Stations of the Cross

'Stations of the Cross' is an ongoing series of exhibitions depicting the crucifixion of Christ, curated by Ben Moore, in support of the Missing Tom Fund.

‘Stations of the Cross’ 2014 and 2015 were held at St. Marylebone Parish Church and then at St. Stephen Walbrook in 2018.

These Lenten exhibitions included works by Francis Bacon, Sebastian Horsley, Mat Collishaw, Wolfe Lenkiewicz, Polly Morgan, Paul Benney, Robin Mason, Charlie Mackesy, Alison Jackson and Antony Micallef.

Art Below showcased many of the works on billboard space at London Underground stations that had a link to the theme including Kings Cross, Temple, Angel, Charing Cross and St.Paul’s.

A website documenting the exhibitions has been created and includes two articles I have written about reactions to these exhibitions. One explores protest or engagement in terms of Church responses to controversial art and the other reflects on the 2018 exhibition and reactions to it.

Proceeds from the 'Stations of the Cross' exhibition go to the 'Missing Tom' fund, which was started up specifically to raise money to support the search for Thomas Moore. Tom left his family home in 2003. He was 31 years old. His friends and family have not heard from him since then. With the support of the Missing People Charity his family continue to search for Tom. 

www.missingtom.com

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Lou Reed - Dime Store Mystery.

Peter Kennard: Peace on Earth

The Guardian reports that Peter Kennard, the artist famous for his incendiary photomontages, is giving away a new image responding to the bombing of Syria and the refugee crisis. Kennard is Britain’s most important political artist whose imagery has become synonymous with the modern protest movement.

As a New Year gift, available to download for free in high quality, he and his collaborator, renowned graphic designer Neville Brody, have "produced a work called Peace on Earth featuring what appears to be the Virgin Mary praying – only her halo has been replaced by the CND symbol and her face with planet Earth."

“The idea is to give something back at this time of year, and as a designer,” he says. “I wanted to make an image that makes people think – and isn’t too horrific for them to put on their wall.”

“I use that image of our planet a lot – which is what we’re destroying,” he says. “The refugee crisis is so horrific, and the way human beings are talked about in terms of ‘how many can we take’ is so demeaning. It’s people’s responses that have been human, not the politicians, who are just thinking of their votes. I’m trying to show this enormous outpouring of feeling.”

In a conversation about Art, Design, Protest and Generosity on the RCA website he says:

"At the heart of mobilising positive, peaceful activism is a radical, subversive generosity on the part of artists and designers, which runs counter to any social structure that privileges the ‘I’ over the ‘we’, and refutes the unfestive – but nonetheless accurate – observation that we may no longer know how to give without counting the cost.

Giving breaks the cycle of greed, and encourages people to be generous, community-minded and constructive. It’s about doing something for the sake of change, for the common good – which is what the original peace symbol was about. There’s a refreshing positivity to giving freely, which runs counter to one’s normal transactions in the world.

Anyone who’s been involved in the best bits of peaceful activism knows that mobilising positive human energy is life affirming. Like singing in a Christmas choir, one of the reasons to go on a march is to be there in a group of people who believe the human race isn’t doomed after all.

As artist Jimmy Durham says, ‘Humanity is not a completed project,’ meaning both that we are still here and that we need to try harder. Artists and designers have a long tradition of bending the tools of their trade to that cause, beating swords into aesthetic ploughshares.

The role of art may be to expose the underbelly of society, and the role of design may be to communicate ideas, but add in generosity and you arrive at the joining of makers' hands, the giving of gifts and the will for collective change.

In the festive spirit of munificence, Peter Kennard and Neville Brody have collaborated to produce a new work for our troubled times: Peace on Earth. Download it, print it, share it. We wish you a peaceful new year."

Download Peace on Earth here.

The first major retrospective of Kennard's work is at the Imperial War Museum London until 30 May 2016 and demonstrates how Kennard has consistently confronted issues in world politics and British governmental policy both at home and abroad, inspiring many of today’s politically-aware artists from Mark Wallinger to Banksy.

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Steve Mason - Oh, My Lord.

Europe’s openness about religious images has grown out of the Christian tradition

'Europeans may believe that in defending free speech – including contentious religious cartoons – we are standing up for human rights won since the French Revolution, but this is not strictly true.'

Jonathan Jones, writing about Art Below's Stations of the Cross exhibition at St Marylebone Parish Church (an exhibition which features work by commission4mission's Christopher Clack), notes that: 'Europe’s modern openness about religious images has grown naturally out of the Christian tradition itself.'

As a result, 'Europeans should recognise, when we rightly defend the right to offend, that for inheritors of the sensational tradition of Christian art, it is actually quite easy to say that artists have the right to do what they want to religion. Even the church agrees on that, as it always has.'

While this is a valid and important corrective, Jones will also be well aware of the propensity within certain streams of Christianity to protest against the right to offend. In his article he mentions Andre Serrano's Piss Christ, a cibachrome print of a crucifix submerged in urine, which 'became a hate object for cultural and religious conservatives in 1980s America.'

Yet, as he rightly suggests, Christians are as 'likely to embrace the outrageous image as they would a lamb strayed from the flock. 'Jesus,' he quips, 'how can you offend these people?' In his excellent talk on faith and contemporary art entitled 'Icons or Eyesores?' Alan Stewart does precisely that in relation to Serrano's Piss Christ:

'For me the real power of the piece is that it encapsulates a Christ who comes into the filth and refuse of the world, who himself is rejected, expelled like a body fluid. God in the refuse of life; dignifying it; sitting with us in solidarity. Allowing himself to become contaminated with the fall-out of life.'

Some years ago Philip Ritchie, Paul Trathen and myself led several courses entitled The Big Picture exploring faith and popular culture. In one session we considered the pros and cons of Christian protest or engagement in relation to controversial portrayals of Christ. In the 1970’s and 80’s films like Monty Python’s Life of Brian and Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ resulted in thousands of Christians demonstrating outside cinema’s while Christian organisation’s like the National Viewer’s and Listener’s Association headed by Mary Whitehouse lobbied for these films to be banned. However, the release of The Da Vinci Code in 2006, although it dealt with similarly controversial material for Christians, did not result in mass protests. Instead, through seeker events, bible studies, websites and booklets Churches encouraged discussion of the issues raised by the film while clearly contesting the claims made about Christ and the Church.

We noted that the protests often did not tally with the content of the films and displayed a lack of understanding of the films, their stories and meaning. As Richard Burridge, Dean of King’s College London, has said 'those who called for the satire to be banned after its release in 1979 were “embarrassingly” ill-informed and missed a major opportunity to promote the Christian message.' Life of Brian portrayed the followers of religions as unthinking and gullible and the response of Christians to that film reinforced this stereotype. The Church had to relearn that the way to counter criticism is not to try to ban or censor it but to engage with it, understand it and accurately counter it. The Da Vinci Code events, bible studies, websites etc. that the Church used to counter the claims made in The Da Vinci Code featured reasoned arguments based on a real understanding of the issues raised which made use of genuine historical findings and opinion to counter those claims.

This brings us back to Jones' comments that, following the Iconoclastic controversy, 'When it comes to portraying God and Jesus, there never were many restrictions in Europe ... Artists were not only permitted but encouraged by the Church to depict Jesus in the most shocking ways they could.' This approach has helped to develop 'Europe’s modern openness about religious images' but has grown naturally out of the Christian emphasis on 'the humanity and suffering of a god brought down to Earth' or, as Stewart puts it: 'a Christ who comes into the filth and refuse of the world, who himself is rejected, expelled like a body fluid. God in the refuse of life; dignifying it; sitting with us in solidarity. Allowing himself to become contaminated with the fall-out of life.'

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Kanye West - Jesus Walks.

Art and Protest: Resistance is fertile

Interesting show at the Daniel Libeskind Space (166-220 Holloway Road, Islington N7 8DB) but you'll have to be quick to catch it, as it is only on from 3rd to 5th April. Evenings from 18:00 to 20:00 when booking is required. No booking required for day-time entry (11.30am - 4.30am).

Art and Protest: Resistance is fertile is a Guerilla Galleries show. Guerilla Galleries seek to engineer, produce and curate an annual series of exclusive shows, exhibitions and events. They provide a platform for emerging artists and talented creatives to showcase and bring their work to new audiences.  

Pouka, a commission4mission member, is contributing work to the show which documents and celebrates the passion, pain, and power of protest through film, photography, fine art and more exponents than you can wave a placard at. Exploring scenes and re-examining snapshots of demonstrations and protest actions from living memory captured, re-told and innovatively delivered by a carefully selected band of artists and creatives in true Guerilla Galleries style.

This three-day show offers candid insight, fresh perspectives and levels of honesty previously unseen in themed shows of this nature. Art and Protest is not about choosing or taking sides, it's about artists telling tales and allowing an audience to decide.

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Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Ohio.

Vandalised billboard to stay

The following comes from Anglican Taonga:

"St Matthew-in-the-City will not replace its vandalised billboard which portrays Jesus’ mother, Mary, looking at a home pregnancy test kit revealing that she is pregnant.

The billboard was ripped in half by a Whangarei man leading a Catholic Action Group protest group. Over 100 Catholics marched through Auckland protesting at the billboard, but the church says it has had positive feedback from around the world.

In a press release today, priest associate Clay Nelson said: "Our billboard ... pointed to the social circumstances of a young, poor, unmarried mother in first-century Palestine. It would have taken tremendous faith and courage to withstand the prejudice of her critics. 

"We hoped that people would think of those in similar circumstances, and respond with kindness. Our billboard was ripped on Saturday evening by a group intolerant of any views on Mary except their own. Further, they made statements that this is the ‘devil’s work’. 

"There is a sad and sick history in Christianity of demonising those you disagree with. It is of concern that such prejudice is present in New Zealand. We have decided not to replace the original billboard but let the current ripped one remain as a reminder of both the intolerance in Mary’s society and in our own."

Earlier, Mr Nelson said the original purpose behind the billboard was to spark conversation about Mary's possible response to the fact that she was pregnant.

"That discovery would have been shocking," Mr Nelson said. "Mary was unmarried, young, and poor. This pregnancy would shape her future. She was certainly not the first woman in this situation or the last." Vicar Glynn Cardy added: “Christmas is real. It’s about a real pregnancy, a real mother and a real child. It’s about real anxiety, courage and hope.

“Although the make-believe of Christmas is enjoyable – with tinsel, Santa, reindeer, and carols – there are also some realities.  Many in our society are suffering: some through the lack of money, some through poor health, some through violence, and some through other hardships. The joy of Christmas is muted by anxiety. In this season we encourage one another to be generous to those who suffer, to give to strangers, and to care for all – especially those who have the least. Like the first Santa, St Nicholas did. We invite all who celebrate the season to hold these different strands of a real Christmas together: anxiety and joy, suffering and compassion, Santa and Jesus.”"

What I particularly liked about this story, in addition to the creativity shown by those at St Matthew-in-the-City, was the important contrast made between the "sad and sick history in Christianity of demonising those you disagree with" and the encouragement to be generous to those who suffer, to give to strangers, and to care for all – especially those who have the least - like the first Santa, St Nicholas did. The billboard now tells two stories; the initial message of Mary's shock and also a second message about intolerance towards those who dare to differ.

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Bob Dylan - Shot Of Love.

Radical Compassion

This autumn the Educational Programme series at St Martin-in-the-Fields looks particularly interesting both because of the topic and speakers chosen.

Radical Compassion: The Gospel and Social Justice seeks to examine the radical implications of Christ’s life and transforming compassion in relation to issues of social justice. What is Christ saying to the poor, marginalised, and the struggles of our time? Can we rediscover a theology of liberation for today?

The lectures will take place in St Martin-in-the-Fields Church from 7.00pm – 8.30pm. They are free and no booking is required. There will be a retiring collection to cover some of the costs of the programme.

Monday 19 September: The Revd Professor Nicholas Sagovsky: Compassion and Justice - Professor Nicholas Sagovsky’s experiences in advocacy and justice for refugees and asylum seekers as a member of both the Independent Asylum Commission and the Churches Refugee Network provide the basis for his discussion of the Gospel in relation to issues of social justice.

Monday 3 October: Revd Clare Herbert: Compassion and Protest - As an ‘out’ lesbian priest and active campaigner on behalf of gay and lesbian Christians, Revd Clare Herbert has plenty of experience in fighting for what she believes in.  This lecture will explore the ways she has come to terms with needing to express both protest and compassion.

Monday 17 October: Neil MacGregor: Compassion and Art - In this lecture the Director of the British Museum uses images to help us enter more profoundly into our understanding of the radical compassion of Christ captured in some of our greatest art treasures, whilst asking the question: Can these works of art speak to our present and deepen our own compassion and humanity?

Monday 31 October: Nicola Slee: Compassion and Empowerment - As a poet and theologian who has looked extensively into the relationship between women and spirituality, Nicola’s lecture will address how the radical compassion shown throughout the gospel can lead to female empowerment.
  
Wednesday 16 November: Terry Eagleton: Compassion and Power - Widely regarded as Britain’s most influential literary theorist, Terry Eagleton will consider the contemporary relevance of the Gospel’s critique of power and the use of violence, drawing on themes discussed in his 2010 Richard Price Memorial Lecture ‘The New Atheism and the War on Terror’.

Monday 20 February: Dr Robert Beckford: Compassion and Freedom - Dr Robert Beckford is one of the most prolific black documentary presenters in Britain and will use his knowledge of racial tension to discuss Christ’s radical compassion in relation to freedom.
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Marvin Gaye - Save The Children.

The religions of consumerism and Christ

Janice Turner reflects on the false god of consumerism in today's edition of The Times reflecting young protestors on tuition fees and tax breaks are raging against consumerism's broken promises:

"Consumerism, the religion they grew up with, has let them down. The infrastructure of their lives - shiny shopping malls and coffee shops - led them to believe that living standards would keep being upgraded like mobile phones. And since less than half of under-24s are registered to vote, they believed in the power of shopping more heartily than in democracy.

How apt that they will show their political frustration, not just in angry protests, but by withdrawing their consumer support. Student unions are cancelling Vodaphone contracts and encouraging their members to do the same. The young built these companies; they can hurt them too.

As Naomi Klein pointed out in No Logo, brands win us by insinuating themselves into our hearts: a can of Lyle's Golden Syrup makes me feel warm and nostalgic; wearing my one pair of Prada shoes, I feel chic, though, in truth, they're nothing special ...

But those emotional associations matter ..."

A different attack on consumerism comes from comedian Richard Herring, currently touring Christ on a Bike: The Second Coming, who says that how show "is by no means as disrespectful to the Christian myth as all the barefaced commercialism that is going on in suposed celebration." He says that, though he is an atheist, he loves Jesus and thinks he is amazing - "It's just all the people who follow Him who tend to be such idiots. He's like the Fonz in that respect" - and notes that "if our society ran on genuine Christian principles of not judging or stone-throwing and looking after the weakest rather than rewarding the richest, then maybe we'd be better off."

There appear to be more than one artist publicly reconsidering the possibility of faith this Christmas. Tony Jordan, the writer of The Nativity (BBC1 from Monday), interviewed in Christianity says:

"I think I represent a huge swathe of people that say: 'Yeah I believe in God and all that,' but don't tend to do much about it ... It's true to say that I had a faith. I had a faith that wrestled daily with my intellect. I really struggled with God as something I could see and touch and that had some sort of physical presence that I would know if I saw it. But then the more I thought about it, I did find a route through."

For him that involved a discussion with a scientist about dark matter, while researching The Nativity, leading to the thought that this thing without which the laws of physics do not work could be God:

"... I think that whoever God is and whatever God is, it's beyond my comprehension. I can't even get my head around what it must be, or what he must be, I can't do it. And once you understand that, I think it suddenly makes sense. So the story of the Nativity for me, I kind of found I reinforced my faith along the way."

As a result, he says he genuinely hopes that people are converted through the series: "I'd love to think that people are moved enough to believe it, to find faith, but to find the beauty of faith and not to say, 'my denomination is right.'" What he hates about religion is the contrast between the beauty of "faith and religion and the teachings of Christ" - the simplicity of 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone' - and the many people who have been killed in wars over denomination and interpretation.

Andrew Motion is another who is reconsidering. He writes about being in the ambivalent middle, with millions of others, "where faith flickers off-on like a badly wired lamp ... where honest doubt comes and goes, and in so doing keeps alive the argument with and about God."

For him, the catalyst has been a priest; clever, funny and moving, whose talks made him think about things he hadn't thought about for a long time and "then in not quite the same way." This has led to:

"the conviction that my faith is not proof of a God-down Universe in which human beings scurry around trying (or not) to do His bidding. But of a Universe in which the primitive hunger to imagine beyond ourselves is manifested in a series of overlapping stories that give us the possibility and permission to do so. They shape our ambition to think bigger and to live better, and they help to define our place in the scheme of things."

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Jakob Dylan - Nothing But The Whole Wide World. 

A Fire In My Belly

Once again Christians are shooting themselves in the foot by seeking to get art which they don't like banned. This time it is the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights who are the culprits having successfully pressurised the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC into removing a video by David Wojnarowicz from their current HIDE/SEEK exhibition.

"A Fire in My Belly," Wojnarowicz's 1987 video, is, in the words of a New York Times editorial, "a moving, anguished reflection on the artist’s impending death from AIDS." The video "shows very quick glimpses of challenging and, at times, disturbing images, including masks, a meatpacking plant, various objects on fire and the artist undressing himself." One of these images features ants crawling over a crucifix and it is this that has drawn "an outraged denunciation from the Catholic League."

There are multiple issues with the action taken by the Catholic League in this instance. First, there is no attempt on their part to engage with the work itself. Their action has been taken in relation to 11 seconds of a four minute video which is intended as a response to the reality of Aids. As such, the theme of the video is not Christ or Christianity and the imagery of the ants and crucifix needs to be understood firstly within the context of the video and its flow of imagery instead of being taken out of context in order to be misinterpreted as an attack on Christianity. Wojnarowicz said that the ants were a metaphor for society. In context, therefore, it would seem that Aids victims are being associated with Christ and experience additional suffering as society swarms all over those who already suffer (something which could be said to be happening all over again as a result of the Catholic League's intervention).

This has been an unfortunate aspect of many Christian protests against works of art. For instance, many Christians tried to prevent the film The Last Temptation of Christ from being made and protested against it once it was made. Central to these protests was the content of the last temptation dream sequence with Jesus marrying and sleeping with Mary Magdalene and later fathering children by Mary and Martha. Yet the whole point of this scene in the film is that it is a temptation which Jesus rejects and that the visible rejection of the temptation makes the necessity of the Jesus’ death all the clearer.

Second, the Catholic League exaggerate and misinterpret for effect in claiming in two of their press notices that the crucifix was being eaten by the ants, which is not the case. A similar case was that of the invective used against Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Rabbi Abraham Hecht, president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, declared, "Never have we come across such a foul, disgusting, blasphemous film before." Robert E.A. Lee of the Lutheran Council, spoke about "crude and rude mockery, colossal bad taste, profane parody.” Malcolm Muggeridge, without having seen the film, claimed it was “morally without merit and undeniably reprehensible.” While, on the same discussion programme, Mervyn Stockwood, then Bishop of Southwark, declared that the Python’s would get their thirty pieces of silver. But it is difficult now to establish exactly what is was that people were up in arms about as the film patently makes no attempt to satirise Christ.

Third, the Catholic League are claiming that they have a right in US culture for Christianity to be respected and not mocked but, in this instance, the exercise of their right can only be at the expense of the artist's right to self-expression and the right of other US citizens to see the artist's work. In other words the League are calling for their rights to trump those of others. They want rights but only for themselves. A more consistent position is that of gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell who criticised a Scottish court for fining an American Baptist evangelist touring Britain, for telling passers-by in Glasgow city centre: "Homosexuals are deserving of the wrath of God – and so are all other sinners – and they are going to a place called hell."

Tatchell argued: "Shawn Holes is obviously homophobic and should not be insulting people with his anti-gay tirades. He should be challenged and people should protest against his intolerance. However, in a democratic, free society it is wrong to prosecute him. Criminalisation is not appropriate. The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive. Just as people should have the right to criticise religion, people of faith should have the right to criticise homosexuality. Only incitements to violence should be illegal."

Fourth, this third point reveals that the Catholic League are yearning for a return to a Christendom model where Christianity had power and could both decide and enforce what was acceptable and what was not instead of engaging with the reality and opportunities of a Post-Christendom world. As Simon Barrow has written: "That Christians do not rule others in the way they once did, in the fading Christendom era, does not amount to "persecution". Rather, it is an invitation, in the midst of some pain and adjustment no doubt, to rediscover patterns of church life in a plural society which show the heart of the Christian message to be about embracing others, not isolating ourselves; multiplying hope, not spreading fear; developing peaceableness, not resorting to aggression; and advancing compassion, rather than retreating into defensiveness."

Fifth, to call for an offending item to be banned is to avoid or rule out debate which suggests that the arguments being made do not actually stand up. If the arguments of the Catholic League had substance they should be keen for them to be heard and debated instead of simply trying to close down all debate through censorship of the offending item. The approach of seeking to have an offending item banned actually always has the opposite effect to that intended by making people more interest in seeing the item itself. This is so in this case too, where the co-owner of the PPOW Gallery which represents Wojnarowicz’ estate, Wendy Olsoff told ARTINFO: "The controversy is exposing a lot of new people to the work … It's a lot of young people who are involved with this, new people who don't have experience with activism, but are outraged."

Finally, the League are playing up to the stereotype of Christians as kill-joys forever seeking to prevent others from self-expression. Again, the same was the case in relation to protests against Life of Brian. Eric Idle said that it became clear to the Pythons early on in writing the script that they couldn't make fun of Christ since what he says is very fine but the people around him were hilarious and still are. John Cleese agrees. "What we are is quite clearly making fun of the way people follow religion, but not religion itself.” This was, perhaps, the real reason for those religious protests; it was us being satirised in the film and we weren’t able to laugh at ourselves or to deal with the accusation of unthinking gullibility. Protest and invective as the Church’s response to Life of Brian just seemed to reinforce in many people’s minds those depictions of unthinking gullibility that run throughout the film.

None of this means that Christians cannot protest against depictions of Christ or Christianity which may be offensive to us. What it does mean is that we need to think carefully about when and how we do so. A positive example is the response of much of the Church in the UK to The Da Vinci Code book and film.

Dan Brown uses the same storyline in The Da Vinci Code as appears in the dream sequence in Last Temptation; the idea that Jesus did not die but married and fathered a bloodline which continues to this day. When The Last Temptation of Christ was released this storyline, although it was clearly depicted as false, led to major protests but when The Da Vinci Code was released, although the book (and by implication the film) claim that this storyline is historical fact, similar protests did not occur.

Like Life of Brian, The Da Vinci Code also criticises the behaviour of Christians. Life of Brian portrays the followers of religions as unthinking and gullible and the response of Christians to that film reinforced this stereotype. The Da Vinci Code portrays Christians as scheming hypocrites knowing the truth but covering it up in order to sustain organised religion. But the reaction of Christians to this film did not reinforce that stereotype.

Finally, it seemed that the Church had learnt that the way to counter criticism is not to try to ban or censor it but to engage with it, understand it and accurately counter it. The Da Vinci Code events, bible studies, websites etc. that the Church has used to counter the claims made in The Da Vinci Code have been reasoned arguments based on a real understanding of the issues raised and making use of genuine historical findings and opinion to counter those claims.

Unfortunately, the Catholic League has done the reverse in responding to A Fire in My Belly.

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The Source Featuring Candi Staton - You Got The Love.