Online exhibitions and visual meditations

Here's an update about the online exhibitions I have curated with the Ben Uri Gallery and the Visual Commentary on Scripture. These include visual meditations on the artworks included. I have also written visual meditations for ArtWay, so these are also included in this post.

The fourth exhibition I have curated for the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is now live on the VCS website. 'Before the Deluge' is a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

I have also curated an online exhibition for the Ben Uri Gallery which is entitled Exodus & Exile: Migration Themes in Biblical Images. The exhibition includes a range of Biblical images from the Ben Uri Collection in order to explore migration themes through consideration of the images, the Bible passages which inspired them and the relationship between the two. This is because themes of identity and migration feature significantly in both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and images from these Bibles are a substantive element of the Ben Uri Collection.

The combination of images and texts enables a range of different reflections, relationships and disjunctions to be explored. The result is that significant synergies can be found between the ancient texts and current issues. In this way, stories and images which may, at first, appear to be describing or defining specific religious doctrines can be seen to take on a shared applicability by exploring or revealing the challenges and changes bound up in the age-old experience of migration.

The Gallery said: "We are delighted to present a new exhibition interpreting works from our collection titled Exodus and Exile. The survey has been curated by Revd Jonathan Evens who has a long-established parallel interest in art and faith and how they are mutually engaging. We are privileged to benefit from his scholarship and innate sensitivity and am sure you too will be inspired by his selection and commentary."

Alongside the exhibition is an essay Debt Owed to Jewish Refugee Art, an updated version of an article I originally wrote for Church Times looking at influential works by émigré Jewish artists that were under threat. The article mentions Ervin Bossanyi, Naomi Blake, Ernst Müller-Blensdorf, Hans Feibusch, and George Mayer-Marton, telling stories of the impact of migration on the work and reputations of these artists.

Following the launch of the exhibition, I wrote an article 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' for Seen and Unseen explaining how curating an exhibition for the Ben Uri Gallery & Museum gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

ArtWay's visual meditations are devoted to one work of art, old or new, made by a Christian artist or not, from Europe, North-America or another part of the world. They advocate a thoughtful engagement with art and culture over against an uninformed rejection or uncritical embrace. While dealing with works of art, they have an eye for the form as well as the content. To them an important aspect of this content is formed by the spiritual dimension of a work, whether Christian, Buddhist, or postmodern. They especially look for voices of truth, hope and love in the art of the past and the present, whether or not by Christian hand.

My visual meditations for ArtWay include work by María Inés Aguirre, Giampaolo Babetto, Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Alexander de Cadenet, Christopher Clack, Marlene Dumas, Terry Ffyffe, Jake Flood, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Gwen John, Lakwena Maciver, S. Billie Mandle, Giacomo Manzù, Sidney Nolan, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Nicola Ravenscroft, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton, Anna Sikorska, Alan Stewart, Jan Toorop, Andrew Vessey, Edmund de Waal and Sane Wadu. The index for all my contributions to ArtWay, including my Visual Meditations, can be viewed by clicking here.

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Magna Carta - Lord Of The Ages.

Visual Commentary on Scripture - 'Before the Deluge'

The fourth exhibition I have curated for the Visual Commentary on Scripture (VCS) is now live on the VCS website. 'Before the Deluge' is a series of climate-focused commentaries on Genesis 6 looking at 'The Flood' by Norman Adams, 'Noah in the Ark and a Church' by Albert Herbert, and 'Noah's Ark' by Sadao Watanabe.

My first exhibition for the VCS was 'Back from the Brink' on Daniel 4: 'Immediately the word was fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men, and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles’ feathers, and his nails were like birds’ claws.' (Daniel 4:33). In the exhibition I explore this chapter with William Blake's 'Nebuchadnezzar', 1795–c.1805, Arthur Boyd's 'Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of the Tree', 1969, and Peter Howson's 'The Third Step', 2001.

My second exhibition was 'A Question of Faith' and explored Hebrews 11 through the paintings of New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. McCahon is widely recognised as New Zealand’s foremost painter. Over 45 years, his work encompassed many themes, subjects and styles, from landscape to figuration to abstraction and an innovative use of painted text. His adaption of aspects of modernist painting to a specific local situation and his intense engagement with spiritual matters, mark him out as a distinctive figure in twentieth-century art.

My third exhibition was 'Fishers of People'. This exhibition uses Damien Hirst's 'Isolated Elements Swimming in the Same Direction for the Purpose of Understanding (Left) and (Right)', John Bellany's 'Kinlochbervie', and Paul Thek's 'Fishman in Excelsis Table' to discuss Matthew 4:12-22 and Mark 1:14-20. These artworks give us what is essentially a collage of the kingdom whereby we are invited to imagine the kingdom of God as a body of water in which Christians are immersed and through which they are raised.

The VCS is a freely accessible online publication that provides theological commentary on the Bible in dialogue with works of art. It helps its users to (re)discover the Bible in new ways through the illuminating interaction of artworks, scriptural texts, and commissioned commentaries. The virtual exhibitions of the VCS aim to facilitate new possibilities of seeing and reading so that the biblical text and the selected works of art come alive in new and vivid ways.

Each section of the VCS is a virtual exhibition comprising a biblical passage, three art works, and their associated commentaries. The curators of each exhibition select artworks that they consider will open up the biblical texts for interpretation, and/or offer new perspectives on themes the texts address. The commentaries explain and interpret the relationships between the works of art and the scriptural text.

Find out more about the VCS, its exhibitions and other resources through a short series of HeartEdge workshops introducing the VCS as a whole and exploring particular exhibitions with their curators. These workshops can be viewed here, here, here and here.

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The Fire Theft - Sinatra.

A renewed interest in Biblical epics

The Guardian has been exploring the current phenomenon of a significant number of Biblical films:

'Boxing Day sees the UK release of [Ridley] Scott’s epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, with Christian Bale as Moses. While the Observer called it a “half triumph”, Variety extolled it as “a work of massive, David Lean-like scale – with battle scenes that rival or eclipse Scott’s Gladiator”.'

Exodus follows Noah to which audiences flocked earlier this year with Darren Aronofsky's film taking $320m worldwide and there are a biblical flood of films inspired by the Old and New Testaments coming. 'We may live in a more secular age, but at least a dozen dramas on the epic scale which the Bible – or perhaps producers – seems to demand are in various stages of development':

'British producer David Heyman is developing a film based on Reza Aslan’s bestselling book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, while Paul Verhoeven, the Dutch director, has been working on an adaptation of his own book, Jesus of Nazareth, for five years.

[Ridley Scott] is now planning another biblical drama – a big-budget film about David’s slaying of Goliath.

Warner Bros is also developing a King David project and a third version has cast Jerry Sokoloski, Canada’s tallest man – at 7ft 8in – as the giant. Director Tim Chey was apparently wary of creating a CGI imitation like The Incredible Hulk.

Other films include a version of the hit stage musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat ... Other productions feature some of Britain’s foremost actors. Joseph Fiennes will be seen in Clavius as a centurion ordered by Pontius Pilate to find the missing body of Jesus, and Ben Kingsley will appear as the tyrannical Herod in Mary Mother of Christ, a story of Mary and Joseph as young parents living in precarious times.

Jeffrey Caine, who wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for The Constant Gardener, was one of four writers on Scott’s Exodus. Asked about the popularity of biblical stories for film-makers, he said: “It’s largely because they’re terrific stories. They’re perennially popular, like the stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood. You know there’s always going to be an audience for them … Plus they make money.”'

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Sydney Wayser - Belfast Child.

Covenant of Noah: Conditions for life

What legacy will we pass on to those we leave behind? In what way can we hand on the torch of faith to future generations? What does my life say to others and what do I want it to say? These are all questions from sermons preparing us for Lent and questions that will recur as we study our Lent course ‘Handing on the Torch’ together.

In 2008 the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks gave some remarkable answers to questions of this sort in an address to the Lambeth Conference based, in large part, on today’s Old Testament reading (Genesis 9. 1 - 17). What he had to say has not been given sufficient attention although it unpacks a neglected part of the story told within the Bible and so I want to share with you today some of what he said.

He began by speaking about power and wealth. The state is about power, the market is about wealth, and they are two ways of getting people to do what we want them to do. One way is to force them to do it – the way of power; the other one is to pay them to – the way of wealth.

Imagine, for a moment, you have total power, and then, in a fit of craziness you decide to share it with nine other people. How much power do you have left?  You have 1/10 of what you began with. Suppose you have a thousand pounds and you decide to share it with nine other people. How much do you have left? 1/10 of what you had when you began.

But now suppose that you decide to share, not power or wealth, but love, or friendship, or influence, or even knowledge, with nine others. How much would you have left? Would you have less than when you began? No, you would have more; and why is that - because love, friendship and influence are things that only exist by virtue of sharing them with others? These are what we can call covenantal goods – covenantal goods are the goods that, the more I share, the more I have. And that makes covenant different from wealth and power.

In the short term wealth and power are zero-sum games. That means if I win, you lose. If you win, I lose. Covenantal goods are non-zero-sum games, meaning, we both win; the more I give away the more I have – we both win. And that has huge consequences.

Because you can see with wealth and power, economics and politics, the market and the state, they must be arenas of competition but covenantal goods are different because they are arenas of co-operation.

And the question is where will we find covenantal goods like love, like friendship, like trust, like influence? You won’t find them in the state, you won’t find them in the market, but you will find them in marriages, in families, in congregations, in communities – you will find them in society, so long as you remember that society is something different from the state. If we're searching for the big society, this is where we will find it.

Another way of thinking about this is to think about the difference between a contract and a covenant. A contract is an agreement between two or more individuals, each pursuing their own interest, and they come together to make an exchange for mutual benefit. So you get a commercial contract that creates the market, and you get the social contract that creates the state.

A covenant is something different. In a covenant, two or more individuals, each respecting the dignity and the integrity of the other, come together in a bond of love and trust, to share their interests, sometimes even to share their lives and, by pledging their faithfulness to one another, to do together what neither of them can do alone.

And that is not the same as a contract at all. A contract is a transaction but a covenant is a relationship or, to put it slightly differently, a contract is about interests but a covenant is about identity. And that is why contracts benefit, but covenants transform. Economics and politics are about the logic of competition, covenant is about the logic of co-operation.

Now let’s turn to our passage from Genesis 9. The world had been almost destroyed by a flood. All humankind, all life, excluding Noah's Ark, shared the same fate. God says to all those who survive, those who will build a new world: “I promise I will never again destroy the world. But I cannot promise that you will never destroy the world – because, you see, I gave you free will. All I can do is teach you how not to destroy the world.” 

How? Well, the answer is found in the covenant about which we read in Genesis 9. 1 – 17, a covenant of human solidarity, which is known as the covenant of Noah or the Noahide covenant.

The covenant of Noah has three essential dimensions. Number one: “If anyone takes human life, he will be punished ... [because] Human beings were made like God”; that is about the sanctity of human life. As creator, God is universal. We are all in God's image, formed in His likeness.

Number two: look carefully at Genesis 9 and you will see that there are five times in that one chapter emphasizing that the covenant of Noah is not merely with humanity alone, but with everything that lives on the face of earth. Five times; the covenant is not just with human beings but with all of nature. So the second element of the covenant of Noah is the integrity of the created world; what today we call the Environment. As human beings, we are fellow citizens of the world God made and entrusted to our care.

And number three: the sign of the covenant is a rainbow; the white light of God fragmented into all the colours of the spectrum  or as Sacks puts in the title of one of his books ‘The dignity of difference’. The miracle of monotheism is that unity up there creates diversity down here. 

And so these three elements - the sanctity of human life, the integrity of the environment and respect for diversity - are the three elements of the global covenant that God made with Noah and still makes with us.

All three elements of this global covenant are currently in danger. The sanctity of human life is being ravaged by political oppression and by terror. The integrity of creation is being threatened by environmental catastrophe. And respect for diversity is imperilled by what one writer has called a clash of civilisations. 

So Sacks says that the call of God in our times is to renew this global covenant, the covenant that began with Noah. We have to honour this covenant now, in our time, in order that future generations will be able to live. To come back to the questions with which we began, Sacks is saying that: we will not have a legacy to pass on to those who come after us; we will not be able to hand the torch of our faith on to others; our lives will not have anything to say to others, if the sanctity and diversity of life is not respected and if environmental catastrophe occurs. The covenant of Noah precedes the covenants made with Abraham and Moses and precedes the New Covenant made through Jesus. This covenant creates the conditions in which life and faith can flourish because before we can live any faith we have to be able to live and this covenant is about the fundamentals of life itself; the sanctity of life in all its diversity. 

Sacks is saying that there are fundamental moral truths that lie at the basis of God's covenant with humankind: that co-operation is as necessary as competition, that co-operation depends on trust, that trust requires justice, and that justice itself is incomplete without forgiveness. Morality is not simply what we choose it to be. It is part of the basic fabric of the universe, revealed to us by the universe's Creator, long ago.

He is also saying that the nature of covenant shows how to fulfil the covenant of Noah: respect for the dignity and the integrity of the other, coming together in bonds of love and trust, sharing our interests and our lives, pledging faithfulness to one another in order to do together what none of us can do alone.

What legacy will we pass on to those we leave behind? In what way can we hand on the torch of faith to future generations? What does my life say to others and what do I want it to say? When we pass on covenantal goods we fulfil the covenant of Noah.

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Peter Case - Put Down the Gun.

Blog Action Day - Choose Life

This is my post for "Blog Action Day", a summary (copied from the Anglican Communion News Service) of the lecture given yesterday at Southwark Cathedral (sponsored by the Christian environmental group Operation Noah) by Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he sets out a Christian vision of how people can respond to the looming environmental crisis.

Beginning with the story of Noah and the Flood, Dr Williams highlighted the “burden of responsibility for what confronts us here and now as a serious crisis and challenge”. Our relationship with the rest of creation is intimately bound up with our relationship with God. The Bible offers “an ethical perspective based on reverence for the whole of life”. “To act so as to protect the future of the non-human world is both to accept a God-given responsibility and, appropriately, to honour the special dignity given to humanity itself.”

Drawing parallels with the financial crisis, Dr Williams argued that we are in danger of losing touch with what makes us distinctively human. We urgently need to revise some of our assumptions, including those that are incompatible with our duty of care for the whole of life.

Dr Williams warned against looking for a single solution to the complex environmental challenges which face us. “Instead of a desperate search to find the one great idea that will save us from ecological disaster, we are being invited to a transformation of individual and social goals that will bring us closer to the reality of interdependent life in a variegated world”.

Dr Williams urged action at the personal and local, as well as at the national and international, levels. He acknowledged “the potential of the crisis to awaken a new confidence in local and civic democracy [and] … a new sense of what is politically possible for people who thought they were powerless”. “Our response to the crisis needs to be in the most basic sense, a reality check, a re-acquaintance with the facts of our interdependence within the material world and a rediscovery of our responsibility for it”. “When we believe in transformation at the local and personal level, we are laying the surest foundations for change at the national and international level”.

Dr Williams underlined the particular role that belief can play in recovering a sense of balance and interdependence. “What we face today is nothing less than a choice about how genuinely human we want to be; and the role of religious faith in meeting this is first and foremost in setting out a compelling picture of what humanity reconciled with both creator and creation might look like.”

The Archbishop urged leaders to take bold decisions at the Copenhagen summit in December. He encouraged the taking of effective collaborative local action to reduce carbon emissions and to maintain pressure on local governments and businesses to do the same. And he encouraged the small actions which mark a break with destructive patterns of consumption and waste and help “to make us more aware of the diversity of life around us”.

In conclusion, the Archbishop emphasized that “the Christian story lays out a model of reconnection with an alienated world: it tells us of a material human life inhabited by God and raised transfigured from death; of a sharing of material food which makes us sharers in eternal life; of a community whose life together seeks to express within creation the care of the creator”. Quoting Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, he concluded “I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death… choose life”.

The full text of the lecture can be found here: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2563.

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P J Harvey & Gordon Gano - Hitting the Ground.