Andy Warhol: Catholicism, Work, Faith And Legacy

My latest piece for ArtWay was originally published by Artlyst and is about Andy Warhol and the Catholic faith as explored in exhibitions at the Andy Warhol Museum, Tate Modern and the National Gallery:

'As Eugene McCarraher has explained, in The Enchantments of Mammon, ‘Warhol incorporated the formal aspects of Byzantine iconography into Pop Art.’ His ‘Campbell’s Soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles – mass-produced objects with no personal signature – recalled the anonymity and deliberate repetitiveness of Byzantine iconographers.’ ‘Warhol explained, “Pop Art is a way of liking things,” a celebration of those “great modern things” that comprise the humble matter of everyday life – a realm where, in Orthodox tradition, the divine always manifests itself sacramentally.’

The critics at the time failed to understand this aspect of Warhol’s work but it was clearly apparent to Sister Corita Kent on a visit in 1962 to the Ferus Gallery in LA to see Warhol’s breakthrough exhibition of Campbell’s Soup Cans. ‘Coming home,’ she said, ‘you saw everything like Andy Warhol.’ Kent found inspiration in signs and advertising for vibrant screen printed banners and posters that provided an opportunity to show the sacred in the most mundane.'

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, Antoni Gaudi, Nicola Green, Maciej Hoffman, Giacomo Manzù, Michael Pendry, Maurice Novarina, Regan O'Callaghan, Ana Maria Pacheco, John Piper, Albert Servaes, Henry Shelton and Anna Sikorska.

My Church of the Month reports include: Aylesford Priory, Canterbury Cathedral, Chapel of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Hem, Chelmsford Cathedral, Churches in Little Walsingham, Coventry Cathedral, Église de Saint-Paul à Grange-Canal, Eton College Chapel, Lumen, Metz Cathedral, Notre Dame du Léman, Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce, Plateau d’Assy,Romont, Sint Martinuskerk Latem, St Aidan of Lindisfarne, St Alban Romford, St. Andrew Bobola Polish RC Church, St. Margaret’s Church, Ditchling, and Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, St Mary the Virgin, Downe, and St Paul Goodmayes, as well as earlier reports of visits to sites associated with Marian Bohusz-Szyszko, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Antoni Gaudi and Henri Matisse.

Other of writings for ArtWay can be found here. My pieces for Church Times can be found here. Those for Artlyst are here and those for Art+Christianity are here.

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The Velvet Underground - Jesus.

Art review: Natalia Goncharova at Tate Modern

My latest review for Church Times is of the Natalia Gonchorova exhibition at Tate Modern:

'the religious inspiration in Goncharova’s work cannot be contained ... and extends throughout the exhibition — most notably, perhaps, in the room dedicated to her theatre sets for Sergei Diaghilev, where magnificent designs can be found for an ultimately unrealised ballet on the life of Christ.

In their book Modernism and the Spiritual in Russian Art: New perspectives, Louise Hardiman and Nicola Kozicharow suggest that “a narrative of Russian artistic modernism in which the engagement of artists, critics, and scholars with the religious and spiritual tradition” was fundamental is characteristic of this period of Russian art. That engagement was, they contend, “the driving force behind some of the most significant artistic innovations of the period”, including the neo-Primitivism of Goncharova. Goncharova believed that her religious works, based on her study of early icons and frescoes, connected her to the heart of Russian culture. That belief, and the reality of its execution, is clearly demonstrated by the heights and depths of this revelatory exhibition.'

Other of my pieces for Church Times can be found here.

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Mike Peters - Breathe.

Review: Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919-33

My latest review for Church Times is of Magic Realism: Art in Weimar Germany 1919-33 at Tate Modern.

Two of the artists included, Albert Birkle and Herbert Gurschner, were part of an under-recognised strand of artists at this time (including, in the UK, Eric Gill, David Jones, Winifred Knights, Stanley Spencer, and others) for whom religious iconography did retain spiritual significance, and who produced work that was both original and modern as a result. One of many interesting aspects to this exhibition, and the earlier linked “Aftermath” exhibition, is that the curators have recognised this and reflected it as part of the rich tapestry of modernism, instead of overlooking it on ideological grounds, as others have in the past.

This new recognition on the part of curators is also apparent in Bill Viola / Michelangelo: Life, Death, Rebirth at the RA which explores resonances in both artists’ treatment of the fundamental questions of life and its meaning. As Ben Quash pointed out today at a study day on Art & Theology, an exhibition that aims to journey through the cycle of life by taking us closer to the spiritual and emotional power of the art works is a relatively new development in curation.

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David Bowie - Where Are We Now?