The development of the idea and practice of installation art
from the 1960s onwards has meant that it is no longer necessary to think of
church commissions solely in terms of permanent commissions. This change in
thinking has meant that St Pauls Cathedral, rather than attempting the tricky
negotiations which would be entailed by seeking to add to its existing permanent array of art (from the delicate carvings of
Grinling Gibbons in the quire to Sir James Thornhill's dome murals, as well as
the Victorian mosaics and Henry Moore's Mother and Child: Hood), can instead explore the encounter between art and faith
through a series of temporary interventions by artists, which have included Rebecca Horn,
Yoko Ono, Antony Gormley and Bill Viola.
These interventions are often linked to particular
anniversaries, as is the case with the two current temporary installations by SokariDouglas Camp CBE and Gerry Judah.
All the World is now Richer by Sokari
Douglas Camp, six life-sized steel figures representing successive stages of
the slavery story, commemorates the abolition of slavery but here also
celebrates the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr preaching at the
Cathedral. The figures arrived at the Cathedral following a tour which had
taken in the Houses of Parliament, Bristol Cathedral, the Greenbelt Festival,
St Georges Hall Liverpool and Norwich Cathedral. At St Pauls they have been installed
inside the West doors opposite contemporary icons of Christ and his mother.
This positioning adds to the dignity and worth of the figures Sokari Camp has
crafted; figures whose shadows also speak their worth - ‘From our rich ancestral life we were bought
and used but we were brave, we were strong, we survived, all the world is
richer.’ The work was inspired by the words of liberated ex-slave William Prescott: "They will remember that we were sold but they won’t remember
that we were strong; they will remember that we were bought but not that we
were brave.”
The Commemorative
Crosses by Gerry Judah are part of the Cathedral's commemoration to the
Great War of 1914-18. These twin white
cruciform sculptures, each over six metres high and recalling, in their shape
and colour, the thousands of white crosses placed in the war cemeteries across
the world, are angled at the head of the nave to act like doors opening into “a
sacred space of hope where people in all our diversity are invited to come
together to worship, to respect and to learn from each other” (The Reverend Canon Mark Oakley, Chancellor of St Pauls Cathedral). A further contrast – this
time, geometric - is discovered when viewed from below as the straight lines
and angles of the crosses span the great circle of the Cathedral’s dome
creating a contemporary version of a Celtic cross.
On the arms of the cross are intricate models of
contemporary and historical settlements decimated by conflict – such as we see
daily in the news. These settlements appear like crustaceans clinging to the
smooth, straight lines of the crosses; a symbol of human endurance enabled by
the cross or the cross as the enduring symbol of suffering humanity? From other
angles, these crosses appear to be like a futuristic space ship or the fuselage
of a plane; the cross as either transport to the future or plane crash or both!
These interventions enrich both the daily pattern of worship in the Cathedral and the experience of the thousands who visit daily. Their temporary nature offers something new even for those that are regular worshippers at St Pauls, while the contrast that they provide with the existing art and permanent architecture of the Cathedral means that they also fulfil the key requirement of installation art; “a friction with its context that resists organisational pressure and instead exerts its own terms of engagement.”
A moment of partial stillness ensues among the tourist hordes for the prayers led and said hourly. Then I see my friend Tricia Hillas, newly in post as Canon Pastor, resplendent in her robes and crossing the expanse of the Cathedral's floor led by a Verger to take a memorial service at which the Duke of Kent was to be present. The work of the Cathedral continues amongst the crowds - sometimes hidden, sometimes centre stage - while, throughout, the art and architecture soundlessly speak to all those who come.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Leonard Cohen - The Future.
