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Showing posts with label rauschenberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rauschenberg. Show all posts

Thursday, 21 January 2021

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

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

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

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

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

My other Artlyst pieces are:

Interviews:
Articles:
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Woody Guthrie - Oklahoma Hills.
Posted by Jonathan Evens at 21:56 0 comments
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Sunday, 12 February 2017

Artlyst article: The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg

    My latest article for Artlyst is entitled 'The Religious Impulses Of Robert Rauschenberg' and highlights the explores the religious impulses of modernism in relation to Modern Art and the Life of a Culture by Jonathan A. Anderson and William A. Dyrness and the author's reflections on the religious impulses of Robert Rauschenberg:

    'Rauschenberg famously gave up his dream of becoming a minister because of his love for dancing, which his then minister told him was a sin. The retelling of that story from his childhood is, in some cases, the sole reference made by critics to religion in Rauschenberg’s work. Anderson and Dyrness help us see that, as Elizabeth Richards has stated, ‘rejection of organized religion did not dictate a rejection of spirituality and, in fact, his art often incorporated aspects of ritual and ceremony that recall his religious upbringing.’ Anderson and Dyrness do not explore the range of religious reference found in Rauschenberg’s work, and that of modern art more generally, in order to argue that this somehow makes this work ‘Christian art,’ rather they simply make the case that we cannot fully understand Rauschenberg’s work, as with so much great art, until we genuinely account for and interpret the religious references found so fully within it.'

    My other Artlyst articles are:
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    John Cage - 4'33".
    Posted by Jonathan Evens at 22:36 0 comments
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