the conversation without answering the question or examining our own assumptions. We tend to assume though that art professionals do have some more objective means of assessing the worth or quality of artworks. After all, they are constantly selecting work to show and attributing differing values, financial and otherwise, to that work.  

Jonathan Jones is an art critic for The Guardian who has acknowledged that the age of the art critic as an unassailable voice of authority is long gone due to the force of digital debate and the era of readers biting back. Entitled 'how I learned to look – and listen' Jones wrote that the way he thinks about art criticism has changed: "Criticism in the age of social media has to be much more playful and giving ... Criticism today is not about delivering truths from on high, but about striking a spark that lights a debate."

In the past, he argues, he and other art critics could speak in an "aggressive, cocksure, dismissive voice, determined to prove that my opinion was worth more than my readers" but "in today's more open forum – where people answer back, and where people often know more than I do – it becomes more and more absurd to claim such august authority for one's opinions." As a result, the way he thinks about his work, and about art, "is infinitely more plural and ambiguous than it was in 2006." Essentially, Jones is arguing that, while he can still express strong opinions, he is now much more aware that his opinions are essentially personal opinions and need to be acknowledged as such. The underlying implication is that there are no agreed criteria for assessing, evaluating and critiquing contemporary art.

Yet we continue to look for rules or talk as though these exist. Grayson Perry explored the issue of taste in the Channel 4 series All In The Best Possible Taste. He thought that "there will always be this barrier where there are people who are looking for rules. A lot of the lower middle class still need reassurance and clear rules, which they find in brands and in definite trends because they perhaps don't have the confidence to go on their own intuition and try something else out. So there's always going to be a large proportion of the population that have what they think is a very clear idea about what is good taste. But of course the good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe."

Within the art world, Perry suggests, the rule by which people work is that of consensus plus time i.e. “If it's agreed amongst the tribe for a fairly sustained amount of time, then it becomes good taste.” This is no different, then, to the seeking after rules which he criticizes in the lower middle class. On this basis, too, “good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe.” But many choose to work on this basis that, as artists, commissioners, critics, curators, gallery owners, historians or patrons, they know what good taste is because of consensus plus time. If one is in agreement with the consensus it is, of course, a safe place to be.

This does not mean that no criteria exist at all within the visual arts as there are clear technical criteria within each discipline that relate to whether or not the work is well made. However, these relate to the artwork as a craft object and do not provide us with answers as to the difference between a piece which has been competently crafted and one which demonstrates significant artistic vision or merit. Nor does it mean that particular groups, by consensus, do not have their own criteria. What does not exist, however, are any broadly accepted, and therefore objective, criteria.

In a dispute like that over the Hussey Memorial Commission, because there are no objective criteria on which discussion can be based, all that can be done to argue the case in favour of the commission is to demonstrate the consensus which supports it. That is essentially what the chapter did in response to the first rejection presenting significant support for the proposal from public consultation and written support from significant arts professionals; all this on the back of an initial well-run and broad selection process. Yet when the CFCE rules that they perceive a different consensus against the proposal, there is essentially nowhere else that the discussion can go because there is no objective basis for dialogue.   

What has happened in essence within the visual arts is that the action of Marcel Duchamp in exhibiting ready-mades and his arguing that the choice of the artist makes them art (now widely accepted as the most significant art event of the twentieth century) has opened floodgates which render rules or criteria for the creation and comparison of artworks superfluous.

As a result, we enjoy huge diversity in the visual arts. So, for example, I have been able to see a wide variety of styles and media of art and architecture in the sabbatical visits I have made. But the techniques required for each medium are often not transferable to other media, meaning that like cannot be compared with like. In this way, the variety of styles and media that exist within contemporary art limit the extent to which contrasts and comparisons can be made. As art can now be made of anything that the artist wishes, one blindingly obvious implication seems to be that the quality of a piece of video art by Bill Viola, for example, cannot be gauged by comparing it positively or negatively to a painting by Maurice Denis or stained glass by John Piper. Each is its own entity within a medium with its own techniques. As a result, widely accepted quality standards for works of art no longer exist. In addition, the techniques required for many of the traditional forms of Church art – stained glass, mosaic etc. – are no longer as widely understood as previously nor are these media generally viewed as cutting edge; a factor which impacts on the attention paid to church commissions within the art world.

The Church world and the art world, on the basis of Perry’s definition, are essentially different tribes with different tastes and fashions causing confusion for the emerging artist who is a Christian and those who commission art for churches. The dichotomy which is often cited between significant contemporary artists participating in church commissions and "self-styled 'Christian art' that though sincere and well-intentioned" is "often formulaic or decorative" and has "little or no standing within the art world," is essentially a debate about which tribe’s rules of good taste it is best to apply. Ultimately, that is a superfluous debate about illusions.

The way through this situation is, I think, what I perceive Sister Wendy Beckett to be doing in her art criticism, meditations and TV programmes. Sister Wendy is an informed enthusiast who applies the injunction in Philippians 4:8, to fill our minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise, to her writing and presenting. The kind of poring and praying over images that characterizes Beckett's best writing can be a distinctively Christian contribution to the plurality of art criticism and the experience of commissioning for churches. Beckett cultivates a prayerful attentiveness to the artwork through sustained contemplation in order to see or sense what is good and of God in it, regardless of whether the artist who made it has an international, national, regional or local reputation.

Early on in my sabbatical I gave a talk on visual art to the East London Three Faiths Forum in which I said that art, at its best, is epiphany and sacrament. In other words art takes the stuff of everyday life and transforms it so that we see it, ourselves and God differently. This was reiterated for me towards the end of the sabbatical in a talk by Rev. Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, on ‘Art and the Renewal of St Martin’s’ where he also spoke of the sacramental nature of art.

In a talk I gave to the Friends of Chelmsford Cathedral earlier this year I said: “To encounter the Gospel in contemporary art, diversity must be embraced. The traditional forms of expressing the Gospel in art – illustrating Biblical narratives and the lives of the Saints – remain, albeit sometimes in the newer forms of movements like Expressionism, while attraction and reaction to the meaning, impacts and influences of the Gospel also continue to inspire creative work by contemporary artists working in fields such as the abstract, conceptual, performance and relational arts.”

This has been the attitude and approach that I have sought to bring to my sabbatical art pilgrimage and the site visits I have made. There is no value in arguing for a difference in quality between an image by Maurice Denis and another by Bill Viola. What is of value is to reflect on the nature of each image (sacrament) and what that image reveals (epiphany). 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leonard Cohen - You Got Me Singing.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Metz Cathedral

I didn't sleep that well in Metz (in common with other nights on the trip to this point). I had been fine during the day when I had my itinerary to keep to and the amazing art and architecture to see, but at night all the other factors about this trip would crowd in and cause me to worry. Similar to daily life then where often I wouldn't do what I do if it weren't for focusing on the next tasks in hand, rather than worrying about what might or might not happen.

I woke to the sounds and songs of striking railway workers at their picket line and rose early to visit Metz Cathedral, arriving while the building was primarily open for worshippers rather than tourists like me. The sounds of hoovers echoed quietly in the background as the sound of plainsong also rose from the crypt. The routines of the Cathedral's cleaners are as regular and ubiquitous as the rituals of the services and in their own way as meaningful and sacred. This is, in large measure, how we deal with the anxieties and worries of constant change and what might be; by building for ourselves patterns of sameness, regular routines which bring a sense of security and solidity to what otherwise feels as though it will slip from our grasp and control by means of its fluidity and movement. This may be illusion but it is consoling and enables us to cope with change:

Our bodies age, our cells replace continually

without regard to our volition.

We are not who we were.

All is mutability, constant change.

We cannot bear so much reality -

being changed utterly - so build routines,

schedules, repeating patterns of sameness,

to mask our awareness of transition.

Metz Cathedral is nicknamed “God's Lantern” and is renowned for the vast expanse of its stained glass – 6,496 square metres over twice as much as Rouen and three times as much as Chartres. Within this incredible expanse is glass from the thirteenth century all the way through to windows installed in the 1960s by Marc Chagall, which are what have brought me to Metz. It is not simply the expanse of glass here which is impressive but also the range and variety that can be seen. Basil Cottle has noted that the glass here “is not stylistically co-ordinated; its assembly has been by slow growth, and many hands have participated, with many colours and iconographic schemes.” Yet, the “effect on entering the nave is dazzling: three tiers of windows, including the richly glazed triforium; extremely tall and acute-angling vaulting and apse windows, and a grove of slim clustered shafts receding eastwards into pools of colours” (B. Cottle, All The Cathedrals Of France, Unicorn Press, London, 2002)

The Cathedral has a simple but effective leaflet 'Parcours spirituel' which identifies a prayerful route around the Cathedral taking in 16 of its most important aspects, including its modern glass. At each of these points in the Cathedral information and a prayer can be found, encouraging all visitors not simply to be tourists but worshippers as well. I know from personal experience, having created a similar leaflet for St Margaret's Barking, how much such simple initiatives are appreciated by parishioners and visitors alike. An argument can be made that such approaches, like the information provided on wall cards in museum exhibitions, can direct viewers to see the artwork from one perspective alone. However, this does not have to be the case as viewers often take that perspective as a starting point for then seeing others. Additionally, providing no way in to perspectives on artwork, as curators have found, can leave viewers unable to begin to engage with the artwork at all.

Chagall came to stained glass relatively late in his career with the commissions for the baptistery at for Notre-Dame-de-Toute-Grâce du Plateau d’Assy completed in 1957. These derived from his friendship with Pere Couturier and included two small windows in grisaille of an angel holding a jug of holy water and an angel with candelabra and flowers. Chagall, as a Jew, had concerns regarding commissions for a Christian church to the extent that he insisted on the phrase, ‘In the Name of the Liberty of All Religions’ on the baptistery mural.

Following this commission, however, Chagall working with Charles Marq, from the Atelier Simon Marq, received many church commissions for stained glass with his ambulatory windows for Metz Cathedral, realized in 1960, being the first of these commissions. “Marq developed a special process of veneering pigment on glass, which allowed Chagall to use as many as three colours on a single uninterrupted pane, rather than being confined to the traditional technique of separating each colour by lead strips.”

Chagall was inspired both by the Bible and his visits to Israel. Accompanied by his wife Bella and his daughter Ida, Chagall went to Israel first in 1931. The main reason for this visit was a commission he had received from the Parisian art dealer and publisher, Ambroise Vollard, to do a series of illustrations to the Bible. He travelled a great deal, painting and drawing in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Safed. The country left a vivid impression on him, and back in Paris the light and landscape he had seen were echoed in many of the etchings for his work, The Bible. In 1951, the opening of large retrospective exhibitions of his works, in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv, prompted Chagall's second visit, and in 1957, he was again in Israel following the publication of his illustrations to the Bible. Vollard had died shortly before World War II and Tériade published the commission that had finally been completed in 1956. A second book of Bible illustrations was published by Vervé, also in that year.

Chagall said that, “In the East, I found the Bible and part of my own being. The air of the Land of Israel makes one wise.” For him, the Bible was “pure poetry, human tragedy.” He said that it “filled him with visions about the faith of the world” and that it inspired him so that he saw life and art “through the wisdom of the bible.”

Chagall also made a link between stained glass which comes alive “through the light it receives” and the Bible which is “light already.” Stained glass, he suggests, “should make this obvious through grace and simplicity.” Jonathan Wilson has noted that “Chagall became fascinated with stained glass after he had moved to the south of France in 1950.” Chagall was undoubtedly “seduced by the endless Mediterranean unfolding of color-as-light and the possibility of capturing in glass the kind of spiritually charged, quasi-mystical, sometimes biblically inspired images to which he was increasingly drawn.” Indeed, Chagall spoke of light as being the material which creates stained glass. “The light is natural,” he suggested, “and all nature is religious.” Therefore, “every colour ought to stimulate prayer” and, "whether in cathedral or synagogue the phenomenon is the same: something mystical comes through the window.”

André Malraux summed this up when he wrote: “I cannot understand why stained glass, which lives and dies with the day, was ever abandoned. … Artists preferred the light. But the stained glass window, which is brought to life by the morning and snuffed out by the night, brought the Creation home to the worshipper in church. … Stained glass eventually surrendered to painting by incorporating shade, which killed it. It was six hundred and fifty years before someone found a way of shading off colors in glass: Chagall.”

It has been suggested, rightly I think, that Chagall’s use of colour is mystical, with “the yellow of revelation flooding the Tablets of the Law,” “the white of faith surrounding the cross” and “the supremacy of blue in his work” indicating “the wisdom of overcoming bitterness and hatred.” Here we have the yellow of revelation flooding the Garden of Eden in Chagall’s 1963 Creation window for the triforium of the north transept while deep blues and reds characterise the combination of ecstasy and sorrow in the two ambulatory windows from 1960 which tell the story of the Jewish people in key episodes from Abraham to Jeremiah by way of Jacob, Moses and David. James Waller has written that here “Chagall is all curves and tonal flares,” his “modulation of tone, within the fabulously fragmented and flowing glass panes” lending “his colours a deeper, more smoldering dimension.”

Waller contrasts Chagall’s curves with the “constructivist angles and flat-colour planes” of the windows by Jacques Villon, created for the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in 1957. Villon’s “highly expressive constructivism, divided into powerful sections of colour makes a startling impact within the medieval interior” and “flare brilliantly, even on an overcast day, drawing all eyes towards them.” In the early morning light, his “stained-glass compositions of the Crucifixion (centre), the Jewish Passover and Last Supper (left), and the Wedding Feast of Cana (right)”, blaze in a stunning conflagration of light.

Jacques Villon was born Gaston Emile Duchamp, the oldest of six children. Three of his younger siblings also achieved fame as artists: Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp. He and his brothers became friendly with leading cubists including Albert Gleizes. This circle of artists attempted to extend the innovations of Cubism into the realm of life through architecture and the decorative arts. Along with Gleizes, Villon was one of the few French artists who explored abstraction during the early 1920s while during the early 1930s, again prodded by Gleizes, he took part in the activities of Abstraction–création. As with Gleizes’ own work, these pictures are carefully governed by systems of mathematical proportion; his emphasis on planar construction was played off against free linear motifs to produce the most lyrical abstract paintings of his entire career. Villon saw painting as “a method of prospecting, a manner of expression. With colour as bait …”

From 1957 onwards Brigitte Simon and her husband Charles Marq began to create stained glass with the greatest contemporary painters beginning with Jacques Villon. Hayley Wood writes that:

“The studio technique used on the windows by Villon and Chagall is acid etching on flashed glass, which is clear glass with a veneer of colored glass. The etching process for glass is basically the same as the process used for metal plates in printmaking: an acid-resistant ground is applied to the glass, and a design is carved, drawn with a tool that will scrape away the resist. This is then placed in an acid bath, and the acid eats away at the exposed carved areas. Subtle tonality—color fields representing the spectrum of transparent color between the color of the veneer and the clear base glass--can be achieved with extremely skilled and careful monitoring of the process. Black enamel paint is used on the Chagall and Villon windows for the detailed work (a technique of monochromatic painting called grisaille).”

The final modern windows at Metz are two entirely modernist abstract compositions: small window sections by Roger Bissière from 1960, the glass segments of which look like mosaic tiles miraculously transported into lead cames and stone portals. Bissière made stained glass windows for the churches of Cornol and Develier (Swiss Jura) in 1958, as well as for the north and south transepts here in collaboration with Charles Marq.

Bissière was the forerunner of the new non-figurative generation which began after the war in France. From 1925-1938 he was Professor of fresco painting at the Académie Ranson where he was particularly appreciated for his simplicity and natural kindness. He taught Alfred Manessier, Vieira da Silva, Jean Le Moal and many other young non-figurative painters for whom he was considered the ‘father’ of their style. Through its inner radiance and poetic qualities his work has spiritual resonance. “Painting is not a job,” he said, “we only paint when Grace falls upon us.”

Finally, from this visit it is worth noting that Metz Cathedral has an ongoing arts programme centred on music and the visual arts. Exhibitions are hung within the body of the Cathedral with the exhibition at the time I visited by Eban being abstract works based on these words from Georges Rouault:

“Shape, color, harmony

Oasis or mirage

For the eyes, the heart or the mind.”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Norah Jones - The Sun Doesn't Like You.

Impossible judgements: critiquing contemporary art

Transpositions has recently finished hosting an Art in the Church workshop where scholars, practitioners, and artists reflected on and considered issues that emerge when art and the Church intersect. I was interviewed about the work of commission4mission.
Interestingly those organising the workshop wrote that they "chose to feature examples because of the issues and questions that they raise rather than the artistic or aesthetic quality of the work of art" and "that works of art made for the church cannot be judged according to the same criteria as works of art made for the gallery."

These statements taken together seem to assume that criteria exist for determining the artistic or aesthetic quality of church art and gallery art. So much talk occurs about good and bad art that this would seem a reasonable assumption and yet I doubt that anyone would be able to articulate a set of criteria that had majority agreement in relation either to church art or gallery art.

The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones recently wrote an interesting piece on the way in which he stated that the age of the art critic as an unassailable voice of authority is long gone due to the force of digital debate and the era of readers biting back. Entitled 'how I learned to look – and listen' Jones wrote that the way he thinks about art criticism has changed: "Criticism in the age of social media has to be much more playful and giving ... Criticism today is not about delivering truths from on high, but about striking a spark that lights a debate."

In the past, he argues, he and other art critics could speak in an "aggressive, cocksure, dismissive voice, determined to prove that my opinion was worth more than my readers" but "in today's more open forum – where people answer back, and where people often know more than I do – it becomes more and more absurd to claim such august authority for one's opinions." As a result, the way he thinks about his work, and about art, "is infinitely more plural and ambiguous than it was in 2006."

Essentially, Jones is arguing that, while he can still express strong opinions, he is now much more aware that his opinions are essentially personal opinions and need to be acknowledged as such. Again, in essence, he is saying that there are no agreed criteria for assessing, evaluating and critiquing contemporary art.

Not everyone agrees. Rachel Whiteread, in a recent G2 interview, seemed to argue in favour of elitism and against the democratic developments that Jones has noted, saying that "the papers can't get enough of culture and it's just rammed down everyone's throat. And actually I think to the detriment of culture, because it belittles it. Everyone can have a say, but not everyone's an expert, not everyone's an art critic. It's become far too easy to have a pop at modern art."

Grayson Perry has been exploring the issue of taste in the Channel 4 series All In The Best Possible Taste. He thinks that "there will always be this barrier where there are people who are looking for rules. A lot of the lower middle class still need reassurance and clear rules, which they find in brands and in definite trends because they perhaps don't have the confidence to go on their own intuition and try something else out. So there's always going to be a large proportion of the population that have what they think is a very clear idea about what is good taste. But of course the good taste is just an illusion; it's just that they're obeying the rules of their tribe."

In answer to the question as to whether taste is completely subjective or whether there is such a thing as good taste and bad taste, Perry said: "I think it's very similar to the way that the art world works. It's consensus plus time. If it's agreed amongst the tribe for a fairly sustained amount of time, then it becomes good taste. Of course there are always fashions and changes within the group but they're often quite slow-moving. The art world is just another tribe in many ways and has its own system. What's interesting about the art world, of course, is that that's its business. It's almost like taste and visual culture are its business and therefore it's very, very self-aware about that, and other fields are less self-conscious than the art world."

On this basis, Transpositions would be correct in thinking that works of art made for the church cannot be judged according to the same criteria as works of art made for the gallery, because the church world and the art world are essentially different tribes with different tastes and fashions. Consensus is about the contemporary establishment, whether church or art world, while time is about the judgement of history. There are, of course, examples both of hugely popular artists in their own day being more harshly judged by history and of obscure artists in their own day being hugely valued through history.

Academia, the markets and the media all influence and affect the judgements that are made by consensus and history. Again, Perry is perceptive noting that, while the goal is to become "people who are confident enough to say, "I'll be the one to decide," it is "often when we think we're at our most individual we're most vulnerable to influence, and perhaps the hard-wiring of our upbringing comes into play; the material culture that one imbibed with one's mother's milk, that's the default setting on your taste, and often people don't even realise that's happening, when they make microscopic decisions all the time about what clothes to put on and how to decorate their houses."

Perry argues that "Part of being an artist is that you are achingly self-conscious about every aesthetic decision you make." Whiteread agrees that "anyone who makes art over a long period has to know when they are making good art and bad art" but acknowledges that "money and fame are very addictive" and can lead to people losing their "critical distinction" and making "shit work" which is "emperor's new clothes."

Artists are constantly making choices about what works and what doesn't in their own work and, each time they exhibit, also receiving feedback from others on the same issue. This is perhaps why artists develop their own personal sense of 'good' and 'bad' in art but, again, it has to be acknowledged that this primarily personal, although inevitably artists then also compare and contrast their choices with those of their peers and against the history of art.

The variety of styles and media that exist within contemporary art limit the extent to which such contrasts and comparisons can be made however. The action of Marcel Duchamp in exhibiting ready-mades and his arguing that the choice of the artist makes them art essentially opened floodgates which render rules or criteria for the creation and comparison of artworks superfluous.

In my recent review of The Christ Journey for Art & Christianity I noted that Sister Wendy Beckett, who wrote meditations on Greg Tricker's artworks, is an enthusiast who applies the instruction in Philippians 4:8, to fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise, to her writing and presenting. The kind of poring and praying over images that characterises Beckett's best writing can be a distinctively Christian contribution to the plurality of art criticism and can be cultivated through a framework that encourages a sustained contemplation of the artwork and which notes our personal responses to each facet of the work as well as their cumulative impact.

I have outlined this framework previously in relation to Andres Serrano's Piss Christ. All response to art begins with contemplation of the work itself and consideration of our initial responses. Those viewing Piss Christ without knowing anything of the work often comment on the beauty of the images, the traditional nature of the crucifix and the way in which it is lit.

 

Next, is to contemplate the nature of the artwork itself. In this case, a 60x40 inch Cibachrome photograph of a small plastic crucifix submerged in urine. Responses often include comments on its beauty and the traditional nature of the image in addition to questioning whether the work is intended satirically.

Then, the ideas and influences of the artist in creating this piece include it being one in a series of classical statuettes submerged in fluids and a comment on the commercialisation of religion. Responses often include questions about other statuettes in the series and about the artist's motivation in attacking the commercialisation of religion.

Then, in thinking about the artwork’s relationship with its historical and art historical context, we can see that the crucifix has an art historical lineage but is also a contemporary commercial religious product, so the work contributes to a debate regarding traditional and contemporary expressions of Christianity. Responses often include a sense of agreeing that the work raises issues about the nature of images in religion.

Finally, the response of viewer’s to this artwork has been twofold. There have been death threats to the artist, vandalism of the artwork and attempts to ban it from those who view it as an attack on Christianity. Alternatively, there are Christians who see it as a depiction of incarnation; of Christ coming into the detritus of life. Responses often include the acknowledgement that the work stimulates a depth of debate because it works on several different levels.

The work comes alive to us through the different layers of response we make to each facet of our consideration of the artwork and the debate this engenders. Each facet that we have considered involved an real engagement with aspects of Christianity and such sustained reflection on artworks will often lead to a recognition of the spirituality and religious engagement inherent in much modern and contemporary art and can result in distinctive approaches to art criticism from a Christian percpective among the plurality of views which is contemporary art criticism.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Kinks - Dedicated Follower of Fashion.

Picasso, Duchamp and Craig-Martin

The blurb for Picasso and Modern British Art at Tate Britain states that Picasso remains the twentieth century’s single most important artistic figure, a towering genius who changed the face of modern art. This, in a sense, is stating the blindingly obvious and that the exhibition demonstrates this through the variety and vitality of the art which Picasso created.
The particular focus of this exhibition is on the reception which Picasso's work received in this country and some of the key artists influenced by that work. This is where the current status of Picasso's influence becomes less clear. All of the modern British artists in the exhibition, with the exception of David Hockney, are dead. Generally, the reputation and influence of these artists is (often undeservedly) not what it once was (particularly during their lifetimes). Again, Hockney with his recent and popular exhibition at the Royal Academy is to some extent an exception. But where this is leading is to question the extent to which the artists featured in this exhibition, including Picasso, are actually influencing contemporary art.

While Picasso and Matisse were the towering figures in twentieth century art and the principal influences on much modern art, in terms of influence on contemporary art they would appear to have been superceded by Marcel Duchamp who, by challenging the very notion of what art is with his readymades and by his insistence that art should be driven by ideas, became the father of Conceptual art.

In 2004 Duchamp's Fountain came top of a poll of 500 art experts to be named as the most influential modern art work of all time. Simon Wilson commented: "The choice of Duchamp's Fountain as the most influential work of modern art ahead of works by Picasso and Matisse comes as a bit of a shock. But it reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing - the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form."

Michael Craig-Martin is one of those who have followed the logic of Duchamp’s concept of the ready-made by seeing everyday objects as models for works of art. Interestingly, and through a work (An Oak Tree) which can also be seen currently at Tate Britain, Craig-Martin asserts that this form of artistic creation equates to religious faith:

"An Oak Tree is based on the concept of transubstantiation, the notion central to the Catholic faith in which it is believed that bread and wine are converted into the body and blood of Christ while retaining their appearances of bread and wine. The ability to believe that an object is something other than its physical appearance indicates requires a transformative vision. This type of seeing (and knowing) is at the heart of conceptual thinking processes, by which intellectual and emotional values are conferred on images and objects. An Oak Tree uses religious faith as a metaphor for this belief system which, for Craig-Martin, is central to art. He has explained:

I considered that in An Oak Tree I had deconstructed the work of art in such a way as to reveal its single basic and essential element, belief that is the confident faith of the artist in his capacity to speak and the willing faith of the viewer in accepting what he has to say. In other words belief underlies our whole experience of art: it accounts for why some people are artists and others are not, why some people dismiss works of art others highly praise, and why something we know to be great does not always move us.

(Quoted in Michael Craig-Martin: Landscapes, [p.20].)"

It is interesting to note that, while the stylistic innovations of Picasso could be utilised to depict the central image of Christianity (i.e. the crucifixion, as in the work which Graham Sutherland painted for St Matthew's Northampton), it was through the innovations of Duchamp that the religious nature of artistic creation itself was deconstructed and demonstrated.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

M. Ward - Clean Slate (For Alex & El Goodo).